Hall of Fame ballot is stuffed like a turkey

There were sixteen times during their films together that Oliver Hardy said to Stan Laurel, "Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into." That seems doubly fitting when considering this year's Hall of Fame ballot. Due to either total ineptitude or moral high horse-ism of the BBWAA, deserving candidates from the past several years are now lumped together with several newcomers and I count at least sixteen names on the ballot that should be no-doubt Hall of Fame members. And it is fairly easy to predict that only a few will be elected at most this year.

There are several obstacles this year's vote will face. First, half will vote for those either verified as PED users or rumored as such. Combine that with the artificial limit of only ten names on each ballot and half will be voting for people that the other half have stiffened their jaw against. This leaves only five other slots on the ballot they can vote for. So five other so-called "clean" players will not get in either. Add this to the blind part of the BBWAA vote that does not even cover or watch baseball and you have a mess.

Oh, and there is one other nasty bit of business. Many of those that are Hall of Fame deserving players are on the ballot for the first time and there is a large chunk of writers that do not like putting non-gods through on the first round. Oy.

And it will only get worse in the coming years as even more superstars of the sport are introduced to the ballot.

Here is my list of the sixteen definite Hall of Fame players on the ballot by rank:

1. Barry Bonds - I don't care if you hate him or not. And I do not care if there is an asterisk by his home run totals. If he had been through playing after 2000 season, he was already a Hall of Fame player. He won three MVP Awards before all the questions came into being. What is a Hall of Fame without one of the best players of all time?
2. Roger Clemens - Say what you will. The man was acquitted. As far as we know, he never failed a test. JAWS has him as the third best starting pitcher of all time. He blows away every Hall of Fame standard known to mankind. Again, what is a Hall of Fame without the third best pitcher of all time?
3. Greg Maddux - He might be one of the few who gets in. According to JAWS, he is the tenth best pitcher of all time. And there has been no hint of any controversy about him. He won four straight Cy Young Awards and from 1992 to 1998, his peak was breathtaking.
4. Mike Mussina - Most people have no idea how insanely good Mike Mussina was during his career. His best years in Baltimore were largely ignored due to his team and in his Yankee years, people remember his awful year and his masterful and iconic last season, his first as a 20-game winner. Mussina according to JAWS is the 28th best pitcher in baseball history.
5. Curt Schilling - Gosh, I hate this guy. But he was a Hall of Fame pitcher. In fact, JAWS has him higher than Mussina. And you can never forget his 11-2, 2.23 in the post season either. Schilling put up the numbers to be here this high on my list.
6. Mike Piazza - According to JAWS, Mike Piazza is the fifth best catcher in baseball history. Fifth. How can you not vote a guy like that in the Hall? He is the best offensive catcher ever. And he was not quite as bad defensively as people think. And when you think of his offensive numbers, consider that he never, EVER, played in a good park for hitters as his home park.
7. Jeff Bagwell - The sixth best first baseman ever? Yeah, I'll take me some of that. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that he is a Hall of Fame player.
8. Frank Thomas - The champion of the "clean" player. Yeah, whatever. Just give me numbers and Frank Thomas did just that. Forget that he was a DH for a long time. If you judge him just as a first baseman, he is the ninth best of all time. Slam dunk.
9. Tom Glavine - Did he benefit of an era with a lousy strike zone? Sure. But he was smart enough to use it and won 305 games. He was good in the post season and won two Cy Young Awards. The 30th best pitcher ever works for me. A definite Hall of Fame guy.
10. Larry Walker - The tenth best right fielder ever. If you finish in the top 15 as a position player after 150 years of baseball, then what can you argue about? Playing in Colorado? Give me a break.
11. Rafael Palmeiro - The poster boy for the PED moralists. His numbers are insane. "He was never the best," the saying goes. But there is something to be said for metronome production year after year after year. The eleventh best first baseman ever.
12. Alan Trammell - His low voting percentage year after year on the ballot is a crime. The eighth best shortstop ever deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.
13. Tim Raines - What is it that keeps him out? The coke thing? He was Ricky Henderson light and the second best lead-off batter in his time. Without the gaudy batting average, he was every bit the offensive player as Tony Gwynn.
14. Edgar Martinez - Let's face it, the DH is a position and he was the best at that position. His offensive numbers are unbelievable. And he was the one guy who could hit Mariano Rivera. But even if you rate his numbers as a third baseman, he comes in as the eleventh best at that position in value all time.
15. Craig Biggio - Suffers a bit from moving around so much on the field. But he was a terrific lead off batter with over 1,800 runs scored in his career. The numbers are there. He was a HOF player.
16. Mark McGwire - He gets marginalized by the others on this list, but he is my last entry as a player on the ballot who should be in the Hall of Fame.

