NBA Blog

So everybody likes to hate on Barry Bonds.  I have grown increasingly tired of the attacks.  From people selling books about him to the never-ending coverage of angry posts against him that were shown on ESPNews yesterday.  It has become incredibly tiresome. 

There were even people who were saying that he does not belong in the Hall of Fame, which may be the dumbest thing ever proclaimed about Major League Baseball. 

Well, because of all of this hatred and disdain, I thought I would put in a good word for Mr. Bonds.  I believe ‘Game of Shadows’ chronicled Barry’s steroid use in either 1999 or 2000, and for the sake of convenience, I will just go with everything pre-2000.  By that season, Barry had already amassed 445 homeruns and 460 stolen bases.  That’s right, Barry was a 400-400 guy long before anyone gave a damn about steroids.  In fact, those were the Rennaissance years for the MLB.  Big Mac hit 70 during the summer when Slammin’ Sammy was nipping at his heels and the cookie-cutter 1970’s dual stadiums were being demolished for Camden Yark copycats.  Nobody knew about steroids and nobody wanted to know, including Bud Selig.  Everybody just wanted to relish in the spotlight.

Now, Barry is the face of everything that is wrong with this era, the so-called steroid era.  I have a question, does that make the 1970’s the coke-era or the pre-Jackie Robinson days the mighty-whitey era?  Maybe the MLB should be like artists and have periods.  Who could forget the MLB blue period.  Much like the steroid period, in the blue period, everybody was doing it no matter what the team colors were.

Well, let us take a look at another player that could possibly be the face of this steroid era.  Notice the incredible spike in production during the two-year stint in Toronto.  In the four years leading up to his move to Toronto, Roger won a total of 40 games, lost 39 games, struck out 717 batters (an average of 179 per season) and seemed well over-the-hill.  Then Rog goes to Toronto, it is a whole other country with different standards about acquiring performance enhancers you know, and in two seasons reasserts himself as a dominant pitcher.  In two seasons north of the border, Roger won 41 games, more than his previous four seasons, while only losing 13 games and striking out an astonishing  563 hitters.  Oh, and his ERA dropped an entire point in that time.  But wait, there’s more!  Roger got his fat deal in New York and returned to ordinary in his first two seasons in the Bronx before making a huge push in 1998 to get more money.  In ‘98 he once again topped the 20 win and 200 strikeout marks all while losing a total of THREE games.  Roger was a superhuman by that point.  Then he retired after the 2003 season only to resurface in Houston late in camp and put together an 18-4 season with 218 strikeouts and a sub-3.00 ERA in a hitter’s park.  That was only his 20th MLB season, so obviously such greatness is easily feasible.  What did he do in year 21 you ask?  Well, he only had 13 wins, but he did manage to have an ERA of 1.87.  Read that again.  An ERA of 1.87.  Seriously.  In a hitter’s park.  ERAs weren’t even that low during the ‘Dead Ball’ Period.  (Already sticking with the period theme.)  Just throwing some gaudy numbers out there for all of you numbers people.

Perhaps you would like some information about this guy.  Gagne began his career with the Dodgers in 1999 when he started five games.  In those five games, he struck out a batter per inning in 30 innings of work.  He showed some skills, but then in 2000 Gagne went 4-6 with only 79 strikeouts in 101 innings of work and posted a 5.15 ERA.  Gagne continued to struggle in 2001 by going 6-7 with an ERA of 4.75.  He struck out 130 batters in 151 innings of work, and seemed destined to return to the minors.  Instead, the Dodgers moved Gagne to the bullpen for one more shot in 2001.  What did Gagne do, you ask?  Well, he simply put together the greatest three year stretch any closer has ever managed to do by saving 52, 55, and 45 games in 2002, 2003, and 2004 respectively.  Oh, and his ERA only climbed above a 2.00 in 2004 when it was an K2-like 2.19.  Lets not forget his little consecutive game streak that was such a big deal during that stretch.  He also struck out 365 batters during that stretch despite pitching only 246.9 innings, which translates to nearly 1.5 strikeouts per inning.  Not too shabby for a power pitcher that could not get the job done early in his career.

