SWC75
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BARRY BOMBS
Baseball went on its merry way after the golden year of 1998. McGwire and Sosa waged another great battle in 1999 in which Big Mac again prevailed, 65 home runs to 63. They were the only players with 50 home runs that year but 11 more had 40+. In 2000, the injured McGwire dipped to 32 shots in 89 games while Sosa “slipped” to 50 in 156 games. But it finally won him a home run title. He was the only player with 50 homers but 15 others had 40+. This was the year that the all-time highest combined major league slugging percentage of .438 was achieved. In 2001, Alex Rodriguez, now playing for the Texas Rangers, led the AL with 52 homers. In the NL, Luis Gonzalez of the Arizona Diamondbacks had a Brady Anderson-type season with 57 home runs and became the hero of the World Series, getting the hit that finally beat the Yankees, who were going for their fourth straight championship. But he was topped by Sosa who had his greatest season, hitting .328 with 64 home runs, 160RBIs and 146 runs scored in 160 games. But even Sammy was not the big story. Barry Bonds, who had never hit 50 home runs before, suddenly hit an astonishing 73 blasts, breaking McGwire’s record, which had only lasted three years.
Bonds’ overall numbers were not as good as Sosa: .328BA 73HR 137RBI 129runs. He produced 601 bases, (breaking Babe Ruth’s record for slugging percentage with .863), but ‘only’ 193 runs while Sosa produced ‘only’ 541 bases but 242 runs. The big reason Bonds was named MVP was, of course that he set the home run record. He produced more bases than Sosa because he was walked 177 times, the most in history to that point. Sosa had 116 walks of his own, the most he ever had. Both men were being more selective than they had ever been before. On this season, Sosa actually had more intentional walks than Bonds, 37-35. The Giants actually scored more runs than the Cubs, 799-777. Bonds thus produced 24.2% of his team’s runs while Sosa produced 31.1% of his team’s runs. I think the reason for Bond’s lesser output of runs is the huge amount of walks he drew. That’s counter- intuitive- getting on base is supposed to be the key to scoring runs. But walks take the bat out of your hands and Bonds, especially at this point in his career, was more dangerous at the plate than he was on base.
Opposing pitchers must have taken notice as his walks grew to enormous proportions in the following years. They walked Bonds 198 times the next year to set another record. That was the year he hit .370 and had a record on base percentage of .582. He also hit 46 home runs in 143 games He drove in 110 runs and scored 117, thus producing 181 runs in those 143 games. His intentional walks increased from 35 to 67. In 2003 he only played 130 games but was intentionally walked 61 times out of 148 bases on balls. He hit 45 home runs, drove in 90 runs and scor4ed 111, producing 156 runs in those 130 games. . Then came his last big year when he hit .362 with another 45 home runs, 101 RBIs and 129 runs scored, producing 185 runs in 147 games. That year he blew the roof off his record for on base percentage with .609, (61% of the time he got on base!) because he blew the roof off his record for walks with a ridiculous 232. 120 of those walks were intentional. Pitchers were using intentional walks, (and very careful pitching), against Bonds to reduce his production, there by proving that walks are not always the same in their impact on the game. They can be used by the offense to score runs but they can be used by the defense to prevent them, too.
Those walks made it obvious who the National League pitchers were most afraid of. The Bonds story is famous now: he was a great player, perhaps the best in the game, but was jealous of the attention McGwire and Sosa got for their record rivalry in 1998: he knew he was a better player than either of them. He decided to start using steroids so he could put up huge home run numbers as well. He did but paid a price: people noticed his appearance changing. He had started as a 185 pound rookie was probably close to 240 by the end of his career. His head actually seemed to change shape and some said that that some unseen part of his body shrunk. He started missing games, (370 in his last 9 years). Knee surgery ended his 2005 season after 14 games. He came back in 2006-2007 to hit enough homers to barely catch Hank Aaron, a player who never took steroids and was 180 pounds his entire career, for the career home run crown, (762 to 755 for Aaron).
I remember reading that Mickey Mantle lived life as he did, full of booze, women good times, because he never expected to live past the age of 40 since the males in his family, including his own father, tended to die at that stage due to Hodgkin’s disease. Ironically, the disease skipped a generation and Mickey died as the result of his lifestyle at the age of 64 but one of his sons, Billy Mantle did contract the disease and died from it and alcoholism. Mickey said that if he’d known he was going to live as long as he didn’t. He would have taken better care of himself Bobby Bonds, Barry’s father dies of lung cancer and a brain tumor at age 57 in 2003. He’d been ill for several years. I’ve always wondered if Barry had the same outlook Mickey did: that, like his father, he wasn’t going to live that long so he might as well do what he wanted. If that meant risking tumors from steroids in exchange for breaking the home run records.