Those who fall just short for me: Fred McGriff, Sammy Sosa, Jeff Kent, Jack Morris

Definite No votes for me: Don Mattingly, Lee Smith and the rest.

Definite Yes votes for me on the expansion vote (they change the name every year): Joe Torre, Bobby Cox, Tony LaRussa, Marvin Miller, George Steinbrenner and Ted Simmons. On the fence, Tommy John.

As you can see, there are just too many candidates and there is no way you can get them all in with the voting the way it is. What a shame the mess this has all turned out to be. To quote one variation of Oliver Hardy's famous line, "Well, here's another nice kettle of fish you've pickled me in."

Barry Bonds Poll Results Are In

A poll was presented in the side bar of this site on whether you folks thought Barry Bonds should be elected to the Hall of Fame. After 105 votes (thank you), 74 of you decided that Bonds should be left out of the Hall of Fame. That's 67 percent. No doubt your views will be shared by the baseball writers when Bonds is eligible for election next season. This Fan of the game is struggling with that viewpoint.

Percentages of users or "cheaters" if you will, vary whenever you read up on the subject of Performance Enhancing Drugs. You'll read a range anywhere from fifty to eighty percent of ball players that used the stuff. There is still a debate in some circles on how much of an effect the PEDs were on performance. But even if you concede that performance was enhanced, for every Barry Bonds, there was a Jeremy Giambi. Using was no guarantee that you would succeed. Obviously, Bonds succeeded big time.

As others have mentioned, if Bonds is kept out of the HOF, then the all time hit leader will not be there nor the all time home run leader. What kind of Hall of Fame does that make if the best players aren't there? Your opinions (and those of the sportswriters) will also mean that Roger Clemens doesn't make it in either, right? Certainly, the writers have spoken on Mark McGwire.

This Fan isn't saying you're wrong. It's just troubling. For this writer, the Hall of Fame is about players that dominated their eras. And if an era was full of cheaters, should that mean that nobody from that era gets in? That's what you are saying. If that isn't true, then we have to make some kind of value judgement on who used and who didn't. If we do that, will we always be right? Again, the Fan isn't arguing with you. It simply doesn't sit well here. 

Barry Bonds Still Causes Us Heartburn

The next baseball season will put us five years removed from the last season that Barry Bonds played in the majors. And yet, more than any other player, his career continues to be a bucket of water on top of the door waiting for us to walk in and get wet. We can't, in light of events that were perceived to occur, put his career in perspective. At least with Mark McGwire, we have his admission to his steroid use to put his career in some kind of box. But McGwire was really a two trick pony. He walked and he hit homers. Bonds was a superstar in all aspects of the game. Thus his alleged use of PEDs seemed to elevate all facets of his game (except defense). The seasons he had from 2001 to 2004 leave us staggered for some sort of reality other than the one we have to live.

By the age of 35, Barry Bonds was having a Hall of Fame career. He had already won three MVP Awards. But his career WAR path was decidedly below the paths of Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron. See the WARgraph below courtesy of Fangraphs. As you can see by the graph, Bonds at 35 was below Ruth and below Aaron though on a similar trajectory. Starting at age 36, which includes the record homer year of 2001 and the next three seasons, Bonds makes a change in his trajectory as it shoots up and overtakes Henry Aaron. It is that late life jump in trajectory that drives us crazy. If Bonds had the seasons he had between 2001 and 2004 as a younger man, it might not affect us the same. Why? Because every conventional wisdom we have indicates that players regress from the age of 30 and onward. Bonds not only did not regress, he had the best years of his career.

2001 was the year that Bonds broke the single season home run record with 73. The record had stood from 1961 and Roger Maris to 1998 when both Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa topped Maris for a single season. But McGwire's record was eclipsed just three years later. We have the famous story where Bonds supposedly told Ken Griffey Jr. that he was upset that lesser players were getting all his accolades and he was going to use the stuff they were using to get his attention back. And he did get it back. But at what cost?

As hard on our sensibilities as 2001 was, at least in was Bonds on his own making the history. Barry Bonds after 2001 wasn't the only complicit party. Starting in 2002, managers around baseball became part of the story and became just as guilty in creating the records that Barry Bonds later set. For example, after 2001, Bonds had the single season homer record. But his season that year still came in just behind Babe Ruth's single season OPS record set in 1920. But managers in baseball are just as complicit in allowing Bonds to surpass both his own 2001 OPS with the OPS compiled in 2002 and 2004, both years of which flew by the Ruth record.

