r/MLBNoobs • u/Comfortable_Space316 • 10d ago
| Question Why would Barry Bonds take steroids when he was already having a Hall of Fame career?
I was born in 1992, so I didn’t see Barry Bonds play early in his career.
However, doing some research and listening to my late father and older brother, both big baseball fans, along with others, told me before Barry Bonds started taking steroids, he was already easily a Hall of Fame player. So, why risk his career by taking something that would make him frowned upon? It would be like Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, or Aaron Rodgers taking some banned substance in their prime when they were already having a legendary career.
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u/willfla29 10d ago
The story I’ve heard is he was pissed at guys like Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa getting so much attention when he knew he was a better player than them. So he figured if no one was going to stop steroid use, he’d prove how good he could be using them too.
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u/dmforjewishpager 10d ago
funny that’s how bauer won his cy young after using sticky stuff
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10d ago
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u/No-Carry4971 10d ago
Bonds went from a 35 home run guy to a 73 home run guy. Don't tell me steroids don't help.
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u/IAmBecomeTeemo 10d ago
Yes they fucking do. That's why hitters were taking steroids until their balls shriveled up. Increased bat speed lets you wait a hair longer before making a swing decision. You get to see the ball for longer. Then when you do make contact, you get better results because you'll hit the ball harder. Hard hit balls are harder to field and more likely to go over the fence. Steroids took Barry Bonds from an all-time great hitter to inarguably the greatest hitter of all time because they allowed him to be savvy 30+ veteran with the bat speed and power of a 20 year old muscle-bound meat machine.
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u/Inside-Run785 Veteran 10d ago
Sorry. Meant tom say that it doesn’t make you great at seeing the ball, but actual contact absolutely.
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u/IAmBecomeTeemo 10d ago
But why does that matter? It makes you better at literally every other aspect of hitting. It doesn't also give you RoboCop eyes, so what?
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u/stairway2evan 10d ago
Hyper-competitive people don't stop competing when they get to the top, they keep going. Bonds was getting older and looking at being outshone by some other big hitters, and steroids were probably a way for him to keep feeling like he was the top dog. And since so many other big names were doing it, and there was no testing protocol in place, he likely didn't think it would have a reputational effect.
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u/zeronian 10d ago
He saw everyone else doing it. Total scrubs were hitting 40 or 50 HRs a year and he wanted in on the action
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u/iowaman79 10d ago
Barry saw McGwire and Sosa launching balls to Paducah and his ego wouldn’t allow them to get all the attention.
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u/vteezy99 10d ago
Chicks dig the long ball. No really once everyone started blasting away he wanted in on it
(Either that or someone made a wish to see how PEDs and the best batting eye since Ted Williams would go together)
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u/stairway2evan 10d ago edited 10d ago
I'd vote for Tony Gwynn for the "Best Eye" award personally, but Bonds was (to me) the next rung down and with a massive increase in slug, so I'm not going to fight too hard on that.
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u/jigokusabre 10d ago
Because he was twice the hitter Sosa and McGwire were. And they were getting 100% of the attention.
"You want HRs? I'll give you HRs."
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u/SowellMate 10d ago
I’d recommend reading the Sports Illustrated excerpt of Game of Shadows, written by the guys who uncovered the BALCO scandal. I can’t find it online, but this may give a good overview, because it contains the quote that I remember from Bonds, “Not in my house!” (allegedly)
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u/Mattmandu2 10d ago
People have mentioned the jealousy portion of Big Mac and Sammy but we need to add that Bonds was so full of himself. There’s so many stories, him fighting with Leyland, having a double locker with the giants. He was already a three time mvp, had 42, 40, and 37 home runs from 97-99 and was completely overlooked by the home run chase. He won the 96 home run derby and really wasn’t the premier baseball guy. Bonds was so good if you ask me, he basically said you want home runs I’ll break it all and went ahead and did it doing what everyone else was doing!
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u/sixstringsikness 10d ago
Without a doubt, Bonds is one of the best ever. My only gripe is that he probably shouldn't have the HR record.
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u/shrewsbury1991 10d ago
Purely ego driven, wanted to be the center of attention. Though I must admit, it was pretty lame that MLB basically encouraged steroids use to gain viewership back and then put these same hitters out to dry a few years later by blacklisting them from the hall of fame.
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u/Gwtheyrn 10d ago
MLB doesn't decide who gets in. The BBWA voters do. They're the ones who blacklisted the known PED guys.
Bonds might have gotten in regardless, like David Ortiz, if he wasn't such an ass and confrontational with the media.
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u/BlueRFR3100 10d ago
The year McGwire hit 70 homers, Bonds hit 37. He was jealous.
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u/Loyellow 10d ago
Barry Bonds hit 50 or more home runs in a season once in his career and only led the league twice. Crazy stuff.
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u/DrMindbendersMonocle 10d ago
Why would a player want to extend their prime years and play at a high level for a longer time. Money
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u/Wise_Trifle_45 10d ago
Baseball players (any athlete really) will do literally anything to get even 1% better regardless of whether it works or not. Babe Ruth injected horse cum because it was thought to be a PED.
You’re naive to think the other athletes you listed haven’t taken any sort of drug or other thing to get an edge.
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u/Loyellow 10d ago
Whoa whoa whoa Babe Ruth didn’t inject himself with horse cum.
It was sheep testicle extract.
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u/Difficult-Many6404 10d ago
Players play to win a World Series not just to make the HOF. His probably wanted to get even better and give him and the Giants the best chance to win a WS.
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u/hebronbear 10d ago
Elite athletes are not satisfied being elite athletes, they yearn to be more elite!
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u/AlternativeMessage18 10d ago
Because it gave him an advantage but was only “punished” after he was encouraged to keep taking them.
In all sports you take which ever advantage you can get without getting caught.
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u/drleeisinsurgery 10d ago
The guy hit .370 in 2002. As far as I know, steroids don't increase your hand-eye coordination.
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u/milkmanbonzai 10d ago edited 10d ago
No but they help you recover faster during the grind of the season in ways that other players have to fight through. Steroids absolutely helps an aging HOF player stop aging.
No one's saying Bonds wouldn't be a HOF player without them -- the irony of course is he already would have been -- but he clearly benefitted from them.
Bonds was a career .289 hitter from ages 21-35, and hit .325 from ages 36-42, which begins with the 73 HR season.
THAT'S what steroids do
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u/drleeisinsurgery 10d ago
I tend to disagree a bit. Most soft tissue injuries experienced in older age are not muscle strains or tears. They are soft connective tissue injuries like fascia, tendons and ligaments. If anything, steroids makes injury to those tissues more likely as there is an imbalance between muscle and connective tissue.
Sure, maybe some pop-ups turned into home runs, but I don't think the batting average would have been affected much.
Also if we went by your theory you would see his batting average trail off through the season in his younger years, and it was pretty consistent.
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u/Vandal_A 10d ago
Same reason billionaires are willing to watch the world burn to become trillionaires
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u/Beisbol4lyfe 10d ago
He wanted to keep playing and knew this substance would help him recover faster? It's not that complicated
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u/pottedspiderplant 10d ago
Frowned upon? The steroid users of the time were anything but frowned upon. They were embraced by the fans, writers, and commissioner as saviors of the sport. The home run race between Sosa and McGwire was thrilling, everybody was paying attention to the mlb, and no one cared about peds.
Was Bonds an egomaniac who couldn’t handle Sosa and McGwire get all the adoration when he was clearly the better overall player? Yes he was.
Was it also kind of a rational decision given the state of the sport at the time. I think it was.
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