I’ve always felt thatthere3 was another factor besides the steroids that helped Bonds break those records: he was famous for wearing all kinds of ‘armor’ at the plate:
http://c8.alamy.com/comp/FF7H93/fil...onds-walks-to-the-plate-during-the-FF7H93.jpg
All those pads and shields would allow him to crowd the plate and put the fat part of the bat on a pitch on the outside corner. I think this would have had as strong an impact on his numbers as some extra muscles. By comparison, here is Hank Arron at the plate:
http://media.gettyimages.com/photos...h=9LhR7TNDlEBk0iEChgZF6QLv2H3x5Xy0LM6MkQ7We5g=
It was suggested I check how often they were hit by pitches to see if they were crowding the plate: Bonds was hit by a pitch 106 times in his career, Aaron 32 times. Other players have been hit more than Barry:, (the record is 287), but with Barry being so protected, what would be the point of throwing at him? Also, all those muscles would probably come in most handy swinging at an inside pitch. But the armor still allows him to get to those outside pitch and that certainly helped his numbers.
Selectivity is also a huge factor. Ted Williams made a famous chart of his batting average when he swung at pitches in a certain sector:
https://nationalsreview.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/ted-williams-hitting-zones.jpg
Bonds, during his best years, basically refused to swing at anything not in his wheelhouse. So went he swung, he made good contact more than any normal batter would. Let’s look at the same things we looked at with McGwire and Sosa: the percentage of non-intentional walks and strikeouts of the plate appearances minus intentional walks and the percentage of hits that were home runs in Barry’s career:
1986 13.1% walks 21.2% strikeouts 17.4% home runs
1987 8.4% walks 14.5% strikeouts 17.4% home runs
1988 9.8% walks 13.7% strikeouts 15.8% home runs
1989 10.8% walks 14.2% strikeouts 13.2% home runs
1990 12.9% walks 13.7% strikeouts 21.2% home runs
1991 13.5% walks 12.0% strikeouts 15.8 % home runs
1992 16.4% walks 11.9% strikeouts 23.1% home runs
1993 13.2% walks 12.5% strikeouts 25.4% home runs
1994 12.3% walks 9.4% strikeouts 30.3% home runs
1995 16.0% walks 13.5% strikeouts 22.1% home runs
1996 18.8% walks 18.8% strikeouts 26.4% home runs
1997 16.9% walks 13.3% strikeouts 25.8% home runs
1998 15.1% walks 13.8% strikeouts 22.2% home runs
1999 15.1% walks 14.6% strikeouts 36.6% home runs
2000 16.2% walks 13.2% strikeouts 33.3% home runs
2001 22.6% walks 14.8% strikeouts 46.8% home runs
2002 23.9% walks 8.6% strikeouts 30.9% home runs
2003 17.9% walks 11.9% strikeouts 33.8% home runs
2004 22.5% walks 8.5% strikeouts 33.3% home runs
2005 12.2% walks 12.2% strikeouts 41.2% home runs (only 14 games)
2006 16.9% walks 11.2% strikeouts 26.3% home runs
2007 21.0% walks 12.4% strikeouts 29.8% home runs
His power output increased in 1993accompanied by a reduction in walks: he was getting more aggressive but not striking out any more. His walks then increased over the years but had levelled off by 1999 when he had a sharp increase in his home run rate: that’s got to be taking steroids to get some of McGwire and Sosa’s glory. But in 2001, when he jumped from 49 to 73 home runs, his walks skyrocketed, even not counting the intentional walks. He didn’t retain that rate of hitting home runs in subsequent years, even though his walks remained high. Were the walks the result of even greater discrimination in what he swung at, which produced the higher home run rate? Or were they a reaction to the higher home run rate and an attempt to neutralize Bonds by trying to not throw anything he could hit? If so, it partially worked in the following years, because Bonds never hit home runs at that rate, (virtually the same as McGwire’s from 1998-2001) again. Or maybe Bonds increased his intake of steroids in 2001 and then having set the record, reduced it afterwards. I don’t really have an answer for that one.