How was Bonds able to have better OPS seasons in 2002 and 2004 than the year he hit 73 homers? Intentional walks. A superstar like Bonds was going to get his share of intentional walks. And year after year, managers walked him from between 14 times to a peak of 43 in 1993. But after 2001 (35 intentional walks), it got downright silly. He was intentionally walked 68 times in 2002, 61 the following year and an unbelievable 120 times in 2004. Those intentional walks allowed Bonds to beat Ruth's OPS record in 2002 and then break it again and set the all time mark in 2004. To this writer, those 120 intentional walks in 2004 are a bigger stain on the game than anything Bonds did to improve his play. Those walks are a stench that will never leave these nostrils.

Can we extrapolate the data to see what kind of year Bonds would have had in 2004 without those 120 walks? Perhaps. Those 120 plate appearances can be broken up this way. With Bonds career walk percentage, he would have walked 24 of those plate appearances. With the 96 plate appearances remaining, hitting at a .362 clip like he was, Bonds would have had 35 more hits. Of those 35 hits, at the rate Bonds was hitting doubles, triples, sac flies and homers, he would have had thirteen more homers, seven more doubles and another sac fly and triple. Bonds' actual slash line that season was .362/.609/.812. If you do the math as this writer has done, the slash line becomes, .362/.517/.783. Instead of the 1.412 OPS that Bonds actually accumulated, it would have been 1.300 or below Ruth's record of 1.3791. Similar results are constructed with his 2002 totals if you take away those 68 intentional walks.

Of those 120 intentional bases on balls in 2004, 79 of them were from within his own division. And on face value, you can say that their aim was to limit the damage Bonds could do on their chances to win the division. And you can even say it worked as the Giants failed to make the post season in 2004. But did it really work? Giants number five hitters only had a .705 OPS and number six hitters had a .767 OPS for the Giants that year. so perhaps it can be perceived as good strategy. But also consider that the number five and number six hitters combined for 219 combined runs batted in (many of them Bonds on base with a free pass or those ahead of Bonds already on base when he walked). So the strategy seems a wash in this writer's book. 

The statistical part of this writer knows that intentionally walking batters increases a team's ability to score. The old school part of this writer considered such a strategy an act of cowardice. But could it go beyond just those two thoughts? Was it planned? Can the conspiracy theory be at work here? A friend on Twitter brought up the conspiracy theory when discussing the freeze out of Bonds in the majors after his last season in 2007. Bonds still wanted to play, but he never got an offer. Colleagues of this friend brought up that Bonds was probably too much of a headache at that point and plus, was 43 years old at the time. Yes, that could explain things. But at age 42, Bonds was still able to put up a 1.045 OPS. Sure, an American League team would have loved production close to that at the DH, right? What if the freezing out of Bonds in baseball after the 2007 was organized? What if the intentional walks from 2002 to 2004 were as part of a plan to keep Bonds from breaking Aaron's career homer mark? We'll never know of course. But it sure smells.

Personally, this Fan will never get over what happened between the 2001 to 2004 seasons. They altered the landscape of statistics. With the arc of speculation involved with what Bonds did to enhance his performance, those numbers will never feel real. They created records that may never be broken. The game will endure and as the magical season and post season of 2011 showed, the game is as healthy as ever. But a shadow exists and we will never really come out of that shadow. Well, maybe we will, but it won't be for a long time.

Bonds, Manny and Fallacies

The federal government was able to pin one charge against Barry Bonds and that was obstruction of justice. They were unable to get a jury to convict Bonds of lying to a grand jury. Was that a victory for the feds? Was that a victory for Bonds? The answer is hardly on both counts. Bonds, unless he appeals, is now a convicted felon. The government might decide to retry Bonds on the hung charges. If they do so, it will be a further waste of federal resources. The verdict came down within a week of the news that Manny Ramirez tested positive again and retired rather than take the one hundred day suspension. Since then, dozens of writers have marked their lines in the sand on issues such as the Hall of Fame and these two players' legacy. As someone who has loved the game for almost fifty years, this writer must too draw that line.

The evidence of the use of performance enhancing drugs is overwhelming. For anyone in this day and age to believe otherwise is misguided. Equally misguided is anyone who believes that the players we think we know about were the only ones who used the substances during their careers. If you decide to take the slippery slope of listening to Jose Canseco, usage was rampant and those we think we know about are just the tip of the iceberg of who used during their careers. The safest thing to say is that we'll never really know the full extent of who used and who didn't. Even if someone leaked all the names on that famous list of those who had tested positive in 2003, we still wouldn't know because those were only the ones that got caught by the test.