You say ’so what’ and ‘Roger added his splitter to make him better.’  Well, I counter with the fact that Barry, once a free-swinging speedster, much like his father, developed patience in San Francisco.  While working with Willie Mays and Bobby Bonds, Barry became a much more patient hitter.  He also shortened his swing to the picture-perfect swing that we frequently see today.  His attack of the ball is so compact that there is minimal room for error on his part.  Young Barry used to get his arms extended to the point that he was over swinging and getting around the ball.  He was trying to hit homeruns and often overextended his hands leading to frequent strikeouts or pulling groundballs that should have been linedrives the other way.  (As a young college ballplayer playing in a short home park, I too know what that was like.)

Barry became so patient and confident at the plate that he was able to wait for the perfect mistake in every at-bat.  Once more, he was so functionally perfect that he was able to turn that one mistake into a homerun, whenever that mistake came, which was typically once every two games.  For a four year stretch, Barry saw fewer hittable pitches than any other hitter in the league.  Yet, his obscene abilities and fundamentally sound approach (and alleged added muscle) allowed him to take advantage of those pitches with a much higher success rate than the average Major League hitter.  Screw it, he took advantage of those pitches at a much higher success rate than the greatest of Major League hitters. 

I remember a game three years ago where Barry was fooled by a Jason Isringhausen splitter (when Izzy still had good stuff), and I mean completely fooled by it with his body weight already shifting forward.  Yet, Barry managed to stay on the ball completely and rip a line shot into the power alley in right-center in Name-of-the-Week Stadium (what is it now, AT&T Park?).  It was absolutely incredible.  The steroids did not make him able to hit that pitch, and only one or two other hitters would have been able to stay on and behind the pitch enough even after being completely fooled to the point that they could get good wood on it.  The alleged juice probably helped that ball carry a few feet over the wall, but what he did in that at-bat (and not how far the ball traveled) was the incredible part.  Just like Vlad Guerrero has an ability to hit a ball no matter where it is pitched, Barry Bonds has the patience to wait for the absolute perfect time to swing and his obscene bat control allows him the ability to seemingly hit a homerun whenever he so chooses.  I don’t think it is the steroids, I just think he is a mutant, and I am jealous.  Even when I picked up the perfect pitch coming out of the pitcher’s hand, and knew it was my pitch to hit, I still could not/did not know that I was hitting it out.  Several times I did, but several times I got greedy, went long with the arms or dipped the back shoulder and ended up flying out to right.  Barry does not do that.  So respect his amazing abilities, and know that he is just better than you.

Seriously, look at the numbers.  If you made a mistake while pitching to Barry at any point during the late 1990’s to early 2000’s, he was getting a hit off of you.  Most likely, it was going to be a homerun.  Was he on supplements, or even more?  Certainly.  But we have already seen how clean even the worst hitters in the game are.  Heck, even middle releivers are on the juice.  Take a look at this list of players that have tested positive, admitted to some form of use, or have been implicated during this period.  That list is just scratching the surface.  All those holier-than-thou people who claim that he cheated the game are somewhate hypocritical.   The fans (and the League office) stood and cheered when two likable characters chased 61, yet turned up their noses when a far better, yet surly player went after Hank Aaron. 

I believe a much greater number of players used steroids or other federally banned substances that were not tested for in Major League Baseball during that period, and we will never know the true effect they had on the game.  Barry was already one of the greatest players ever, and the homerun mark only cemented his position atop the greats of the game.  Banned substances could not do that for David Segui. 

So relax people.  There are far worse things going on in the world of sports and the world in general.  You have the opportunity to see something/someone that infrequently comes along (approximately ever 35 years).  Enjoy it for what it is worth, a quick break from reality.  Barry plays a game that we all dreamed about as kids, and in those dreams, we were larger than life.  It just so happens that today’s ballplayers actually are artificially larger than life. 