Baseball went on its merry way after the golden year of 1998. McGwire and Sosa waged another great battle in 1999 in which Big Mac again prevailed, 65 home runs to 63. They were the only players with 50 home runs that year but 11 more had 40+. In 2000, the injured McGwire dipped to 32 shots in 89 games while Sosa “slipped” to 50 in 156 games. But it finally won him a home run title. He was the only player with 50 homers but 15 others had 40+. This was the year that the all-time highest combined major league slugging percentage of .438 was achieved. In 2001, Alex Rodriguez, now playing for the Texas Rangers, led the AL with 52 homers. In the NL, Luis Gonzalez of the Arizona Diamondbacks had a Brady Anderson-type season with 57 home runs and became the hero of the World Series, getting the hit that finally beat the Yankees, who were going for their fourth straight championship. But he was topped by Sosa who had his greatest season, hitting .328 with 64 home runs, 160RBIs and 146 runs scored in 160 games. But even Sammy was not the big story. Barry Bonds, who had never hit 50 home runs before, suddenly hit an astonishing 73 blasts, breaking McGwire’s record, which had only lasted three years.
Bonds’ overall numbers were not as good as Sosa: .328BA 73HR 137RBI 129runs. He produced 601 bases, (breaking Babe Ruth’s record for slugging percentage with .863), but ‘only’ 193 runs while Sosa produced ‘only’ 541 bases but 242 runs. The big reason Bonds was named MVP was, of course that he set the home run record. He produced more bases than Sosa because he was walked 177 times, the most in history to that point. Sosa had 116 walks of his own, the most he ever had. Both men were being more selective than they had ever been before. On this season, Sosa actually had more intentional walks than Bonds, 37-35. The Giants actually scored more runs than the Cubs, 799-777. Bonds thus produced 24.2% of his team’s runs while Sosa produced 31.1% of his team’s runs. I think the reason for Bond’s lesser output of runs is the huge amount of walks he drew. That’s counter- intuitive- getting on base is supposed to be the key to scoring runs. But walks take the bat out of your hands and Bonds, especially at this point in his career, was more dangerous at the plate than he was on base.
Opposing pitchers must have taken notice as his walks grew to enormous proportions in the following years. They walked Bonds 198 times the next year to set another record. That was the year he hit .370 and had a record on base percentage of .582. He also hit 46 home runs in 143 games He drove in 110 runs and scored 117, thus producing 181 runs in those 143 games. His intentional walks increased from 35 to 67. In 2003 he only played 130 games but was intentionally walked 61 times out of 148 bases on balls. He hit 45 home runs, drove in 90 runs and scor4ed 111, producing 156 runs in those 130 games. . Then came his last big year when he hit .362 with another 45 home runs, 101 RBIs and 129 runs scored, producing 185 runs in 147 games. That year he blew the roof off his record for on base percentage with .609, (61% of the time he got on base!) because he blew the roof off his record for walks with a ridiculous 232. 120 of those walks were intentional. Pitchers were using intentional walks, (and very careful pitching), against Bonds to reduce his production, there by proving that walks are not always the same in their impact on the game. They can be used by the offense to score runs but they can be used by the defense to prevent them, too.
Those walks made it obvious who the National League pitchers were most afraid of. The Bonds story is famous now: he was a great player, perhaps the best in the game, but was jealous of the attention McGwire and Sosa got for their record rivalry in 1998: he knew he was a better player than either of them. He decided to start using steroids so he could put up huge home run numbers as well. He did but paid a price: people noticed his appearance changing. He had started as a 185 pound rookie was probably close to 240 by the end of his career. His head actually seemed to change shape and some said that that some unseen part of his body shrunk. He started missing games, (370 in his last 9 years). Knee surgery ended his 2005 season after 14 games. He came back in 2006-2007 to hit enough homers to barely catch Hank Aaron, a player who never took steroids and was 180 pounds his entire career, for the career home run crown, (762 to 755 for Aaron).
I remember reading that Mickey Mantle lived life as he did, full of booze, women good times, because he never expected to live past the age of 40 since the males in his family, including his own father, tended to die at that stage due to Hodgkin’s disease. Ironically, the disease skipped a generation and Mickey died as the result of his lifestyle at the age of 64 but one of his sons, Billy Mantle did contract the disease and died from it and alcoholism. Mickey said that if he’d known he was going to live as long as he didn’t. He would have taken better care of himself Bobby Bonds, Barry’s father dies of lung cancer and a brain tumor at age 57 in 2003. He’d been ill for several years. I’ve always wondered if Barry had the same outlook Mickey did: that, like his father, he wasn’t going to live that long so he might as well do what he wanted. If that meant risking tumors from steroids in exchange for breaking the home run records.
