Assessing a Potential Barry Bonds Grievance | FanGraphs Baseball

I agree with this assessment 100%. I think they did collude in a wink, wink nod, nod kind of way. Not enough concrete evidence will see the light of day, the owners aren't that stupid. I don't see what is to gain by Bonds and Co. but then again, I didn't think their appeal would get that far either, so I have been wrong in the past. It will give his enemies in the media renewed ammunition against him, as if they really needed it.

It might have been best to just let it go. LET IT GO, MAN!!!

BTW - Same advice to Josh Hamilton re: his recent divorce from the Angels.

from FanGraphs Baseball:
Assessing a Potential Barry Bonds Grievance | FanGraphs Baseball:

Barring a smoking gun document clearly showing that the MLB clubs had colluded, however, it is uncertain whether circumstantial evidence alone would be enough to convince an arbitrator to rule in Bonds’ favor. Indeed, MLB will undoubtedly contend that its teams had ample reason to each independently decide not to offer Bonds a contract for the 2008 season. Not only had Bonds earned a reputation for being a difficult teammate and a suspected PED user, but he was also entering his age-44 season, and therefore presented a significant risk for a steep decline. In addition, Bonds would have been playing under a cloud of legal troubles in 2008, after being charged in November 2007 with 14 counts of perjury and obstruction of justice (a case that – at the time – was expected to go to trial in early 2009). 

Moreover, as Rob Neyer pointed out last week, only a handful of teams were a logical fit for Bonds at the time. Because his defense had declined significantly by 2008, Bonds’ most natural role at that point would have been as a designated hitter. However, all but 5 or 6 American League teams already had a competent DH on their roster during the 2007-08 off-season. And while it is true that the fact that none of those 5 or 6 teams in need of an upgrade at DH were willing to sign Bonds – even at the league minimum salary – could suggest that there was some sort of collusion taking place, it is also plausible that such a relatively small number of teams did, in fact, each independently decide that signing Bonds wasn’t worth the potential headaches. So given all that, MLB can credibly argue that its teams did not engage in collusion.

'via Blog this'

BBWAA writers should relinquish throne as HOF's moral gatekeepers-MLB - Buster Olney Blog- ESPN

Glad to see my original thoughts, from years and years ago, are starting to gain some mainstream traction. IMO, it will be too little, too late from both Clemens and Bonds. The BBWAA will take the easy way out and pass it along to the Veterans Committee as they have historically.

Time to revamp the whole process. They are weeding out the "undesirables", the guys in the BBWAA who do not even watch baseball but retained a Hall of Fame vote. That made sense, although it mimics what we do in this country to vote for a POTUS, so WTFDIK?!?

I like them both, but under the circumstances as we now know them, how Clemens garners more support than Bonds, under than covert, subtle racism among the voting bloc, is beyond my understanding.

Also, if there is place for Piazza and his back-ne, then explain to me again, like I'm a second grader, how Clemens and Bonds don't belong. Once again, other than a "good old boys" wink-wink, nod-nod, HTF does that happen?

Oh, what a tangled web these good old boys weave.....