For the record: after we watched Barry hit 756, I turned to the soon to be Mrs. Hoops and told her that Barry would go on a tear now that 756 is out of the way.  757 took off last night, and I expect at least three more bombs before the end of next week.  Barry will easily finish the season with 30+ homeruns.  Not too bad for a 43-year-old with no knees and a blown elbow.

Quick note: While doing some research, I stumbled upon a recap of the moronic “Turn Forward the Clock” promotion that MLB did in 1998 and 1999 at Uniwatch.  Man was idea ever terrible.  If you want to relive those monstrosities, go to this link.

Urban Watch:  Tune to the Indianapolis Colts-Dallas Cowboys preseason game this evening and root for the Legend.  He’ll be the only white receiver for Da ‘Boys and he wears number 15. 

I have not been a Dallas Cowboys fan since Jerry Jones purchased the team and fired the legendary Tom Landry.  I will admit that Tony Dorsett was my favorite player as a young mind, long before I realized that being born in San Francisco would lead me towards the 49er faithful. 

Then, for a period, I was a sports bigamist.  I loved the Cowboys and the 49ers, and it was hard.  The 49ers were my hometown team and they beat my brother’s favorite team, the Miami Dolphins, in the Super Bowl.  Wow.  How could you not back that crew.  Roger Craig ran with his high knees, and Taylor and Rice flew by defenders to catch passes from the ultra-cool Joe Montana.  Bill Walsh was just as cool and collected on the sidelines, and the old gold and red were a great match.  (I am extremely excited that the 49ers will start the season in throwbacks, but it will be a sad time to mourn such a coaching genius).

On the other hand, the Cowboys had Dorsett, the star, and the open stadium so God could watch His favorite team.  How could you not love that.  The always calm Landry patrolled the sidelines with his trademark hat, and never seemed to show any expression, even when Danny White would throw three lame ducks and then stay in to punt the ball as well. 

Thankfully, Jerry Jones came onto the scene in the late ’80’s and purchased the team.  His first order of business was to fire Landry.  Right then and there, I was done.  “Never again will I root for that team as long as Jones owns them,” I swore.  Luckily, the Cowboys made it easy to dislike them.  Emmitt Smith came along and started to become the Greatest Cowboy Running Back Ever.  To this day, Touchdown Tony Dorsett is the best in my book.  I don’t care about the records.  Troy Aikman could have been ultra-cool, but I just could not back him.  He was not the military man like Staubach, and he was no Montana.  Then again nobody ever will be.  Tom Brady has come exceptionally close, though.  Then, Michael Irvin and Jimmy Johnson took the cake.  I could not stand them.  Irvin pushed off and showed too much flash on a first down.  Jerry Rice and John Taylor would have scoffed at such antics.  Even Emmitt Smith had bad, over-the-top celebrations.  (The NFL even created a rule because of Emmitt.  He is why no on can remove their helmets after a touchdown).  Do not get me started on Barry Switzer.  Yeesh.

I was rolling right along with my disdain for the Cowboys, enjoying the post-Aikman years of Coach Campo, et. al., when the Cowboys had to do such a despicable thing.  They signed my man Legend.  If you do not know what I am talking about, obviously, you are not a regular reader.  (Quick recap:  I was a mediocre Division III football player for Trinity University, and I played alongside Jerheme Urban “Legend” for three years.  Hence, he is my favorite NFL player).  I was exceptionally happy when Urb scored his first, and only thus far, NFL touchdown against the Cowboys.

Now, I find myself scanning the ‘Web daily for information about the Cowboys.  I ritualistically tune to the NFL Network in the hopes that Rich Eisen will talk about the Cowboys.  I was even pining to draft Tony Romo and Jason Witten in my fantasy draft this past Sunday.  Dare I say it?  Am I once again a Cowboys fan?  …

Nah.  But I’ll root for Urban, and hope that he works his way into a roster spot, which appears to be the case thus far.

For now, I hope that Urban makes the squad and plays well.  I will even go so far as to hope the Cowboys make the playoffs, so long as Urban is on the squad.  But if they do my boy wrong, it is back to the hatred and animosity which they rightly deserve.  Hey, maybe the 49ers need another receiver!

