Jim Dandy: That's an interesting article and there's little to argue from a numbers perspective. Both are giants of the game. But because baseball is a numbers game, Bonds' steroid use is critical. And his power numbers (as well as his head, shoe size & weight) inflated dramatically in his later years, when a normal player is past his prime. I have to wonder why he's playing, and why we're discussing these things & articles are being written what, in a better world, would not be taking place at all. For me, like so many other things in our society, baseball has been corrupted & now holds little interest for me. I keep up with Maddux. lol

awesome: True,I knew he started late,but I thought around 25 or 26

The Usurper: I find it hard to even look at Bonds,and not for cosmetic reasons

Jim Dandy: I feel the same way.

The Usurper:

he has really changed from his Pittsburgh Pirate days ...
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=135063093&size=m

Flickr Photo Download: Barry Bonds Rare Rookie Card

awesome: LOL! Yes and that must have been AFTER his morning muscle-pump session.

The Usurper: c'mon,you always look more rounded when you shave your head

http://www.collegehumor.com/picture:1639091

If anyone is interested in joining just messege me

Jim Dandy: You're right and having looked at this photo & compared it with others I realize now that Bonds has actually lost weight over time.

The Usurper: Well,there is the issue of shrinkage

Jim Dandy: That's a good point if what we're seeing is right. But it may be an optical illusion stemming from style & color uniform differences between the San Francisco Giants & the Pittsburgh Pirates.

IMO Pete Rose's hit record will stand the test of time and is much more impressive than Bonds record

Vikings: I agree and I think you are right.

Vikings:

yes..and Diamggio's 56 game hit streak...

The new Premier League season starts Today, 90 days after the last campaign ended with Manchester United taking the title from Chelsea.

In the intervening period more than £350m has been spent as clubs desperate for success search for the winning formula.

But for all the money that the likes of Liverpool and Tottenham have lavished on new faces, it is United and Chelsea who start the season once again as most people's favourites for the title.

With Uefa Cup places also up for grabs and new boys Birmingham, Derby and Sunderland desperate to preserve their top-flight status it promises to be a fascinating season.

For myself, go Arsenal, you have won 2 Trophy's already inthe warm up Tournaments.You can do it

awesome: yes that is prestigious also, but I think that will fall before the hit record unless the schedule gets expanded

OH MY LOAF

Wovles 1 - 2 Watford

Somebody pass me the Ramipril, what a blinder of a match

I just heard something that is amazing, in the 30's Babe Ruth hit 10 to 12 % of all home runs in the league for 5 years straight, when this is calculated out for today and figuring in the expansion of the league, for someone to do that today, they would have to hit 288 home runs a year for 5 years in a row

Vikings:
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/babe-ruth44.htm

"Babe's records for most home runs in a season (60) and a career (714) have been broken, but he still has tremendous staying power among the all-time statistical leaders. He ranks third in home runs, second in at-bats-per-home-run (11.76), second in RBI (2,211), first in slugging percentage (.690), and third in walks (2,062), and he is tied for ninth in batting average (.342). But if there is one statistic that proves Ruth was the greatest of them all, it is this: He was 94-46 with a 2.28 ERA as a pitcher."

In one the articles in this series I read that he and Lou Gehrig combined did indeed hit 1 in 4 of the homeruns in the league one year. Amazing!

What's a Z-Score?
The z-score is a statistical measure of how a particular number compares to the average. Technically it is the number of standard deviations from the mean, but one need not have a complete mathematical understanding of the z-score to appreciate that it shows how a given player performs compared to the competition.

For example, if the league average for home runs is 9 and a player hits exactly 9 home runs, his z-score is zero. If he hits more than 9 HRs his z-score will be positive and if he hits fewer than 9 it will be negative. Precisely how positive and how negative will depend on how other players in the league fared. For example:

In the National League in 2001 the league average for home runs was about 12. The leaders:
Barry Bonds 73
Sammy Sosa 64
Luis Gonzalez 57
Several others also exceeded 40. Bonds' HR z-score was +5.20.
In the American League in 1920 the league average for home runs was about 4. The leaders:
Babe Ruth 54
George Sisler 19
Tilly Walker 19
Happy Felsch 17
Nobody else exceeded 12. Ruth hit nearly three times as many HRs as anyone else (in fact, he alone hit more than any team beside the Yankees), so his HR z-score was +8.45 which shows mathematically what we see intuitively: that his performance was more dominant than that of Bonds in 2001.