from ESPN:
http://espn.go.com/blog/buster-olney/insider/post?id=11997

BBWAA writers should relinquish throne as HOF's moral gatekeepers

Thom Loverro attaches a label to the writers who have changed their minds and voted for Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.
The ballot machinations have been interesting this year. Some voters hid behind the so-called character clause for years in declining to vote for Bonds, Clemens, Mike Piazza or others linked to performance-enhancing drugs, and are now reversing course without truly acknowledging a complete flip-flop or any previous mistake they've made. Which is a cop-out.
It's OK to change your mind; we all do that. But nobody should attempt to write, at least with any credibility, that the character clause should be given weight and then switch a vote on a player from the PED group.
What that really means is that voter has never actually developed a true standard for election, which has always been the core challenge. Either the character clause matters in the process, or it doesn't; there can be no middle ground on that question.
And as has been written here for years, the character clause should hold no weight, because even with current Hall of Famers, it cannot possibly apply, given the high number of people with personal flaws -- human flaws -- among the group.
For starters, the person believed to have written the character clause, former commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, worked to keep the sport segregated, and that in itself should have been enough to appraise the depth and significance of the character clause.
For the record: I stopped voting in the Hall of Fame last year. Before that, I voted for who I believed to be the best players on the ballot, regardless of PED history, for a couple of reasons:
1. There was never a way to know exactly who did what, and when, and in what volume, and ascertain a proper context for any one player's use of performance-enhancing drugs.Yes, we know some things about what a small handful of prominent players did, like Mark McGwire, but was he one of 500 players who did something? A thousand? Maybe he was one of 10,000 or more when you include the number of minor league players (and other various circuits) attempting to elbow their way to The Show?
This is what made the Mitchell investigation and report so disgustingly abhorrent: There was absolutely no chance of reaching anything close to a necessary understanding of the scope of drug use within the sport, and yet the folks who generated that information singled out fewer than 100 in their final rendering, while knowing they were effectively demonizing the handful they threw to the mob.
Sadly, writers have done the same with the handling of the Hall of Fame voting.
Insider

Sent from my iPhone

---


from Yahoo Sports:

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/barry-bonds--roger-clemens-inch-closer-to-hall-of-fame-induction-021548714.html?soc_src=mail&soc_trk=ma

Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens inch closer to Hall of Fame inductions

Slowly, improbably, the tide is turning and the Baseball Writers Association of America is seeing the valley of its illogic. This year, it's a legitimate, substantial jump. Next year, a likely leap into a majority. And after that, perhaps the rolling snowball turns into an avalanche that sweeps Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens into their rightful place in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
.
The Hall reveals the results of balloting at 6 p.m. ET Wednesday, and the only sure thing is Ken Griffey Jr. waltzing into Cooperstown. Momentum – and exit polling – are in Mike Piazza's favor. Jeff Bagwell could sneak in past the 75 percent threshold. And Tim Raines is close enough that he should book a ticket to upstate New York for July 2017.
Amid it all are the suddenly ascendant candidacies of Bonds and Clemens, steroid pariah Nos. 1 and 2. Their first two years on the ballot were thought to have been a litmus test, and the results were more acidic than alkaline. Bonds received 34.7 percent in 2014 and 36.8 percent in 2015, Clemens 35.4 percent and 37.5 percent.
What once seemed a lost cause now can be categorized merely as a longshot. A confluence of events is breathing life into the candidacies of Bonds and Clemens, who occupied two of the nine names on my ballot, alongside Piazza, Bagwell, Raines, Mike Mussina, Curt Schilling and Edgar Martinez.