Another safe statement is that usage was widespread around baseball by both those who hit the baseball and those who pitched. But what we end up here are a handful of scapegoats, who also happened to be among the top performers in the game. These whipping boys for the sins of many cause all the prose that is thrown out over the Internet and in news copy day after day. Count Bonds and Manny Ramirez at the head of the class in this category.

The argument that these guys were "cheaters" is a strong one. No one can deny that those who used PEDs were at the very least, circumventing the rules. That's a nice way of saying they cheated. The argument that there was no testing is a weak one. Yes, it casts the net of blame wider to include owners, the union and the players. But it still doesn't negate the argument of cheating.

But there is another argument that is worth considering. And that is that if more than half of the players were using, how come all of those players didn't shatter home run records or win 300 games or hit 600 homers? For every successful user such as Jason Giambi, there was an unsuccessful one such as Jeremy Giambi. It didn't make everyone great. It may, at most have made the great...well...greater.

Athletes have always done whatever they could to get an edge. Does anyone think that PEDs were the only transgression in the long line of history? If you believe that, then you believe that the White Sox of 1919 were the only ballplayers that ever took money to affect the outcome of a game. Do people really believe those White Sox acted in a vacuum. If you do, then perhaps you should read this interesting article. We'll never know, but a lot of early baseball was probably mishandled with gamblers' money.

But just like in 1921, baseball found itself with a problem and fixed it. Same as today. Other writers have made a case for "greenies" or other medication that helped ballplayers stay "sharp" before the PED era. There is evidence that one of the most famous homers ever hit may have been aided by a team accomplice in centerfield flashing the signs. Gaylord Perry is in the Hall of Fame though he has admitted cheating. Did Joe Neikro learn to scuff baseballs in a vacuum? Was he that much of a genius? How do we know his Hall of Fame brother didn't do the same thing?

Nolan Ryan pitched for a long, long time. And he was effective a long, long time. Do we know he never cheated? Do we know with certainty that all of the recent inductees into the Hall of Fame never cheated? What we have here is a generation of players that got caught.

There are two issues that are the most problematic that Bonds and Manny cause us to focus on. The first is the record book and the second is the Hall of Fame. Both suffer from rose-colored glasses and the fallacy that baseball remains the same over time. Let's take each of these issues separately.

First, the record book. There is no doubt that until this point, the numbers in that record book have been held in awe. And now for the first time, we are faced with a challenge to those hallowed numbers. But even that is not a true statement. At the time Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth's home run record, the talk of an asterisk was very prevalent due to the fact that Roger performed his feat in 162 games instead of Babe's 154.

The Maris-Ruth controversy only shows the lack of honesty there is in comparing play from one era to the next. When Maris played, the league expanded and there were many more pitchers in the game who wouldn't have been with less teams. Ruth played when African Americans were banned from baseball. Performance enhancing drugs are just one factor in the numbers being put up today. There are more teams than ever before providing more mediocre pitching (and hitting if you look at it conversely). Plus, the baseball isn't the same from era to era. Oh, the commissioner might tell you otherwise. But we know it was different prior to 1920. We call that the "Dead Ball" era. How can you have a defined era and say confidently that the ball hasn't changed periodically since?

So the record book that we all cherish and love is a fallacy and always has been. How can Babe Ruth be vaulted higher than Home Run Baker when they didn't play the same game? Sure, the record book does give us some hints on who the best players are over time. But to think that it was ever fool proof is nonsense. Boog Powell just might have been a better player than Jason Giambi. So as much as it pains this writer's sensibilities. it may be a good thing for the record book to become less holy.

The problem with the second issue (the Hall of Fame) is similar to the first. We have that ridiculous clause in the voting rules that talks about the integrity of the game. The clause assumes that none of the Hall of Fame players that played before 1919 ever took a bribe. It assumes that racism is treated differently than other evils. It assumes that players such as Ruth were bastions of goodness. It's all a bunch of hooey. Did Bob Feller report all his income on those barnstorming tours with black teams? We don't know. Is Pete Rose the only player that ever bet on baseball? We don't know. Was Gaylord Perry the only pitcher who doctored the baseball?

The only thing the Hall of Fame should do is include players who were the best players at the time in history for which they played. Period. That means that Pete Rose is in the Hall of Fame and Shoeless Joe, and yes, it means that Manny Ramirez and Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens and Rafael Palmiero and anyone else are Hall of Fame players. Period. And if the present Hall of Fame can't do that, then there should be a movement to create a new institution that does. The alternative is leaving out some of the greatest players of the game and having their places taken with lesser talents. Then you have a meaningless institution.

