he definitely had an incredible career, but i disagree. the HR record elevated him. his numbers across the board were awesome, but they were more a product of very steady over a long period of time rather than a more compressed period of higher numbers. players like ruth, foxx, greenberg, etc had much better individual years
if you look at his numbers alone, without the fact that he juiced, i think its very easy to make a case for bonds. griffey and pujols had 10 years of being incredible, but their numbers dropped markedly in their later years. bonds was basically blackballed, so who knows is his would have done the same, but his numbers were awesome until the end. that said, i hate that mother fucker
that is a weird list you have there. koufax? you cant compare them because koufax's prime was incredibly short. he was amazing in that time, but what did he have? 5 dominant years compared to 20 for bonds? and ryan was great at ko's and no hitters, but he isnt even a top of the list pitcher, let alone overall. hall of famer yes, but not among the true best. schmidt and bench weregreat, but more in respect to their positions which are more shallow than others. williams and musial are definitely top contenders though. again this is all if you take the steroids out of it and just base it on numbers alone. there were years when people just wouldnt pitch to him at all
McGwire yes, Canseco no. Canseco's case for the hall is pretty thin.
Bonds was the best player in baseball in the 90's, by raw numbers or the advanced metrics. Long before he started roiding right before the turn of the century. He just became a god when he started taking them (at a point where they were almost universally used). He was better than Griffey by a long shot. Griffey was an amazing player to watch, but besides hitting homeruns (what a fucking swing) and being a GG CF instead of a GG LF, Bonds was better at everything else. Pujols, even with his gaudy numbers, wasn't as dominant as pre-PED Bonds, relative to league average.
Not to defend Barry, but he didn't lie to congress and then come back talking 'I'm not here to talk about the past, I'm here to discuss the future' over and over again to every question like Big Mac either.
I was just saying Big Mac got a huge pass for making such an enormous ass out of himself when he was going after people for pointing out his usage and then refusing to own up until he wanted a way back into the game.
