| Re: Giving Bonds some credit
I give Bonds plenty of credit. Without steroids, he probably would have hit 600-700 home runs, depending on how well his body held up.
As I've said in the past, steroids can't take some schmo off the street and make him the game's best hitter. But it CAN take a great player and help him put up some of the best numbers the game has ever seen.
And it's true that we can't know for sure if A-Rod, Pujols, Howard, etc. did steroids or are on HGH now. But none of those players were implicated in a federal investigation of a steroid-producing laboratory as Bonds was. That's the major difference.
It also doesn't help that he's been surly and kind of a dick his entire career, until revealing his softer side during the recent HR chase. It is our natural tendency to give the benefot of the doubt to nice guys who show remorse for their mistakes.
Guys who get voted off their own team for being such a gigantic dick (as Bonds was at AZ St.), fight with their own teammates in the dugout (as Bonds did with Jeff Kent...although Kent is probably just a big a dick as Bonds), and just generally act like an asshole don't get nearly as much leeway with the American public |