I’ve always felt thatthere3 was another factor besides the steroids that helped Bonds break those records: he was famous for wearing all kinds of ‘armor’ at the plate:
http://c8.alamy.com/comp/FF7H93/fil...onds-walks-to-the-plate-during-the-FF7H93.jpg
All those pads and shields would allow him to crowd the plate and put the fat part of the bat on a pitch on the outside corner. I think this would have had as strong an impact on his numbers as some extra muscles. By comparison, here is Hank Arron at the plate:
http://media.gettyimages.com/photos...h=9LhR7TNDlEBk0iEChgZF6QLv2H3x5Xy0LM6MkQ7We5g=
It was suggested I check how often they were hit by pitches to see if they were crowding the plate: Bonds was hit by a pitch 106 times in his career, Aaron 32 times. Other players have been hit more than Barry:, (the record is 287), but with Barry being so protected, what would be the point of throwing at him? Also, all those muscles would probably come in most handy swinging at an inside pitch. But the armor still allows him to get to those outside pitch and that certainly helped his numbers.
Selectivity is also a huge factor. Ted Williams made a famous chart of his batting average when he swung at pitches in a certain sector:
https://nationalsreview.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/ted-williams-hitting-zones.jpg
Bonds, during his best years, basically refused to swing at anything not in his wheelhouse. So went he swung, he made good contact more than any normal batter would. Let’s look at the same things we looked at with McGwire and Sosa: the percentage of non-intentional walks and strikeouts of the plate appearances minus intentional walks and the percentage of hits that were home runs in Barry’s career:
1986 13.1% walks 21.2% strikeouts 17.4% home runs
1987 8.4% walks 14.5% strikeouts 17.4% home runs
1988 9.8% walks 13.7% strikeouts 15.8% home runs
1989 10.8% walks 14.2% strikeouts 13.2% home runs
1990 12.9% walks 13.7% strikeouts 21.2% home runs
1991 13.5% walks 12.0% strikeouts 15.8 % home runs
1992 16.4% walks 11.9% strikeouts 23.1% home runs
1993 13.2% walks 12.5% strikeouts 25.4% home runs
1994 12.3% walks 9.4% strikeouts 30.3% home runs
1995 16.0% walks 13.5% strikeouts 22.1% home runs
1996 18.8% walks 18.8% strikeouts 26.4% home runs
1997 16.9% walks 13.3% strikeouts 25.8% home runs
1998 15.1% walks 13.8% strikeouts 22.2% home runs
1999 15.1% walks 14.6% strikeouts 36.6% home runs
2000 16.2% walks 13.2% strikeouts 33.3% home runs
2001 22.6% walks 14.8% strikeouts 46.8% home runs
2002 23.9% walks 8.6% strikeouts 30.9% home runs
2003 17.9% walks 11.9% strikeouts 33.8% home runs
2004 22.5% walks 8.5% strikeouts 33.3% home runs
2005 12.2% walks 12.2% strikeouts 41.2% home runs (only 14 games)
2006 16.9% walks 11.2% strikeouts 26.3% home runs
2007 21.0% walks 12.4% strikeouts 29.8% home runs
His power output increased in 1993accompanied by a reduction in walks: he was getting more aggressive but not striking out any more. His walks then increased over the years but had levelled off by 1999 when he had a sharp increase in his home run rate: that’s got to be taking steroids to get some of McGwire and Sosa’s glory. But in 2001, when he jumped from 49 to 73 home runs, his walks skyrocketed, even not counting the intentional walks. He didn’t retain that rate of hitting home runs in subsequent years, even though his walks remained high. Were the walks the result of even greater discrimination in what he swung at, which produced the higher home run rate? Or were they a reaction to the higher home run rate and an attempt to neutralize Bonds by trying to not throw anything he could hit? If so, it partially worked in the following years, because Bonds never hit home runs at that rate, (virtually the same as McGwire’s from 1998-2001) again. Or maybe Bonds increased his intake of steroids in 2001 and then having set the record, reduced it afterwards. I don’t really have an answer for that one.