I think Ichiro is one of these guys who doesn’t know what to do if he can’t play baseball.
My guess is when MLB doesn’t want him anymore he plays in Japan again.
Ichiro’s entire life is baseball, to a degree that’s unusual even for a professional baseball player.
Great list.
Nelson Cruz was in his mid-30s before he started bombing 40 HRs a season.
Nelson Cruz is a bad example as he got busted for PED’s
I despise Bonds on the whole, yet there are things that are just amazing. His plate discipline late in his career was zen-like. From a Buster Olney piece:
Bonds hit eight homers in eight games back in April of '04, and pitchers all but stopped throwing him anything over the plate. He took 44 of the
following 58 pitches. Among his 14 swings, he missed twice, hit three fouls, a lineout, a popout and a single, double and five homers.
After he homered on the last of those 58 pitches, Bonds would not swing again for another 23 pitches, collecting four walks. On the 24th pitch, he ripped a single.
of the first 1,306 pitches he saw in the summer he turned 40, he swung and missed on 49, and he had 23 homers and 13 doubles.
Bonds did have a great eye at the plate, and probably the quickest hands I have ever seen on a hitter. He also walked a million times because pitchers wouldn’t pitch to him. And with the Giants line up it is easy to see why.
I despise Bonds as well. I also think that despite his steroid use he probably has the best argument for being in the HoF and probably will eventually make it. I would just like him to Mea Culpa to the whole thing.
Yeah, say what you will about Bonds, but he was absolutely one of the most disciplined players at the plate.
Obviously this is all a bit of fun, but those numbers are insane.
The other thing is that, when he decided to go the roid route, he did it better than anyone.
I can see making an argument that if it wasn’t for him, and what he did, that baseball would never have addressed the problem until someone else did it that well.
In other News about how “Baseball” with a Capital ‘B’ is blind and a bunch of idiots…
WTF Baseball? You can’t afford $7.25/hour for minor leaguers? shame.
It’s crazy, considering the league minimum is something like $430k per year (prorated if you don’t spend the whole year on the active roster).
Just to clarify, it’s now $11/hour in AZ.
yeah, but they lobbied for and received an exemption to the Federal $7.25 minimum wage.
From the article’s lead:
Major League Baseball wants Arizona lawmakers to ensure minimum wage laws don’t apply to minor league players in the state, something the league recently accomplished at the federal level.
Ah, now I get the reference
Yeah, I should have made it clearer. I didn’t even know that.
I think McGwire and Sosa started baseball thinking about how dirty their sport was, and how the public was starting to perceive it.
Yeah, but there wasn’t much of a push to fix it until Bonds blew them away. It wasn’t until after the 2005 season that users were named or there were any penalties.
The catch was a players union contract that wouldn’t allow them to do anything, IIRC. But eventually even the players union realized they had problems.
Contract was updated in 2002 for 2003 season (more drug banning and testing, no penalties). Here’s a good timeline:
If Bonds hadn’t hit 73 in 2001, I could see that stretching out further.
Yeah, the minor leagues are a terrifying grind of indentured servitude. It’s pretty horrific unless you’re a highly regarded talent in the first place.
Per that article…
Major League Baseball couldn’t implement drug-testing at the major league level all on its own in the early 2000s. That would have required an agreement with the MLB Players Association,
I think in 2001 Bonds beat McGwire’s record by maybe 8-10 HR’s. It became hard to ignore then. Well, that and Bonds head size.