re: Bonds Guilty of obstruction of justice

i read it HERE

Update half way down the page has it

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. BUT his records should be GONE!!!!!

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That's just fricking stupid.

Should they toss out Gaylord Pery records or anyone else that used spit balls? What about corked bats?

Bond wasn't even accused of using anything before 2000 at the earliest. He was one of the all time greats by then.

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I know people think its cheating, but steroids don't help you hit a baseball.

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Doesnt help you hit, but does add distance and allow individuals to fend off injuries and fatigue.

This whole trial is insane. His public embarrassment is enough for me. I really hope Bonds has nothing more than a probation and/or fine.

On the issue of steroids, there was no formal punishment by Major League Baseball until the beginning of the 2005 season where the first Major League ballplayer, Alex Sanchez, was suspended on April 3, 2005. Back on June 7, 1991, the commisioner, Fay Vincent, sent out a memo to each team saying that steroids have been added to the league's banned substance list, but no actions will be taken at all. So, essentially over this nearly 14-year period, the warnings and drug tests gradually appeared, but no player was ever in threat of being suspended until 2005. If a player did not understand or did not care about the future health risks from steroids or the fact that this was deemed an illegal drug, then they should have used steroids up until the beginning of the 2005 season, which is when the punishments, such as the 50, 100, lifetime bans were implemented by Bud Selig. I cannot blame a player for taking steroids prior to 2005 because they simply wanted to be better, and this is a pretty damn effective way to do it. After these new bans were put into place, then the player, such as Manny being Manny, has to be pretty dumb to try to beat the system where there were serious immediate consequences that would result in a 50-game suspension. I am not advocating embracing the steroid users, but to ignore their statistical feats and how they changed the game, juiced or not, is a mockery and would essentially be erasing part of our history. I staunchly support all the records set by steroid era players, including the career home run mark of 762, because they are a part of our pasttime, whether someone likes it or not. I am now curious to see how these players will fare on the Cooperstown ballot, such as Mark McGwire unfortunately not doing well so far, because they deserve induction to the Hall. However, I consider it necessary for a lone plaque to be located in Cooperstown stated that from the years 19xx to 20xx were considered to be part of the "Steroid Era" where many players have or were at least accused of using these now banned substances. In the end, I hope this dark shadow cast on baseball will eventually give way to brighter days, like last year's pitcher dominance, and we can all put this rest when Bonds and company earn their due plaques in the Hall of Fame.

I found a terse, yet excellent timeline of baseball's steroid scandal by NBC Sports. LINK I used this link for a couple dates in my post.

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youre still just arguing better power numbers and not batting average

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We are talking about hitting. Power #s are part of hitting.

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they just take them to help them sleep

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And we know extenze will help you grow a bigger dick because the commercials say so.

You know abouts guys that took stuff and did well. What about the guys that took and didn't? It they are this magic elixir then everyone that took should improve and that's not the case.

A story on ESPN.Com from a few years back. Very interesting read, especially when they talk about longevity.

LINK

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Extra size and strength equals extra bat speed. Robert Adair wrote the book on baseball physics. Literally. His "The Physics of Baseball" has enjoyed multiple editions and is considered the classic text in its field.

BARRY'S HOME RUNS
Here is the complete list of Barry Bonds' home runs since 1999 -- including the 83 we took away from his career total after our analysis.
On page 139, Adair provides an equation relating bat speed (that is, the speed of the bat's sweet spot at the moment it makes contact with the ball) to player weight:

V = k sqrt(M/(m+M/81))

(Note: V is the velocity of the bat in miles per hour, m is the bat weight in pounds, M is the player's weight in pounds, sqrt means square root and k is a constant, 10, in mph. Phew!)

According to Adair's formula -- and don't worry, we asked him to double-check the calculations, since our last math class came in high school -- the 206-pound Bonds generates a bat speed of 67.34 mph, while the 228-pound Bonds swings the same 32-ounce bat at 68.81 mph, an increase of 1.48 mph.

Trust us: That's more impressive than it sounds.