Contrast baseball's hallowed Hall of Fame with the NFL. O. J. Simpson is in the NFL Hall of Fame. Jim Brown hasn't stayed always on the right side of morality issues. He's in there. Lawrence Taylor is in there. He's a registered sex offender. How many football Hall of Fame players are there that took steroids? It's not about morality. It's about who the best players were in their era.

Does this Fan think that MLB should ban steroids? Well, yes. What about blood replacement methods? Geez, who knows. The game should always strive to create as fair an environment as possible. But all that said, it's never been completely possible and there are too many gray areas to make it black and white. Bonds apparently became envious of lesser talents getting so much media attention. His ego drove him to his supposed choices. Manny Ramirez is a player in a long line of players from the Dominican Republic who took any edge to get out of that poverty situation and were helped in many ways by unscrupulous scouts that made those choices easier. Growing up in that culture leads to way of life and a confusing sense of right and wrong. But Manny Ramirez was one of the best players of his era. End of story. Bonds was the best player of his era. End of story.

Bury the record book as a measure for all time greatness. And bury the silliness of baseball writers deciding the morality lines in America. Those cats are long out of the bag. They may never have been in the bag in the first place.

What Happens If Barry Bonds is Acquitted?

While most of our attention has been focused on such important topics as whether Belt and Trumbo are going to make their teams or who is going to end up the Yankees' fifth starter, a dark cloud in our silver lining rises into the sky with the beginning of the Barry Bonds trial. The timing by the federal government is either ironic or mean-spirited. The last thing we need before we start another baseball season is that ugliness occurring concurrently. But there it is. So far, it's simply been another story among all the others. Thankfully, it's remained less than center stage. But as much as we hate to admit it, this trial is huge. A player's legacy is at stake and perhaps a sport's dirty laundry will once again be manifest. The real question for you this morning is this: What happens if Barry Bonds is acquitted?

The gut feeling here is that he will be acquitted. The feds have been screwing up this case for years now. Why else has it taken this long to finally bring it to trial? Perhaps Bonds will be found guilty in the selling of bogus memorabilia (where the heck did that come from?), but it is doubtful with the burden of proof needed that the feds can win the perjury case. If the feds do win the perjury case, Bonds is doomed to asterisks and historical asides for the rest of time. He will be an ex-player not wanted in the sport that he dominated for more than twenty years. Bud Selig would likely ban him from baseball. And he would be correct in doing so. Perjury is a serious offense. But what if Bonds is acquitted?

The bulk of baseball fans and the multi-faceted media that feeds those fans have already convicted Barry Bonds. We don't know if he was on that 2003 list of players who failed a drug test. Would it be safe to assume he wasn't or the feds would be using that? But in any case, there was the Griffey story and the sudden home run production at an advanced baseball age and there was the change in his body and so on. Would an acquittal make much different for all of those who already assume he is guilty? Probably not. There are racial undertones that we'd rather not admit. There is Bonds and his abrasiveness in his personality that made him so hated among those outside of San Francisco. There is the fallout from his broken marriage and the troubles of his children. An acquittal will not make much difference in the court of public opinion.

But if he is acquitted, Major League Baseball has a problem. One of the problems is that baseball colluded to purge Bonds from the game. It seems easy to see that everyone was ordered not to sign him to freeze him out of the game. If Bonds wins his case, would he be then free to sue the game for such actions? That's just one problem an acquittal forces. But there are many others.

If Barry Bonds is acquitted, his baseball records will have to stand, at least until someone like Pujols breaks them. Bonds will have to be allowed to be a part of the major leagues and there will be no grounds to ban him from jobs in baseball or appearances for teams and ultimately, there can be no good reason for keeping him out of the Hall of Fame. Those are all problems for Bud Selig and the gang. It will be messy if Bonds is acquitted. A guilty verdict allows baseball to turn away from a convicted slugger. An acquittal means years of trying to handle the  fallout of the era which he represents.

The Bonds trial is much more important to baseball than the Clemens trial. Clemens comes off as stupid and stubborn and his obtuseness will probably bring him down. Bonds has been cagier. Clemens did not break any records other than the 20 strikeouts in a game, a feat he performed the first time as a young man when it can be at least assumed he was clean. Clemens didn't break Cy Young's win total. But Bonds holds multiple records, including the most glamorous ones. If Bonds wins his case, those records will be a subject of debate for decades. If Bonds loses, then baseball at least has an out.