Finally, we have the real poster boy for steroid abuse in Major League Baseball.  Forget Barry Bonds.  Leave him alone.  This is the real culprit, and his inflated stats prove that the stuff works.  See the link below.

 http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2960193

I know, I know, a second post in a day.  Like I said, I’m halfway out the door here.

I was watching some of the Giants-Dodgers game last night and caught Barry Bonds’ at-bat in the eighth inning to hear the loud, raucous booing going on.  I know this is one of the greatest rivalries in baseball, second only to the Yankees-Red Sox (only for publicity’s sake). 

And, I know that Barry is Dodger-faithful enemy number one.  That all is completely obvious. 

Though last night, I could not help but think of the Dodger fans as hypocrites.  Not only is Los Angeles the kingdom of fake people.  Per capita there is more fake-baking and silicon, botox, and plastic walking around there than anywhere else. 

Not only that, these are the same fans that joyously rooted for Eric Gagne when he was shattering save records.  I, and I am not the only one, truly believe that Gagne, who never could cut it at the Major League level, came out of nowhere to have the greatest two seasons a closer has EVER had.  Then, just as fast as his rise, he had serious injury issues and vanished, only to resurface with a fastball at least 9 mph slower.  Hmmm.  That was clean stuff.

Another Dodger favorite that may not be as squeaky clean as everyone wants to believe is Nomar Garciaparra.  During his heyday with the Red Sox, Nomah was a little more bloated than he is now, and there was a lot more pop in the line drives he used to rip.  After a long bout with injury issues, Nomah is now a contact hitter who will occasionally spring for a long ball, like he did last night.  I’m not calling him a steroid user, I’m just asking a question.  That is all.

This was just a quick little rant.  You all can go back to hating Barry Bonds for doing the exact same thing at least 27% of MLB was doing during the late 90’s and early 00’s. 

I’ve been out of commission for about a week.  For that, I am sorry.  However, per usual, I have a plethora of excuses.  I recently put in my notice that I will no longer be an litigator working primarily in insurance defense cases.  That’s right, I will not be working for the ‘man’ (or ‘those big, bad insurance companies) anymore.  Nope.  Unfortunately though, I will not be going into journalism, nor have my postings drawn the attention of NBA franchises to the point that I am making the move to a front office gig.  Instead, I will be going into the transactional side of legal work.  I’ll work primarily in real estate deals, which should benefit me and the lady friend a great deal financially.

Also, I returned from my bachelor party in Las Vegas on Sunday night, and you could say that I am still recuperating.  No, I will not share ANY stories with you guys.  I will advise that spending a night at Club Tryst (and going VIP with a table and “bottles”) is highly advisable.  Also, spending 10 hours poolside at the Palms on a Saturday with Weeman from Jackass and the Apple computer commercial guy (with a bucket of the beverages of your choice) is highly advisable, but your skin will hate you for the next 5-7 days (especially if you have that Casper the Friendly Ghost complexion). 

Oh, and there is that little thing called a wedding that we are planning.  I’m down to three weeks of bachelorhood.  It is a sad, sad time.  However, one of my groomsmen has guaranteed that there will be a car with the engine running and handles of choice beverages waiting outside the church if need be.  (He’s the guy who set me up with the lady-friend, long story, so I doubt he will follow-through). 

One story I will share from my weekend is the fact that I had the opportunity to fly next to the new head coach of the Sacramento Kings, Reggie Theus.  Great guy, because he actually answered every question that the in-flight friend in front of us wrote down for him, but because he just sat there and talked to us.  It looked like he enjoyed it as much as we did.  He was a little impressed with the hoops knowledge yours truly dropped on him.