As of early Tuesday evening, the Hall of Fame vote tracker kept by Ryan Thibodaux showed Bonds tracking at 49.7 percent and Clemens at 49.1 percent of the 171 ballots shared publicly by BBWAA members. That's about 10 percent ahead of where they were on public ballots last year, and those numbers – particularly for those who used or are suspected to have used steroids – tend to end up about 5 percent higher than the entire lot of ballots.
While their gains don't match some – Mussina is up 22 percent, Bagwell and Martinez 19 percent, Raines 15 percent and Schilling 13 percent – they are gains nevertheless, and they may not stop despite the Hall's clear – if not publicly stated – desire to keep them away from walls dotted with cheaters already.
Certainly it's possible that the exit polling is deceiving and Bonds and Clemens remain stagnant, though if history does hold, there are two explanations for the jump: winnowing upward of 100 voters and others beginning to rationalize why keeping Bonds and Clemens off their ballots went against logic.
Taking away votes from voters who haven't written about baseball in decades made sense. The best electorate is the most informed, and to expect those far removed from the industry to understand the game's shift – and the according increase in knowledge – places an unfair burden. Those new to Bonds and Clemens have their reasons, though the most compelling comes from San Francisco Chronicle national baseball writer John Shea, who wrote: "How could I in good faith not vote for Bonds when I might be voting for other PED guys?"
Shea isn't the only national voice to add Bonds and Clemens to their ballot. Fox's Ken Rosenthal, the most respected voice in baseball writing, checked off Bonds and Clemens for the first time this year. ESPN's Jerry Crasnick, another writer known for intelligent and measured thought, did the same. At least seven others publicly acknowledged adding Bonds and Clemens, and longtime writer Jon Heyman said he voted for Bonds for the first time.
Not only do the votes of big-name writers help this season, they could subtly nudge others to reconsider their positions in future seasons. Advancing the case even more would be the induction of Piazza. By the twisted reasoning of some, it will take a player believed to have taken steroids – though dogged by suspicion, Piazza never tested positive nor was proven to have used performance-enhancing drugs – entering the Hall before voters are comfortable allowing others in.
Treating Piazza like some sort of steroid pioneer is so twisted, so backward, so very Hall of Fame. If that's what it takes to help voters recognize that leaving out Bonds and Clemens – the greatest hitter since Babe Ruth and one of the finest pitchers ever – is an abdication of duty, so be it. Just because the Hall of Fame refuses to wipe out its antiquated character clause, one ignored by our voting predecessors and that has no business in choosing players who best represented their era through the quality of their play, doesn't mean that writers who vote must hem themselves to it.
No matter what any writer believes, he or she doesn't understand what happened during the height of steroid use in baseball. Even if opinions can be rendered without a full accounting, anything but an all-or-nothing vote – either you consider all players from an era or don't bother casting a ballot – is a cop-out. Not voting for players because of suspicion is hubristic considering how little we truly know; not voting for those who tested positive is more understandable, though it lends credence to tests that athletes employ chemists to beat.
All of these things are conspiring for a step forward from the BBWAA. The moralists won't go away, and they may well occupy more than 25 percent of the electorate. That's not a surprise. Nobody ever accused the middle- to late-aged white male – the vast majority of BBWAA voters – of being the most progressive group.
At the same time, as the ballot glut of recent votes clears over the next few years and more writers who don't stigmatize steroids quite the same as others earn their votes, Bonds and Clemens adorning plaques in Cooperstown looks possible. It would be a striking moment for baseball, one that places accused cheaters alongside those who will argue the Hall would be ruined by their inclusion. Those are the words of obstructionists, of hypocrites, of a group that should welcome the game's best and brightest.
And whatever they might've been – liars, cheats, abusers of the privilege that is playing baseball – Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens were the best and brightest. Forget all the rest. The voters have seven years left to get it right.

