'Roids and Ruth
Two reporters for the San Francisco Chronicle have a book coming out detailing the steroid use of Barry Bonds. Bonds has never been a popular guy, mostly because he's a jerk. He has even admitted using steroids, though he claims that he didn't know what they were. Apparently, like most highly-paid professional athletes, people who make their living based on their health, talent, and natural ability, Bonds is okay with just randomly shooting, ingesting, and/or rubbing unknown chemicals into his body.Y'know, the Angels played the Giants in the World Series once.
The book claims that Bonds started using steroids in 1999 because he didn't think it was fair that Mark McGwire should get to pump up and break records. So he set out to do the same. In all fairness, Bonds did later break the single-season home run record and it does take more than drugs to be able to put a bat on a ball and make it go a long, long way. It should also be pointed out that steroids were not illegal in baseball when Bonds was using them. And, before anyone says that I should be using the word "allegedly" in many places here, I think we're all past that with Barry.
It all got me thinking about Babe Ruth. All baseball lovers (and even some non-baseball types) know that Ruth's career home run total was 714. That record stood until 1974 when Hank Aaron surpassed it. And yes, of course I was watching that game. What few people know is that the career home run record before Ruth was held by Roger Connor. His total? 138. Babe Ruth didn't just break a record. He changed the game.
Here are some other fun facts about the Babe. Skip this part if you are numbers/baseball challenged. Ruth's career on-base percentage was .472. That means he was on base almost half the time he was up. Ruth had 2217 career RBI's which also puts him in second place. And did you know that he pitched in 10 different seasons, including 3 seasons in which he was primarily a pitcher? Not bad either, since he ended his career with a 2.28 ERA and had 18, 23, and 24 wins in those 3 seasons.
End of numbers. Take a breath.
There are a lot more reasons why I consider Babe to be the best who ever played. But what would those numbers have looked like if he was juicing? He would have had over 1,000 home runs! Of course, he might also have gotten into more bar fights. The equivalent to today's drug scandal was, in Ruth's day, called "drinking heavily."
And now for something completely different....
Today marks the 4-month anniversary of the Crash. Our guy came by yesterday to finish the cabinet doors which, basically, would have finished the job. I was looking forward to blogging this morning about how everything was done.
But the doors didn't fit. And they have to make them again. And they said it would take a month.
So, the odyssey continues. Hey, maybe I should buy the cabinet guy some steroids.
posted by Thurman8er @ 9:22 AM
5 Comments:
Now there’s a scary thought – a cabinet guy on the juice!
Speaking of juice, I can remember watching the 72 Olympic Games from Munich and hearing about the rumors and accusations concerning the East German Team, especially their women. When a woman is sporting a 5:00-shadow and throwing the shot like most of us “juice-less” humans throw a baseball, it does tend to make you wonder. But our guys, we were clean, we played by the rules, and we got our fannies kicked in many events. Still, there was a stigma to juicing up.
Now some 30 years later we find out that we Americans are just as likely to give in to the urge to find an edge. Has Barry Bonds become the poster child for the demise of the integrity of baseball, I think so. Should his records along with the records (500 homeruns, 3000 hits) of Rafael Palmero be removed? I think so.
And bloggers – should Steve’s house be fully completed including functional cabinets? Yes! Makes me want to juice up and beat up a sub-contractor. Hang in there my Math Brother.
Cecil, I think Ricardo Montalban is in charge of my house.
And I couldn't agree more about removing the records. Throw in McGwire and Sosa while you're at it.
The only reason you would ingest something without knowing the actual ingredients is if you were eating at Taco Bell.
Randy - I liked Josh's name for Taco Bell:
"Toxic Belch"
The Giants also played the A's in a World Series, and we're trying to forget that one too.
The only reason you guys are after Bonds is because he doesn't have Crisco-white legs like Randy.
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