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Bat speed is the key to power hitting. Jack Mankin is an electrical engineer. He also is a youth baseball coach and something of a baseball swing junkie.

Way back in 1986, Mankin bought a VCR that featured frame-by-frame replay, a rare and exotic luxury at the time. He taped about 100 major league games, then set out to chart the swing mechanics that separated great hitters from average ones.

Mankin taped plastic strips to his television screen. He used a grease pencil to trace body movement. He plugged his findings into computer spreadsheets. He's still at it today.

Recently, Mankin looked over clips of Bonds, from 1988 and the present. Conclusion?

"There's absolutely no change," said Mankin, who runs a Web site devoted to bat speed. "The only difference is that back then, most of his home runs were just enough to clear a 360-foot fence. Now, he's up to 400-some with the same dang swing."

The same dang swing. Only faster. In an excellent 2005 San Diego Union-Tribune article detailing the effects of steroid use on power hitting, major league scouts claim Bonds' bat speed not only stopped declining but also increased during the time he worked with Anderson -- an observation consistent with Adair's weight-to-bat speed formula.

In his first year with the Giants in 1993, Bonds won his third MVP award, hitting .336 with 46 home runs.
"I've seen [Bonds'] bat speed improve," a longtime major league scout told Page 2. "But I can't say it's because of steroids."

How does extra bat speed help a hitter? Simple. While many factors influence the height and distance of a flyball, the most important variable is the speed of the bat at the instant it connects with a pitch.

Mont Hubbard, a mechanical and aeronautical engineering professor at the University of California-Davis, co-authored a 2003 American Journal of Physics article examining home run ball flight. An accompanying graph plots bat speed against flyball distance -- and like a rising homer, the curve sloped upward, almost in a straight line.

The faster the swing, the longer the long ball.

"We work with bat speed a lot, especially with a lot of the [major league] guys who come down here before spring training," said David Donatucci, director of the International Performance Institute at the IMG Academies in Bradenton, Fla. "If you're working [at] the skill [of hitting] and increasing in strength at the same time, you'll become a more powerful hitter."

Alan Nathan, a baseball physics buff and nuclear physics professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, estimates every one mph of extra bat speed translates into roughly six feet of added flyball flight distance. Back to Bonds. By bulking up and increasing his bat speed, he added about nine feet to his average flyball distance -- the difference between the warning track out and reaching the outfield seats.

Now for the fun part. Using statistics and a chart provided by STATS, Inc., Page 2 examined every home run hit by Bonds from 1999 to May 2 of this year, 301 in all.

The entry for each home run lists the ballpark where it was hit, the estimated distance it traveled and the approximate area where the ball cleared the field of play. Comparing each homer to the ballpark dimension diagrams found at andrewclem.com, we sought to answer a single question:

If you take away the extra nine feet of flyball distance Bonds generated by putting on 20 pounds of muscle, how many of his home runs fall short?

Here's how the answer breaks down:

• 1999: four home runs out of 34.
• 2000: nine out of 49.
• 2001: 18 out of 73.
• 2002: 11 out of 46.
• 2003: 10 out of 45.
• 2004: 13 out of 45.
• 2005: one out of five.
• 2006: zero out of five.

In total, Page 2 estimates that 66 Bonds home runs would have landed inside the fence sans his alleged steroids use. Again, this is an approximation. But is our guess wholly unreasonable?

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It has been quite a while since someone looked as silly as H-Town Tiger has been made to look in this thread.

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OK. SAD. His stats should be stricken from all books and the MLB!!! The ALL-TIME HR leader is Hank AARON!!!!!!!!!!! The single season record is Roger Maris/ RUTH.

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That's fine if you feel that way, PJ. But this trial has nothing to do with Bonds' PED use padding his stats. This is all about whether Bonds lied to federal investigators.

Personally, I think the HOF should enshrine everyone with the numbers to be enshrined. On the plaques of the players who were confirmed PED users, it should be stated that they tested positive during their careers. The HOF is a museum...the bad should be in with the good.