ANY VOTES FOR GEORGE FOSTER? As some of baseball's leading mashers step to the plate for the Home Run Derby this evening, Ben Shapiro asks a shrewd question: if Jose Bautista finishes this season with 62 home runs, will you regard him as baseball's single season home run king? (The asterisk-less leaderboard is here.)
I've posted a poll.
Poll Results: 60% of you say Barry Bonds remains the HR king (though that number was steadily around 70% for most of the voting), 28% would recognize Bautista, 9% Roger Maris, 1 vote for Babe Ruth.
I have no idea why it's double-posting the question. And I'm not sure what the answer is, given Bonds's conviction.
ReplyDeleteThe answer is pretty easy: Bonds hit the most homers, he is the king.
ReplyDeleteOf course. He'd be ahead of the current single-season king, Roger Maris. (Incidentally, I find it fascinating that the current lifetime leader is only tied for #73 on the list, having never had more than 47 in a single season.)
ReplyDeleteSo the career leader is the guy who for most of his career popped pills that weren't prescribed for him? Just want to make sure I understand which enhancements are allowed and what we're going to get moralistic about.
ReplyDelete<span>Let's define the standard for chemical enhancement and start exhuming graves.</span>
ReplyDeleteThere's no place for me to vote for Frank "Home Run" Baker.
ReplyDeleteIf Gaylord Perry can be in the Hall of Fame, then Barry Bonds can be considered the home run king.
ReplyDeleteThere was a period several years ago where a couple of people were found to be using corked bats (including Howard Johnson of the Mets). They were suspended. None of the home runs they hit were retroactively erased. Over the years, numerous pitchers were found with grease on their hat or emery boards in their back pockets. They were thrown out of the game. None of the strikeout they had recorded earlier in the game were erased.
Precedent says that baseball punishes the cheater, but does not go back and wipe clean their statistics. So I don't know why this should be any different.
Bonds. And this from someone who can't stand the guy and what he did.
ReplyDeleteBetween Bonds, McGwire, and Sosa, I'll admit that I have trouble getting too excited about this particular stat. I so enjoyed the McGwire/Sosa battle, only to have it later seem tainted.* And then I just hated the Bonds run to the top of the leaderboard.
ReplyDelete* Tainted for me. Not trying to get into a debate about official asterisks, as I haven't fully thought out my position on that issue.