Say what you want about him, I sure hope the best player since Babe Ruth will play in a World Series. Not for him, but for US.
Barry Bonds is just amazing at the plate. Not only can he hit 40 or 50 some odd homers every season, but he can hit .370. Absolutely incredible. And he is pretty darn good in the field too. Not like you have to try to protect him out there. Great all around player. I just wish he hadn't been instrumental in knocking out the Braves AGAIN!
As a Pirate fan I'll never forgive him for his poor playoff preformance. My God, I could have thrown out Sid Bream.
My favorite Bonds stat: .581 OBP Totally stunning! The best ever before this year was .552. He just flat out shattered the record. To think that Bonds has almost a 60% of beating the pitcher. When you think about how terrified they are of him and compare that with guys like even Willie Mays and Hank Aaron, Bonds wins hands down.
Yeah, that was disappointing. A real pity because you knew that Pittsburgh couldn't afford to keep those guys for long. Oh, well.
OBP% only counts when you have someone behind him constantly hitting well. And most of those are walks, where the next batter is an easy out thus wasting his OB. He's not really beating anyone, the other pitcher just knows what hes doing. Thats not to undermind Bond's talents tho, he truly is above and beyond.
Holy ************. Do you really honestly believe that?!? His OBP is not impressive because a walk is a waste? Perhaps you haven't noticed that Benito Santago is having a career year - at like 57 years old. And the whole reason is because he comes up with a guy on base every time. A walk is extremely valuable. Only a fool would think otherwise. Now, add in that Bonds' slugging percentage is astronomical, and you see that he walks often and when he doesn't, he plates other batters. Hardly a stat to take lightly.
Benny batted .274 for the year, which is ok, he does have a decent amount of RBI's though, so he's probably just sac flying everywhere. Im not saying that his walks are a wasted stat, maybe on the Giants it is, if he had a strong hitter behind him it will be worth more. Its not a knock on Bonds, more like on the Giants.
Okay, that makes sense then - OBP really is the most important stat for determining a good hitter. The team scores more runs with him after Kent than with him before Kent. Nobody knows why, but for some reason it works out that way in spite of conventional wisdom.
Best player since Ruth? Check out Whitlock's column for ESPN.com... Barry easily outslugs the Babe. I don't know that I neccesarily agree with him, but the arguement is solid. Barry definately has it easier becuse the talent level is up around the leagues vs. 80 years ago. But then again the coaching, equipment, etc... are all tons better than it was then. So in the end it probably evens out. But the two, in my book, go just about side by side. I, nor any of you, would be qualified to make the decision as to who's better because while we've seen plenty of Barry, we've never seen Babe through an entire season or career.
The fact that Bonds gets intentionally walked with 2 outs and nobodey on in the bottom of the 8th in a tie game is unreal. This guy is in every pitchers head in the game. And rightfully so. He deserves to be MVP of the NLCS should the giants win, he changes every game he plays.
The fact that LaRussa's move to walk Bonds made sense, further underlines the dominace this guy has. Although, I would have brought in a lefty to throw around Bond's instead of the intentional walk.
I was in attendance when Buck Showalter, managing Arizona, had Barry intentionally walked with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th and the bases loaded, with the D-backs up by 2. The move worked in that case.