What will history do with Barry Bonds?

[crokett]

What I'd like to see is he will go into the record books but that will be it - he will be ignored and not get the respect was so desparate and ruined his career for. The standards will still be Aaron and Ruth. Passing Barry (if anyone does) will be an afterthought.

[poolhound]

I am with you on this one 100%. I would also hope that the history books (if not the record books) also make mention of the issues with steroids etc.

Frankly I am not sure there is anybody out there who actually cares he "broke" the record except him!!!

[LCHIEN]

well, as long as humankind has interests in records, then he'll be remembered. Even with the steroid thing, its quite an achievement after all these years. Humans love records. It's how we measure progress, greatness and other things. we're fascinated by things that are bigger, more powerful, longer, faster, smaller, more complex etc.

Keeping records is one of the things that sets us apart from the apes and everything below on the intelligence scale.

[jhart]

I've gotten to the point that for the most part, I really don't care much about pro sports anymore. During my high school and college days, I was up on every sport, all the players, etc. Now, I just basically glance at the sports section in the paper and go to bed after the weather.
I would really like to see all the records broken by the "users", thrown out.

[cgallery]

Bonds is just the tip of the iceberg. The performance-enhancing drug use in professional sports is rampant! And as fast as tests are developed, new drugs/therapies/methods are pioneered to conceal the doping.

Going forward, there will always be a cloud of suspicion as records fall. About the only way around this is if athletes voluntarily submit to comprehensive lie detector tests to determine whether they doped during their career.

However, the people giving them the drugs would probably teach them to beat the tests (I hear it is possible to beat a lie detector, but I don't know for sure).

Thanks,
Phil

[crokett]

(I hear it is possible to beat a lie detector, but I don't know for sure).

It is possible. A lie detector measures the change in stress level. So either you are a sociopath who isn't stressed by a lie, you are trained in biofeedback to control it or you raise the baseline stress level prior to the test - stick a tack in your shoe or something similar.

[SteveJ]

I don't follow sports much so maybe I shouldn't be commenting on this, but I've never really understood why this is such an issue. That is, I know what happened, and I know why everyone is so upset with Bonds, but in theory how is taking a steroid that much different from taking couple of sinus pills to relieve sinus pressure before a game? Both are drugs, and both will enhance the player's performance, won't they?

If I'm not mistaken, the Olympics consider any kind of substance to be a drug violation, even a sinus pill. This seems idiotic to me, but it is the logical extension of banning steroids, isn't it?


Steve