The Bonds trial has not been a back page story because we don't want to face it. We really don't want to talk about it and we want it to go away. But the stakes are very high here and this is a gigantic story. If Bonds loses his case, we will all feel some justification in our hatred of the man. But if he wins, we have a problem. And that problem won't go away for a long, long time.

Still Struggling with Barry Bonds

Three and a half years have gone by since Barry Bonds put on a uniform after it appeared that he was blackballed from baseball. What else could it have been? He was 42 years old but still put up a 1.045 OPS in 2007. You would think somebody would have signed him as a DH. But he was frozen out of baseball from the way it looks. But that three and a half years have not softened the hard edges around this writer's opinion of the man. Why is that? The feelings the man still generate are hardly ones of enlightenment. Why does he generate more negative feelings than Sammy Sosa, for example? It's time to dig deeper and figure out what is going on inside the Fan's head. In the words of a famous writer, "How do I know what I think until I see what I wrote?"

First, the dislike of Barry Bonds started long before he hit 73 homers to break Mark McGwire's record. He was a black man who didn't care what we thought of him. Okay, that's part of the answer there isn't it? Let's be honest about this thing. There have been a lot of unlikeable characters in baseball over the years. This Fan never disliked them with the same fortitude of Bonds'. Race has to be part of the answer. And why is that? Well, part of the answer goes deeper than race. We fans like our ballplayers to have a genuine sense of how fortunate they are...how grateful they are for their abilities. We want them to grasp how silly it is to be able to play a kid's game in front of millions of people and make millions of dollars. Bonds was never one of those guys. Bonds acted as if it was OUR privilege to watch him play and not the other way around. From an ordinary man's perspective, that grates the wrong way. For an ordinary white man, the roots are deeper. And it's only fair to admit that with frankness. It's not right. But unless it is reflected upon, it can't be dealt with.

It also relates to race that we liked Ken Griffey Jr. more than Bonds. Both grew up with the proverbial silver spoon as the sons of ball players. But Junior seemed to be in it for the fun of it. He seemed to be like a kid on a perpetual Disney ride. That was different from Bonds and again, his race made that unacceptable. Of course that's absurd and unfair. But there it is.

And the two were entwined for eternity when that big article came out that stated Bonds talked to Griffey about McGwire and Sosa getting all the glory when he had more talent. Supposedly, that was when Bonds decided to rub on some funky cream and stuff. The image painted is an egocentric one. It hollered out loud, "I want the glory. I want to be the focus. I want all eyes on me." It wasn't enough to be the best all around player in the world. And that ego-stance compromised him in an age when nobody was looking. The stage had been set with half the baseball world already on illegal substances. Bonds became the pinnacle of the era.

And the shame of it is that had he not taken that stance, if he had not wanted to be the top media dog, he would still have wound up in the top five all around players that ever played the game. Before he hit those 73 homers, he already had 494 for his career along with over 400 stolen bases. He was already in the middle of a run with nine straight seasons with an OPS over 1.000. He had already compiled fantastic defensive numbers. He had already scored over 1600 runs and driven in 1400. He had already won three MVP Awards and had a World Series title, Gold Gloves and All Star appearances. He was already the most prodigious accumulator of free passes the game had seen since Mickey Mantle. If not for 73 and for that article that exposed him, he would have joined Willie Mays in the pantheon of best all around players to ever play the game.

If the 73 had never happened. If Bonds hadn't allegedly made those egocentric choices. If he hadn't become the poster boy for everything that was wrong with baseball during those years, we would have in time, embraced him for what he was. Nobody ever liked Ty Cobb either, but he is still hailed as one of the greatest ever. Bonds will be forever hailed as the one of the greatest ever....but. It's the "but" that will define him forever and overshadow what he was before the 73.

The intentional walks also grated us the wrong way. And baseball as a whole, and particularly major league managers are to blame for that. It ruined the game, absolutely wrecked it. Nobody wants to see an intentional walk. You can ask any fan that's ever plunked down money for a ticket what their least favorite event is in baseball and that fan will say the intentional walk. The 120 intentional walks in 2004 was pathetic. It was chicken. It was cowardly. And it wasn't just that year. Combine 2004 with the two previous seasons and Bonds was intentionally walked 249 times. Yet he was only walked intentionally 35 times in the year he hit 73. Ironically, if managers had walked him like in 2004, Bonds might be less reviled because he never would have gotten to 73. Those 120 intentional walks, though, were a low point. They created numbers that were more than mortal. They created numbers only Babe Ruth could even whistle at.

