Barry Bonds of Riverside, California, will be getting a statue outside Oracle Park in San Francisco, California, according to the Associated Press on Friday. There is no doubt that Bonds is considered one of the top hitters in Major League Baseball history. However, the fact remains he took steroids, and is not in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown as a result.
The question here is why are the Giants honouring and celebrating a player with such a controversial past? Should he be honoured alongside fellow Giants legends who also have a statue? They are centerfielder Willie Mays of Westfield, Alabama, pitcher Gaylord Perry of Williamston, North Carolina, first baseman Willie McCovey of Mobile, Alabama, pitcher Juan Marichal of Laguna Verde, Dominican Republic, and first baseman Orlando Cepeda of Ponce, Puerto Rico. Mays, Perry, McCovey, Marichal and Cepeda are all Hall of Famers, and are considered by many among the best to play the game.
Is Bonds considered great when he took a substance? The real question is were the rules clear in Major League Baseball at the time regarding what substances were allowed and disallowed for players to take? This is where the grey area exists, and why an argument can be made that players who took steroids at the time should be given a free pass.
Bonds’s Giants statistics
Bonds played 15 seasons with the Giants from 1993 to 2007, after seven seasons with Pittsburgh Pirates. In 1976 games for San Francisco, Bonds batted .312 with 586 home runs and 1440 runs batted in. During 6263 at bats and 8351 plate appearances, he scored 1555 runs, and had 1951 hits, 381 doubles, 41 triples, 263 stolen bases, 1947 walks. 4172 total bases, one sacrifice bunt, 54 sacrifice flies, an on base percentage of .477 and a slugging percentage of .666. Bonds’s sacrifice bunt (which was very irregular for a slugger like Bonds) came in a 4-1 Giants win over the Pirates on September 23, 1998.