Sent from my iPhone

PSA AutographFacts™ - Barry Bonds

From psacard..com
http://www.psacard.com/AutographFacts/AutographDetail/5/barry-bonds

Barry Bonds

Barry Bonds Signed Photo

Gallery

Profile

Starting at Arizona State in the 1980s, to his current day, mass-produced signature, this all-time home run leader's signature has taken on many shapes and forms. The true vintage signature of Barry Bonds and the most desirable example is from the 1984-1987 period, when he was a college senior to his rookie year with the Pirates. His signature, during this time, was a very distinguished and legible "Barry L. Bonds."
As his popularity grew, so did the demand for his signature. By 1988, Bonds' signature was a far cry from what it was just a season before. Throughout the years, his signature has gone from showcasing every letter, to being almost unreadable, then back to an every letter version, though much more pronounced and neater than his signature from the mid-1980s. Bonds has actively marketed his signature to fans, dealers and collectors through his own company. His autograph can be found on virtually any kind of baseball memorabilia.

Subject Profile

Barry Lamar Bonds (July 24, 1964-) is the only member of the 500-500 clubs, having hits 500 or more home runs and stolen 500 or more bases during his career. Barry was one of the most loved and hated players in baseball history, but is arguably one of the greatest to ever play the game, holding numerous offensive records. The San Francisco Giants originally drafted Bonds in the second round of the 1982 MLB Draft, but they were unable to reach and agreement, so after choosing to attend college, the Pittsburgh Pirates selected Barry with the sixth overall pick of the 1985 MLB June Amateur Draft out of Arizona State University. He was a Sporting News All-American with the Sun Devils in 1985 and he set an NCAA record, as a sophomore, when he collected seven consecutive hits in the College World Series. In Pittsburgh, Barry played left field next to centerfielder Andy Van Slyke and right fielder Bobby Bonilla making the trio one of the best defensive outfields in the National League that was equally dangerous at the plate. In 1990, his fifth season in the Major Leagues, Bonds earned his first of seven National League Most Valuable Player Awards (1990, 1992, 1993, 2001-2004).
Barry led the NL once in RBI and runs scored, twice in home runs including his record-setting 73 HR season in 2001, seven times in slugging percentage, ten times in on-base percentage and 12 times in walks. Barry played 22 seasons in the Majors with the Pirates (1986-1992) and the San Francisco Giants (1993-2007) and was a 14-time All-Star, eight-time NL Gold Glove winner, won 12 Silver Sluggers and three Hank Aaron Awards. He holds the all-time records for most MVP awards (7), most walks (2,558) and home runs (762). He scored 100 or more runs and drove in 100 or more RBI twelve times, amassed 120 or more hits 17 times and hit 25 or more HRs in 18 or his 22 seasons. Barry Bonds finished his career with 2,935 hits including 601 doubles and 762 home runs, 2,227 runs scored, 2,558 walks, 514 stolen bases and 1,996 RBI. He also posted a .984 fielding percentage with 5,637 putouts, 173 assists, 25 double plays and 97 errors in 5,907 chances. He helped lead the Pirates to three national League Championship Series, led San Francisco to the 2002 NLCS and World Series, falling to the Los Angeles of Anaheim in seven games. Barry retired amidst rumors he used performance enhancing drugs and court proceedings surrounding the BALCO scandal and his indictment on perjury and obstruction of justice charges in 2007. Barry was convicted of one felony count of obstruction of justice in 2011. Despite the unfortunate end to his career, Bonds is likely a first ballot Hall of Famer.

Sent from my iPhone

Looking back on Barry Bonds : ESPN The Magazine

• Buster Olney, Senior Writer, ESPN The Magazine

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article appeared in the August 8, 2004 issue of ESPN The Magazine.

Looking back:



Hitting coach Jeff Pentland would tell other major leaguers, You don't want what Barry has, meaning they weren't equipped for the challenge of greatness. Pentland, who was Bonds' hitting coach at Arizona State and a lifelong friend, was amazed at how well Bonds coped with his own success. In that kind of spotlight, the more you accomplish, the more that's expected of you, the more you have at stake. Even the smallest failures become

enormous. Almost anyone would shrivel from that kind of pressure, Pentland believed, once they
understood it. Bonds embraced it.

He was obsessed with correcting flaws. A couple of months into his major league career, Bonds phoned Pentland and explained that pitchers were jamming him with fastballs.

"What do I need to do?" Bonds asked. "Barry, you're the smartest player I ever had," Pentland responded. "You'll
figure it out."

In time, Bonds moved closer to the plate, shortened his stride – "Just be slow with your feet," he once explained –and became the best hitter of inside fastballs Pentland had ever seen. And the best breaking-ball hitter. And the most disciplined, period.

Swinging a bat is the most basic instinct for ballplayers. They've been doing it since they were toddlers, and after years upon years of backyard games and BP and organized competition, the yearning to swing the bat is ingrained. A player walks past a new box of bats, and invariably he reaches in and pulls one out, hefts it, takes a
half-swing, checks out how it feels. It's a blind date with wood, and the ballplayer is looking to hook up. It's what they do. It's who they are.

So other players watched Bonds abstain, refuse to swing at anything out of the strike zone, and they were awestruck. He drew fewer than 100 walks in each of his first five seasons, but late in his
career, he was spitting at outside pitches. Bonds wouldn't see a strike for four or five at-bats – hell, for two or three days – and yet, when a pitcher tried enticing him with a fastball just off the
corner, he held back. He had the most potent swing in the game, more reason to swing than any of his peers, and yet he had conquered that most basic instinct. He was the pope of plate discipline.

....