But it all boils down to the 73 homers, doesn't it? He allegedly cheated to get there. He did it out of envy for McGwire and Sosa. Everyone liked McGwire and even now McGwire is not the pariah in the public's eyes that Bonds has become. Part of that is race, part of that is their differing personalities, but a large part of it is 73. The 73 seems to be more of a concern than breaking Hank Aaron's record. Though everyone feels that he cheated to get to both. The Fan isn't sure about the career homer record. Bonds had an outside shot at getting there anyway. If his bulky body hadn't broken down at the end, he would have probably made it on the fair and square.

But the thing about Bonds' numbers is that they can't be undone. You can't erase the 73 and the 762 from the record books. You can't take the ridiculous OPS years of 2001 to 2004 away. They are here to bamboozle us and cause us consternation for many years to come. So, yeah, this writer still hasn't come to terms on Barry Bonds. The Fan isn't even close to working those feelings out. The race question is a start. That is distasteful to this writer and needs to be purged from within. But the Fan isn't sure that Bonds will bring peace even after the race question is worked out inside. The bottom line is that we simply didn't want him to do the things he did, and that goes for his accomplishments as well as for his indiscretions.

The Twenty Best Seasons of the Past Ten Years

It's funny how us humans view time. Since it is 2009 and we are twelve days from the calendar turning to 2010, many writers across the land are creating lists covering the past decade. You'll see the Top 100 Plays, the Top 100 Athletes, the Top 100 Movies, etc, etc. We seem to be a decadal people who think in terms of tens. You won't see a list of the Top 100 Plays in 2013, for example. But you will again in 2019. Strange. But, as a writer, you go with the flow. So, in honor of the weird human race that goes for such lists at the end of each decade, here are Major League Baseball's twenty best individual seasons for the decade of 2000-2009.

Batting:

1. Barry Bonds - 2001: Obviously, Bonds is going to be on this list at least five times. It's still a sad fact that Bonds entered the decade with eight straight seasons with an OPS over 1.000 and still felt he needed to do what he did. If he had just stayed the course of his already magnificent career, he wouldn't be the pariah he is now. Between 2000 and 2004, Bonds put together five of the greatest seasons in the history of baseball. Color them how you will. Deflate them how you want. But the numbers speak for themselves. The real tragedy of the entire run? That National League managers were allowed to walk Bonds intentionally 284 times in those five seasons. That act of cowardice is almost as big a blight on the game of baseball as what Bonds allegedly did to get the numbers he put together. Of the five season run, 2001 was the record breaking home run year. His OPS and OPS+ were higher other years, but 2001 was the year he was allowed to do the most damage, and damage he did.

2. Barry Bonds - 2004: He led the league in batting at .362. His OBP was over .600 (Egads!) and his slugging percentage was over .800. The numbers are unbelievable.

3. Barry Bonds - 2002: Led the league in batting at .370. His 268 OPS+ was the highest of his career.

4. Barry Bonds - 2003: Limited to only 130 games with injuries, Bonds still finished with an OPS+ of 231.

5. Albert Pujols - 2008: We interrupt this Barry Bonds run to give you the other great player of the decade. Pujols was unbelievable the entire time, but 2008 was the best when he finished with a 190 OPS+ as he went an incredible: .357/.462/.653. It might be the best untainted season since Ted Williams.

6. Barry Bonds - 2000: The first year of the great run started with 49 homers. Was it his last clean year or his first dirty one?

7. Albert Pujols - 2009: As good a year as Bonds in 2000.

8. Albert Pujols - 2003: Pujols had 212 hits (before he started getting walked a lot), hit over .350.

9. Travis Hafner - 2006: Many today forget what an offensive force Hafner was in the middle of the decade. He is an afterthought now, but in 2006, his numbers were huge: .308/.439/.659 all adding up to a 181 OPS+. Remarkable season.

10. Alex Rodriguez - 2007: A-Rod was sick for the Yankees that year. He hit 54 homers, drove in 156 while scoring 143. He hit .314 and had an unbelievable .645 slugging percentage.


Pitching

1. Pedro Martinez - 2000: Looking back at Pedro's best season, it seems impossible that he lost six games. The numbers are eye-popping. His strikeout to walk ratio was 8.88/1. His WHIP was .737. He walked 32 batters in 29 starts. In an offensive era, it might be the best pitching performance ever.

2. Roger Clemens - 2005: Pitching in Houston, Clemens had a season that is totally incongruous with his Win/Loss record. He finished at 13-8 but led the majors in ERA and ERA+. How good was Clemens that year? He gave up only 151 hits in 211 innings and gave up only 11 homers the entire season.

