Should Barry Bonds Quit?

[onedomino]

Should Bonds quit now, before he tarnishes the Babe's record? I think he should. What do you think?

Time to go, Barry
Bonds Needs to Quit Before He Sullies Game Forever

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/baseball/mlb/02/15/hoffer.bonds/index.html

Barry Bonds did not, all by himself, make the periodic table part of baseball's stat panel. There are others who must answer for the game's atomic asterisk as well. But if he continues in his pursuit of the remaining home run milestones -- with 703, he's got Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron in his sights -- he will surely be the point man in what promises to be an ugly, rancorous debate on the chemical perversion of performance.
If he stays, every at-bat will be a call for suspicion, every home run a reminder of corners cut, the game cheated, fans fooled. Every record he reaches a sad, cynical testimony: Crime does too pay.
Bonds, because of generational timing and an apparent willingness to ingest rocket fuel, is a kind of test case for our moral tolerance. His prime was in that sordid sweet spot, right after the explosion of hormonal additives and right before baseball's belated decision to start testing for them. He and more than a few others fattened up during this era, taking advantage of both an illicit science and a three-monkey commission that seemed to have seen nothing, heard nothing and certainly said nothing. The home runs were thrilling, the records astonishing. Bonds's devotion to self-improvement was ... what? Pretty much wrong, apparently.
The weight of public opinion, which was persuasive enough to move even the players' union, has come down against steroid enhancement. We don't like the "clear" or the "cream" or the Clomid -- even for the sake of the dingers, the round-trippers, the four-baggers. For whatever reason, random drug testing of players has become a social decision (the disapproval of cheating trumps our appreciation of spectacle this time around), and baseball has grudgingly determined to enforce it. Major league baseball players will no longer be drafted out of the Pharmaceutical Fantasy League.
As a nation we're pretty good about understanding, even forgiving, these misguided extravagances of effort. We're so gung ho, about so many things, that we have to permit lapses in judgment; we'd never get ahead if we didn't prize ambition over good sense. For example: Nobody went to prison over polyester. We make mistakes, we get over them. And so Bonds' bulked-up demolition of all those old-timey home run records might be accepted in some kind of historical context, another of those wrong-headed fads. Let's not beat ourselves up about it.
On the other hand, we're not the kind of folks who like to wallow in our blunders, especially when one of them was a policy that seemed to doom a generation of T-ball players to acne, withered testicles and early death. Not good. Maybe having Bonds around to remind us of this misguided little era is the moral equivalent of wearing a Nehru jacket to work. We put the one away when it became embarrassing, how about the other?
If Bonds does continue, now past his synthetic prime, it will only serve to invite shame. Did we really go along with this cheating for the sake of a home run chase? Did we really enjoy all those blasts, sort of knowing they were forged with everything but artificial coloring? We're going to feel really cheap. It was one thing to marvel at a physical specimen just coming into his own in his mid-30s, his hat size climbing along with his home run totals; it's quite another to condone the underground chemistry that placed everybody else at a disadvantage. Wait, that's not the American Way!
Herewith our modest proposal: Barry, leave now. Spare us the hangover from our home run binge, save us from a season of regret, rescue us from the guilt of being entertained by your fake power. Do not linger for the purpose of surpassing either Ruth's total (714) or Aaron's record (755), both of which will only draw attention to your own character failure, not to mention ours.
This is not only doing the right thing, it's doing the smart thing. We'll not forget the excitement you brought to the game just walking to the plate. Even knowing that you were juiced, which you admitted in grand jury testimony, does not entirely diminish the theater of each moment. It wasn't an honest effort, and that's disappointing, but it was genuinely pyrotechnic in its own way. We really do love fireworks.
Even if you leave now, you're not going to get away with everything. The scarlet "S" will hang from your neck, like so much negative bling, for as long as you're remembered. But you will at least prevent the kind of postscript that dooms you to historical villainy or, worse, buffoonery. You don't want to play clean and hit, let's say, 18 homers, do you? You'd regret this season far more than we would, trust us on that.
You will not enjoy the run-up to Aaron's record either, during which your chemical enhancement will come to be seen as a surprisingly large and unfair influence on your achievement. In fact, anything you accomplish from here on will be in the context of an extended con. And anything you don't will refocus your deceit. Really, you can't win.
So do it for yourself and, yeah, do it for us. Barry -- and we say this feeling a little bit responsible for this mess but determined to move on -- it would be so much better if you weren't here.

 

[musicman]

Ted Williams, the last major leaguer to hit .400, was right at .400 on the last day of the 1941 season. The manager gently suggested that Williams take the day off to protect his average. "Hell, no!", Williams snapped. He went 3 for 5 that day, finishing the season at .406.

Stan Musial, one of the greatest pure hitters of all time, was widely known as an easygoing, soft-spoken gentleman. The first - and only - time he ever questioned a called strike, the stunned home plate umpire looked into the Cardinals' dugout and ejected the MANAGER.

During a Yankees-Reds spring training exhibition game, a skinny Cincinnati rookie drew a walk, and charged down to first base in a dead run. "Look", Yankee great Whitey Ford called derisively, "there goes Charley Hustle". Pete Rose, of course - possessing no great strength or speed, proceeded to spend the next quarter-century rewriting the record book - fueled only by the will to win and a love for the game of baseball.

Bob Gibson, in a classic piece of understatement, once said, "I try to create an uncomfortable atmosphere at the plate for the hitter". Ummm....yeah - I'd say he did. I wonder how Barry Bonds would have made out - striding to the plate looking like the Michelin Man, digging trenches in the batter's box and hanging his head out over half the strike zone - against Gibby.

It's a different day, and a different game. I used to be the guy who could tell you the batting average of the bench-warming utility infielder on the last place team in the other league. But, watching the last few decades of baseball's increasingly wretched excesses, I just don't care anymore.

Dennis Miller - even in the days before he began his slow, painful crawl toward sanity, once directed a comment toward major league baseball that applies quite well:

"You've shattered forever the illusion that any of it matters."

 

[5stringJeff]

Barry Bonds is the worst thing to ever happen to baseball. If he had stayed off the roids and continued his decent career, great. But he has become third** on the all time HR list due to the use of steriods. I hope he does leave baseball, especially before he breaks Hank Aaron's record.