Position:
Left Field
Teams:
Pittsburgh Pirates (1986-1992)
San Francisco Giants (1993-2007)
Career Statistics:
Batting Average: .298
Home Runs: 762
RBI: 1,996
Slugging Percentage: .607
On-Base Percentage: .444
Hits: 2,935
Barry Lamar Bonds was born in Riverside, California but grew up in San Carlos, attending Junipero Serra High School, where he excelled in baseball, basketball, and football. His father was the legendary Bobby Bonds, who made a name for himself primarily as a member of the San Francisco Giants, as well as several other teams.
From the years 1980-1982, Bonds was a star on his high school varsity baseball team and hit .467 during his senior year. Barry was drafted by the Giants in the second round of the 1982 Major League Baseball Draft, but they couldn't come to an agreement on a contract, so Barry opted out and attended college instead. He attended Arizona State University, where he hit .347 with 45 homers and 175 RBI. In 1984, he batted .360 and swiped 30 bases. During the '85 season, he hit 23 homers with 66 runs driven to go along with a .368 batting average. He graduated from college in 1986, and was then drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the first round of the draft (sixth pick). He began his playing career in the minors, playing for the Prince William Pirates of the Carolina League, and then for the Hawaii Islanders of the Pacific Coast League.
Barry Bonds made his major league debut on May 30, 1986. In the early years of his career, he batted in the lead-off position. That season, he led all National League rookies with 16 homers, 48 RBI, 36 stolen bases, and 65 walks. He failed to win Rookie of the Year, however (the award went to Todd Worrell, a pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals). In 1987, Bonds smacked 25 homers, drove in 59 runs, and stole 32 bases. He remained steady in 1988, hitting .283 with 24 home runs.
Bonds won his first MVP award in 1990, hitting .301 with 33 homers and 114 RBI. He also managed to steal 52 bases. He also helped to lead his team to the postseason for the first time since 1979, though they lost the NLCS to the Cincinnati Reds. Bonds hit 25 homers and drove in 116 runs in 1991, on his way to another Gold Glove and Silver Slugger Award. He finished in second place in the MVP voting that year, behind Atlanta's Terry Pendleton. In 1992, he took home his second MVP, hitting .311 with 34 homers and 103 RBI. He took the Pirates to their third straight National League East division title, though they lost the National League Championship Series to the Atlanta Braves. It was expected that Bonds would likely be snatched up by another team after the season was over as he was set to become a free agent.
In 1993, Bonds signed a contract worth a record (at the time) $43.75 million for 6 years with the San Francisco Giants. Bonds made an immediate impact, batting .336 with 46 home runs and 123 RBI, leading him to his second consecutive (third overall) MVP award. During the strike-shortened season in 1994, Bonds hit .312 with 37 homers and 74 walks. In '95 he had a somewhat down year, hitting .294, drove in 104 runs, though he still hit 33 home runs.
In 1996, Bonds became the second (and currently only four) to hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in a season. He drove in 129 runs and walked a then-National League record 151 times. He also became only the fourth player in history to hit 300 homers and steal 300 bases in his career. 1997 saw Barry hit 40 home runs with 101 RBI, though is batting average was the lowest it had been since '89 at .290. He also again led the league in walks with 145.
In 1998, he became the first player to ever hit 400 homers and steal 400 bases in a career, while also batting .303 with 37 homers and 122 RBI. In 2000, Bonds hit .306 with 49 homers. He also had a career-best (at the time) slugging percentage of .688.
On April 17, 2001, Bonds hit his 500th career home run off of Terry Adams of the Los Angeles Dodgers. That season saw Barry Bonds break the record for most home runs during a season with 73 (Roger Maris's record of 61 had been broken in 1998 by Mark McGwire, who belted 70). He also hit .328 that season, with 137 RBI, drew a major league record 177 walks, and posted an incredible .863 slugging percentage. He also gained his fourth MVP award.
In '02, Bonds signed a five-year, $90 million contract with the Giants. He then went on to hit 46 home runs, slugged .749, and also walked 148 times. In 2003, he became the sole member of the 500/500 club, with 500 homers and 500 stolen bases. 2004 was perhaps Bonds's best season overall. He hit .362, while breaking his own record with 232 walks, as well as slugging .812. He also managed to hit 45 home runs while only striking out 41 times. That year, he won his fifth MVP award. On July 4, 2004, Bonds broke Rickey Henderson's all-time walks record with 2,191. Bonds would again win the MVP in 2005.
By the time 2006 rolled around, it was becoming fairly obvious that Bonds had a very legitimate shot of topping Hank Aaron's all-time home run record of 755. He entered the season with 708 homers, just six shy of tying Babe Ruth for second place on the list. On May 20, Bonds tied Ruth, and then surpassed him for second on the list on May 28. However, he would finish 2006 only playing in 130 games (out of 162) with 26 homers and 77 RBI and posting a .270 batting average.