You had to see him every day to understand. Everybody has bad days in BP. Bonds never did, carving line drives to left when he wanted, always smashing the ball squarely with his bat, forever precise, his concentration unrivaled. "The great players are able to slow the game down," said A's pitcher Tim Hudson, who allowed six hits in Bonds' first 14 career at-bats against him, including two homers. "He's been able to slow it down a little more than most. He's like the big kid in elementary school who was way better than everybody else."

Virtually all hitters identify pitches by the rotation of the ball after it leaves the pitcher's hand. If they see spin, the ball's face turned into a whirlpool of seams, they know the pitcher has thrown a curve or a slider. Otherwise, it's probably a fastball or a changeup. But Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn, who studied his rivals, maintained that Bonds could identify pitches before they were released. As a pitcher's hand reached its apex, Gwynn explained, Bonds could detect in an instant whether the pitcher held the ball with his palm and fingers straight up and down (a fastball), or if he gripped it from the side (a breaking ball). A flap of fingers sticking up from behind the ball meant changeup.

In practical terms, this meant Bonds had a huge advantage on other hitters, who had to wait until the ball was four or five feet into its journey toward the plate – an eternity, by comparison. "They always said it looked like he knew a breaking ball was coming," Gwynn said then. "Well, he did."

That wasn't exactly news to his teammate, pitcher Jason Schmidt. When Bonds hit his record 73 homers in 2001, Schmidt said, "They would throw him a breaking ball, and he was like a statue. He wouldn't even move. I've never seen anything like that. He knew it was a ball even before it left the guy's hand. He didn't offer. He didn't check-swing. You don't see hitters do that."

But by the time Bonds turned 40, Schmidt was used to seeing him do the impossible. Somebody broke out a deck of cards in spring training, and Bonds eyeballed the deck as it was shuffled, then predicted the identity of the bottom card. Four times in a row. You had to see it to understand.

Sam Holman lugged a bag of bats over to Bonds in the spring of 1999, bats made out of maple rather than ash. Bonds had heard about Holman and his bats from former teammate Joe Carter, and after Bonds launched homer after homer with the maple in BP, he sat with the former stagehand and asked precise questions about why the
bats seemed harder. Holman sent him a dozen bats a week. Bonds would phone
whenever he wanted to make tenth-of-an-ounce adjustments.

Bonds had asked for just such an
incrementally lighter alteration in the summer of 2001, when he was stalking Mark McGwire's single-season home run record of 70. Holman watched on TV as Bonds bounced a couple of long drives against outfield fences, and knew he'd be getting a call. Sure enough: "Dude, there's something wrong," Bonds said. He and Holman agreed to ratchet up the weight by one-tenth of an ounce, and Bonds blew McGwire away. "Barry and I both know," Holman said, "that the record could be 76 or 77. He did the work for that."

'via Blog this'

Barry Bonds : Before & After Steroids

Assume for a moment that, instead of using PEDs, Barry Bonds had retired after his 1999 season (WAR of 3.8, age 34). That leaves him with a career WAR of 103.3, which puts him 19 all time, solidly worthy of the Hall, but not anywhere close to Ruth, Mays, Cobb, et al. Perhaps without the PEDs he would have recovered to his previous form, or, maybe, he would have continued to deteriorate, like most players do by their mid 30s (without PEDs). We don't know, and I'm not willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. So, no, he's not among the "best players of any generation", unless you're willing to let him, and only him, use PEDs.

Bonds had a WAR over 6.8 in each of the three seasons prior to 1999

And in 1999 had a 4.2 bWAR in only 102 games. Yeah, he was really deteriorating.

unless you're willing to let him, and only him, use PEDs.

There were a ton of other players also using PEDs, and Bonds still had years where he was more than 150% better than his steroid using peers (against steroid using pitchers). So by the time he was 34 he was already one of the top 20 players of all time, and then on a level playing field against many other steroid users he was still far and away better than everyone. I'd say that qualifies for "best players of any generation".