3. Pedro Martinez - 2003: He was much better than his 14-4 record. He led the league in ERA, strikeouts per nine innings, WHIP and Hits per Nine Innings. His most unbelievable stat that season? He gave up only seven homers the entire season.

4. Zack Greinke - 2009: If ever a pitcher deserved a Cy Young, it was Greinke in 2009. He led the league in ERA, WHIP and Home Runs per Nine Innings. It was a phenomenal season.

5. Pedro Martinez - 2002: Yeah, it's hard to argue with a record of 20-4. He led the league in WHIP, Strikeouts, Hits per Nine innings and Strikeout to Walk Ratio. He also had the league's best ERA that season. Naturally.

6. Randy Johnson - 2002: Johnson was amazing in 2002. his 24-5 record is only the starting point. He pitched more innings, struck out more batters and faced more batters than anyone else in the decade that season. His run from 1999 to 2002 rivals only Pedro as one of the greatest pitching runs in history.

7. Randy Johnson - 2001: The Diamondbacks owe a large part of their World Championship on Johnson's shoulders. Only Nolan Ryan struck out more batters than Johnson's 374 that season. He also led the league that season in ERA and WHIP.

8. Johan Santana - 2004: In his only twenty win season, Santana led the league in ERA, Strikeouts and WHIP.

9. Chris Carpenter - 2009: After not pitching for two years due to injury, Carpenter came back and put together an incredible season. He went 17-4 and gave up only seven homers all season. He also led the league in ERA and ERA+. He should have won the Cy Young award.

10. Randy Johnson - 2000: Johnson struck out 347 batters while compiling a 19-7 record. He pitched eight complete games and led the league in ERA+.

The Intentional Walk

Wednesday, in Rob Neyer's Sweetspot, Mr. Neyer commented sagely on another blog post concerning the intentional walk. The other post in question (you can get the link from Mr. Neyer's post) postulated that a rule change that changes the nature of the game shouldn't be considered just because the fans hate the intentional walk. Mr. Neyer correctly questioned the logic and reasoning of the original piece.

Bud Selig has gone on record a number of times stating his concern for the fan who has to spend diminishing money to go to the ball park. In these times, the concern Selig is speaking about is a real issue and families all across America are prioritizing how their money is spent.

Say a middle class parent in St. Louis decides to make a trip to see the Cardinals a priority because the parent's children are huge Albert Pujols fans. So the budget is carefully consulted and the parent makes a reasonable attempt to limit the damage and tells the kids they can have a popcorn and share a large soda. The family settles into their seats and much to the kids' excitement, Pujols is coming up to the plate in the bottom of the first inning. There is a runner on second and even though this is the first inning, the catcher stands up and signals the pitcher for four intentional balls. The kids are disappointed (especially if it happens multiple times in a game) and the parent is saying, "I spent all that money for this?"

First, let the Fan say categorically that the intentional walks to Barry Bonds earlier in the decade and the walks being issued to Albert Pujols (34 so far this year) are acts of cowardice. Yes, the Fan can see it in the eighth or ninth inning when the game is on the line. But geez, two out of the five times the guy gets to the plate? That's just playing scared and it may be smart, but it's a cheap escape and it does nothing but hurt the game and the fans who watch it.

The pitchers and managers the Fan admires are those that take the ball and force Bonds or Pujols or whomever and take on the challenge. As good as Bonds and Pujols were and are, they will still get themselves out six out of every ten plate appearances.

Should MLB ban the intentional walk? How effective would it be since the manager, pitcher and catcher would just have some other type of sign and the pitcher would simply unintentionally intentionally walk the guy anyway? It isn't the rules that you can change, it's the culture. Stress during the GM meetings and the owner meetings that the fans are what matter most and depriving the fans of the spectacle of a Bonds or Pujols at bat is a detriment to the game. Have those at the top send those messages down to the managers on the bench and let them know that such doings (except where the game is on the line late in the game) are unacceptable and unseemly.

If you want a rule change that can be enforced, make it a rule that a relief pitcher has to face at least two batters and put an end to this LOOGY business and the LaRussa/Piniella roulette of three pitching changes in an inning. Now that IS certainly a drain on the game (although it does allow the revenue stream of more commercials during a game for the television people).

The Fan hates intentional walks. They are the coward's way of baseball. But the Fan doesn't see where a rule against them will change anything. Try to change the culture. Because until you do that, managers will still find a way to work around Pujols and others when their inner chicken wing starts itching.