How come no one ever accuses pitchers of drug use? 100+mph fast balls and all.........
You're right. Nolan Ryan used pain medications...he even did a TV commercial for them!
Major League Baseball has been contaminated for years. The game is not the same since the introduction of the Designated Hitter, the juiced ball, and the juiced players. Baseball is no longer a game, plain and simple.
I'm getting tired of Freepers knocking Barry. He's the greatest hitter of his generation.
He sees less than 1/2 the number of hittable balls than any other hitter. Ruth had Gehrig hitting behind him, after all.
In Ruth's day (and in Aaron's day, for that matter) pitchers were expected to pitch complete games. As a result the pitchers paced themselves, and they didn't throw with 110% velocity on every pitch. Now they only need to go 5-6 innings, and there's no let-up for the batters as the relievers throw just as hard.
Don't you think that Roger CLemens et al juiced just as much as Bonds may have? The same pattern of weight/muscle gain, performance improvement is apparent.
To sum it up, the "asterisk" question may have been clear with Maris, as it was a matter of a longer season than had, 7 extra games. With Bonds and the juicing, the justification for 'asterisk' is really based on the fact that Bonds is unpopular -- although I don't understand the real basis for that.
I'm still amazed that the bum, Wade Boggs, a selfish, worthless, empty non-team player who's stats amounted to nothing in terms of his team's performance, got into the Hall of Fame!!
Oh, I've heard plenty of rumors about Roger "Roid Rage" Clemens.