Man, I feel like Jim Edmonds will end up as one of the best players never to make the HOF

Just chilling with Pete Rose, Barry Bonds, Mark Mcgwire, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, Larry Walker, Edgar Martinez, Tim Raines, Curt Schilling and Mike Mussina.

~;::::::;( )">  ¯\_( )_/¯

Jason Giambi Retires:

Giambi apologized again on May 16, 2007, this time specifically for using steroids, and urged others in the sport to do the same.^[34] "I was wrong for using that stuff", he told USA Today. "What we should have done a long time ago was stand up—players, ownership, everybody—and said, 'We made a mistake.'" When asked why he used steroids, Giambi responded: "Maybe one day I'll talk about it, but not now." Giambi did speak with George J. Mitchell, after being forced to do so by Bud Selig. Subsequently, in December 2007, the Mitchell Report included Giambi along with his brother Jeremy Giambi, who also admitted to using steroids during his career.^[35]

The Only Conspiracy Here Is An Attempt To Hide Their Hypocrisy

While Schilling may have some semblance of a point about him being a Republican, that's not the real reason why Bonds, Clemens, Sosa, McGwire and some others are not in HOF. Its because if the BW allow themselves to elect them into the HOF it exposes them as being complicit in the PED era of baseball. These are the same writers who knew what was going on and yet still wrote of the glorious accolades of these players for many years without saying a thing about what they saw going on in the clubhouses.

These very same writers made tons of money writing about the chase for Maris in 1998 and the chase for the Babe a few years later. They knew what was going on yet remained silent. Why? Maybe because they knew these players, while doing something shady, were not technically doing anything illegal. And if they also wrote about the PEDs, they'd have to also write about MLB's guilt in turning a blind eye to what was going on. After all, MLB and its owners were raking in the money from all the Home Run fever going on.

Think about for a second. McGwire admitted to using PEDs. Palmeiro got caught. Sosa too. Yet what punishment did they receive from MLB? Fines? no. Suspensions? Nope. Not a single punishment from MLB. Even Bonds, while widely known to have been using PEDs, was never punished by MLB. And his only crime was impeding a federal investigation. Nowadays players are being punished by MLB for using. What's the difference? Didn't the Commissioner's office send out a memo in the early 90s saying that use of PEDs was not acceptable in MLB clubhouses? Yes he did. But what force and power did that memo have?

Literally NONE. Without the consent and agreement of MLBPA, likely as part of a CBA, to punish players for any behavior whatsoever, a memo from the Commissioner has no weight whatsoever. It'd be like the President of the US declaring something to be illegal without the consent of Congress. Sure, the President could have someone arrested for violating such a law. But he could never prosecute them. Simply because there is no underlying law from which a prosecutor could prosecute or a jury could convict or judge could penalize. Its not a perfect analogy, but its close enough to help you understand that a memo from the commissioner without an agreement with the MLBPA on enforcing that rule and how to punish leaves the rule in that memo impotent.

What Clemens and Bonds and others did prior to the CBA agreement in 2003 or so established an accepted rule for MLB is no more a violation of the rules of baseball than throwing a spitball was prior to 1920. Ironically, even decades after it became illegal in baseball for a pitcher to doctor a baseball, Gaylord Perry made it into the HOF, in no small part, because of his doctoring of baseballs.

by JMichael39 on Jan 9, 2015 | 1:38 PM reply

Bud Selig was the deaf, dumb and blind kid when it was one of his own "allegedly" caught dirty. 

He tried to care, ended up looking like a lame duck.

Last March, at the team's invitation, the Giants said Bonds would appear at spring training as a hitting instructor. Bud Selig was not amused. He was about to commence his celebratory final round as commissioner, and Bonds was an unwelcome reminder of Selig's many embarrassments.

Selig talked angrily by phone with Giants officials, according to people in Major League Baseball.
I hope Giants executives giggled into the receiver.

@txbtxb

Did he have that same call with the Cardinals when they brought back McGwire?

McGwire cried and apologized, bro.

Selig still maintains that a lab tech had a personal grudge against Braun. Way to try and bail out your (daughter's) team.