On August 4, 2007, Bonds tied Hank Aaron with his 755th homer off Clay Hensley of the San Diego Padres. Finally, on August 7, Bonds hit his 756th homer to claim the top position on the all-time home run list with a monster 435-foot shot off Mike Bacsik of the Washington Nationals. He finished the '07 season batting .276 with 28 homers, 66 RBI, and 132 walks.
The Giants stated in September 2007 that they would not be re-signing Bonds after the season was over. A mad dash to sign the star player was expected, but because of the cloud of suspicion of steroid use that was hanging over Bonds, no team signed him in 2008 or 2009. To this day, Bonds remains unemployed, though he has never officially announced his retirement. He has, however, noted that he's not in good enough shape anymore to play Major League Baseball, so it seems very likely that he has played his last game.
It was tough to determine exactly where I wanted to place Barry Bonds on this list. As I said in the intro, Kalb had him as the greatest baseball player of all time, but I just can't agree with that placement. Steroid use aside, I believe that there are three other players who have put up more impressive numbers overall than Bonds.
The steroid scandal surrounding Barry Bonds has polarized many people, but I believe it to be a bit overblown. Do I believe he took steroids? Absolutely. Many people compare the fact that his body is so incredibly different from his debut in the league, when he was a lean, speedy lead-off hitter, to the end of his career when he had a muscular frame that was more adept at blasting homers.
But look at how much his head has grown from his younger days up till now!
If this guy hasn't used 'roids he needs to see a doctor because there is some serious swelling going on in that brain.
But does usage of performance-enhancing drugs nullify all of a player's accomplishments? I don't think so. Steroids didn't make Bonds a great hitter. They may have helped make him a more powerful hitter, but steroids didn't give him the careful eye that allowed him to walk a record number of times or the impeccable timing required to make perfect contact with the ball. Barry Bonds is an immensely talented baseball player who deserves recognition for the things he has accomplished. He's an enormous jerk by all accounts, but that doesn't mean his stats shouldn't be recognized. And who knows? There's an excellent chance he could've broken Hank Aaron's record without steroids. Most people forget that Aaron wasn't exactly muscle-bound. He was just a great power hitter, which is exactly what Bonds is. When Hank Aaron hit his final home run, number 755, he was 42 years old. When Bonds surpassed Aaron with his 756th homer, he had just turned 43. So it's not as though Bonds broke the record ten years earlier than Aaron did; he was actually older.
Here is a year-by-year comparison of Bonds's and Aaron's home run totals:
Hank Aaron: Barry Bonds:
1954: 13 1986: 16
1955: 27 1987: 25
1956: 26 1988: 24
1957: 44 1989: 19
1958: 30 1990: 33
1959: 39 1991: 25
1960: 40 1992: 34
1961: 34 1993: 46
1962: 45 1994: 37
1963: 44 1995: 33
1964: 24 1996: 42
1965: 32 1997: 40
1966: 44 1998: 37
1967: 39 1999: 34
1968: 29 2000: 49
1969: 44 2001: 73
1970: 38 2002: 46
1971: 47 2003: 45
1972: 34 2004: 45
1973: 40 2005: 5
1974: 20 2006: 26
1975: 12 2007: 28
1976: 10
Aaron out-homered Bonds in 11 seasons (omitting the one season extra that Aaron played). Bonds out-homered Aaron in 9 seasons. Granted, when Bonds out-homered Aaron, it was sometimes by a pretty considerable margin (42-24, 49-29, 73-44, etc.). Aaron started producing pretty large home run numbers starting with his fourth year in the league; Bonds started producing these numbers during his seventh year. It seems like a fairly good comparison
Do we believe that Arnold Schwarzenegger should be stripped of his seven Mr. Olympia titles because he admitting to taking steroids during training? No, because every other competitor was taking them, too. So should we strip Bonds of his lifetime statistics because he likely took steroids? No, because a considerable number of baseball players are probably taking them. The difference is, Schwarzenegger was the best at what he did. He was blessed with amazing genetics that aided him; the steroids were a supplement. Likewise, Bonds was endowed with phenomenal athletic abilities; the steroids supplemented that. No one else has put up the kinds of numbers Bonds has in many years.
So do I advocate taking steroids? No way. The risks far outweigh the advantages. I'm not sure that I would go so far as to say that these players are cheating by using them because I don't think they give the player a necessary advantage, as I showed with the Bonds-Aaron comparison. They might, however, turn a 400-foot home run into a 475-foot home run. But for every Barry Bonds, there is a Pablo Ozuna, or a Henry Owens, players who tested positive for steroids, but never put up anything approaching impressive numbers. Players like Bonds, are in a league all their own, and he deserves to be recognized as such, in spite of the fact that he's a jerk.
No comments:
Post a Comment