Originally posted by Ninerjohn:99.. most of what you say is certainly true. Bonds was a HOF player before he got on roids. He did have amazing bat speed and an incredible eye. He also was a gold glove fielder and an amazing base stealer in his earlier years. He also was not alone in taking roids. That is obvious.
However, I cant feel sorry for Barry. He used PEDs and there is no way he has the MLB records for career or single season HRs without them. His greatest seasons were at an age when he should have been declining. He knew what the roids were doing for him and he was rewarded greatly for it.
I dont think his entire career should be tainted at all and I do think he should be in the HOF. However, his HR records will always be tainted and rightfully so.
I agree that his 73 hr season wasnt done naturally, but neither was McGwire's 70 and 65 years, or Sosa's 66, 64, 63 years. They played in an era, and while they all cheated, I just dont think its as simple as grabbing the whiteout. The year Bonds broken the record, 41 players hit over 30 hr, and 12 hit over 40. It was a culture, and just how the game was at the time.
Baseball has never been about conformity. 2 different games between leagues, different stadium dimesions, different sized mounds, different era's that excluded black and latin players, the dead ball era, etc. 21 of the top 30 RBI seasons ever came in an 18 year window from 1921-38, including Hack Wilson's unbreakable record of 191.
I think baseball just needed to fix the steroid issue, which was more a detriment to a players long term health than the game itself, and now embrace the era as part of history. All this talk about who cheated, who should have what number of this or that, etc, is all going to be tainted by the bias of how each player was percieved. Notice that nobody has ever talked about taking Gagne's saves streak record away.
Fans are just doing themselves a disservice by buying into the idea that this recent era is a joke.