I'm getting tired of this. If the author wants to step his ass up to the plate and pop off the difference (655 home runs) go for it. Otherwise, shut up. Did Bonds use steroids? Don't know don't care. How would Hank Aaron have done today? Babe Ruth would have been kicked out of the league long ago for substance abuse.
I'm not looking to Bonds as some sort of idol. And if a kid does that says more about the parenting skills of the parent than whether or not Bonds is a good role model. In today's age, every player out there is doing something that makes them better and stronger than their counterparts from just 20 years ago. If the product is legally subscribed or can be purchased OTC then so be it. It doesn't detract one bit from what he's done.
A-Rod just cracked 500. Let's see what he's doing 5 years from now when he's chasing this record. And when he passes it (which he most likely will) all the naysayers of Bonds and busybodies can shut up about the 'damage' Bonds has done to the sport as the HR king.
Oh, get real.
If Barry Bonds had not used his mechanical aids and steroids and gotten, maybe, 600 homers over his career, he would still be a great player and headed for the Hall of Fame. The problem is that the artificial aids, both pharmacological and mechanical, have added to his success, which renders his tying or Aaron's record moot.
There is no way to know how many home runs Bonds would have hit unaided, but it doesn't make much sense to keep track of how many he has hit with all the assistance he has had. I can go out into my garage and put together a potato gun that can lob a baseball out of the park. Watching the ball fly is not the point. The point is what a man can do.
Bonds is doing more than he could as a man. Watching him bat is about as interesting as watching somebody fire a potato gun.
Baloney. Bonds WAS an excellent balllayer. He decided to forgo that to become an obsessive home run machine, through CHEATING. His record is bogus. Watching him play is ridiculous. His artifically bloated body; jogging on singles, ground balls, etc; his now-poor outfield play. That is not the game of baseball I care about, it is essentially a non-stop home run derby with little or no regard for the actual execution of a great sport. Baseball is prospering today without the HR excesses of the 90s - the sooner Bonds gets his cheesy record and retires the better.
Oh please! You sure seem to care when almost everyone else believes he has. And the Robo-Bonds aspect makes nothing less than perfect sense. There NEVER should have been a grandfather clause for such a device. All or none. If he couldn't abide by the same rules for everyone else then he should have called it a career.
I am not going to claim to be a Barry Bonds expert but with the 'roids, the Robo Arm, and the lack of class Bonds has shown over his career (too many to count but needless to say he doesn't come across as one that cares about anyone but himself hence the very personality that would feel no guilt in gaming the system) Bonds will probably not have an asterisk - officially - but he will be marked with one mentally by a majority of baseball fans both present and, more importantly, in the future.