(Quick sidebar) Anybody who knows me will verify that most of the knowledge I tend to drop on this site comes completely off the top of my head.  Unless I hit you with a list of stats, like in the Kobe season stats rant or the Timmy/KG comparison pages, I’m throwing things out without any research.  Reg was pretty impressed that I was asking him about his days with the Bulls, Heat, and Kings both in Kansas City and Sacto.  (By the way, look for the powder blue throwbacks for the Kings this season, and do not expect many eyesore gold uniform sightings.  I begged him for those two things).  I also hit him up with some quick knowledge about his roster, specifically NBA HOOPS favorite, Justin Williams; his days at UNLV under Tark, announcing NBA games, and much more.  Return to story:

I do not want to misquote Reggie, nor do I want to turn this into an interview session that he did not know about, so I will just give you a couple of positive quotes about some of the things we talked about.  Let’s just call this the ‘Cliff Notes’ version of my flight.  (Keep in mind, these are not EXACT quotes, rather condensed versions).

Reggie on:

-NBA HOOPS favorite, Justin Williams: “He’s an athletic freak.  An absolute freak.  He just cannot shoot or score yet.  He has to learn that I won’t yank him out for doing everything else, like rebounding, hustling and blocking shots.”

-playing in Italy: “It was tough, because, at the time they always pinned the losses on the American players.  If we lost it was my fault.  I was averaging 30 a game and leading our team in assists, but it was never enough, even if the Italian guys were only putting up 9 points a night.  After one season, I asked them to buy me out, because I didn’t play 13 NBA seasons to be the scapegoat all the time.”

-the eyesore gold Kings jerseys: “I’ve heard that they were bad from a lot of people.  I don’t think they won a game in those things last year, so don’t expect to see them very often.”

-on the suggestion to go throwback powder blues: “I like that idea.  Wear the blues with the names under the numbers.  That would be pretty cool.”

-on announcing NBA games: “It’s the greatest job in the world.  I felt like I was robbing them.  I’m going to watch the game anyway, and they were paying me to talk about it.  I loved it.”

-on why college coaches struggle at the NBA level: “In college, the head coach controls everything and can manipulate or will a player to do what the coach wants.  You cannot do that at the NBA level, those guys (players) will not go for that.  You will lose them that way.”

-on Spencer Hawes: “He has tremendous feet.  It is really impressive.  He will struggle some early, because he is so young and raw, but his footwork is amazing.”

-on Ron Artest: “Nobody realizes how big he really is.  He’s like 260 lbs. of solid muscle.  He’s a tree out there. … He’s got some things going on, and I know that at some point during the season, he will have his issues, but that is to be expected.”

-on college life as a basketball star at UNLV: “If I told you everything that went on, I’d have to kill you.”

Quick hits:

• I am excited about the new era of basketball in Boston.  Watching Garnett’s passing ability with a real shooter in Ray Allen will be great.  No longer will he be kicking the ball out to Marko Jaric or Trenton Hassell.  Now he will be feeding dimes to Ray Allen, only the prettiest jumper in the NBA. 
• Too many people are saying that Boston lost it’s depth by dealing five players to Minnesota.  I don’t see that.  Theo Ratliff was not going to see any minutes this year, and neither was Bassy Telfair.  If anything, they lost two key components in Ryan Gomes and Al Jefferson and one erratic scorer in Gerald Green.  Ray Allen was already going to eat up the minutes for Green and Gomes will be replaced by Leon Powe, who will give them the exact same style of hard-nosed, glue guy hustle.  Now, Rondo will be forced to develop his game, which is a good thing.  Watch for him to make a jump to a Second Team All Defensive player this year.  And there will plenty of vets looking to hook up with Boston now.  P.J. Brown should sign with them soon.
• Switching gears: The Braves should lock down at least the Wild Card spot in the N.L. now that they added Mark Teixiera to their lineup.  McCann will see a ton of pitches hitting behind the switch-hitting first baseman, which is a great thing.  And the Braves added the one thing their offense was missing, production from the first base position.  Was giving up Saltalamaccia a lot? Yes, but he is probably better suited for the A.L. anyway, so he can catch some and play a lot of DH.  He certainly was not going to see a lot of innings behind McCann.  Also, Dotel will give them some great set-up production, like he did in Houston as Billy Wagner’s set-up man.  He belongs in that role, because he is too much of a head case to close games.

Enjoy the weekend, because A-Rod and Bonds will both reach their milestones very soon.