Tuesday:

Ankiel is what is great about sports...I hope the best for him..

                     MAN UTD

Oceans Apart:

Tuesday: hmmm too wide ???

Well if there is a post off my screen that may contain a long link, it will stretch your screen though i do always try to fix them if they are, BUT i did think that there was a built in scroll bar now, or maybe that only work for Firefox

Let me go look

Well done to Mark, today who had a cracking first round at the  Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles, laying joint 5th, one shot ahead of Colin Montgomery

Group A
LIVERPOOL
Porto
Marseille
Besiktas

Group B
CHELSEA
Valencia
Schalke 04
Rosenborg

Group C
REAL MADRID
Werder Bremen
Lazio
Olympiakos

Group D
AC MILAN
Benfica
CELTIC
Shakhtar Donetsk

Group E
BARCELONA
Lyon
Stuttgart
RANGERS

Group F
MANCHESTER UNITED
Roma
Sporting Lisbon
Dynamo Kiev

Group G
INTER MILAN
PSV Eindhoven
CSKA Moscow
Fenerbahce

Group H
ARSENAL
Sevilla/AEK Athens
Steau Bucharest
Slavia Prague

Sunday, 02 September 2007

Arsenal 3-1 Portsmouth
Aston Villa 2-0 Chelsea
Blackburn 1-0 Man City

Saturday, 01 September 2007

Bolton 1-2 Everton
Fulham 3-3 Tottenham
Liverpool 6-0 Derby
Man Utd 1-0 Sunderland
Middlesbrough 2-0 Birmingham
Newcastle 1-0 Wigan
Reading 0-3 West Ham

MadMonkey:

Tuesday: Yes, it is a fairly common tactic though the scenario you have outlined is not. As far as I know, only two batters have ever been intentionally walked with the bases loaded. Barry Bonds and Babe Ruth.

It is quite common for a team to walk any batter, not just a home run hitting power hitter, with a man on second or men on second and third, to set up force outs at the bases to prevent the lead runners from scoring or advancing on a ground ball in the infield. Of course the manager of the defense will take into consideration the score, the inning, who's scheduled to bat, who's available to pinch hit, and other factors when deciding to do this. It really backfires if the following batter gets a hit.

Walter Montego:
interesting thoughts ...but the Babe was never walked with the bases full....

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FCI/is_5_59/ai_64150752

Free Pass—Players who were intentionally walked with bases loaded -

awesome: IT figures it'd be Buck Showalter, the same guy that used to manage the Texas Rangers that had Bonds walked. I'll have to check into it. Yep, it looks like you're right. There's no mention of Babe Ruth getting a bases loaded intentional walk. I found an article that has five of them being done and a good explanation of the intentional walk.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentional_base_on_balls

I probably heard the guy mention Babe Ruth when it was done to Bonds and thought that he knew what he was talking about. Thanks for straightening me out on that. :)

I would like to see a team get punished for intentionally walking a player by having the pitcher throw a wild pitch during the intentional walk and the winning run scores...

awesome: I've never liked intentional walks. While checking out your post's information I came across a link to a book about various strategies employed in baseball called "The Book". I'll have to see about acquiring it.
There's pros and cons to putting someone on base. It certainly gives the batter that's after the guy that receives the intentional walk incentive to get a hit. They're showing him up by saying they'd rather pitch to him than the guy they walked. And if he does get a hit, the guy that was intentionally walked is an extra man on base.

I've never seen a wild pitch during an intentional walk, but I've seen a couple of wild throws that almost got past the catcher.

Tuesday: That sounds like an Intentional Walk as you describe it. I doubt if the bases were loaded prior to the walk, but perhaps the walk loaded them up? As far as the rule that says if a walk is intentional or not, it doesn't change the fact that the batter has walked. There's no rule that prevents the pitching team from being able to intentionally walk a batter or not, so whether or not it looks deliberate or not doesn't matter. It's up to the pitching team to decide to pitch to the batter or not. Sometimes they'll not intentionally walk a batter, but pitch him very carefully and he gets a walk out of it because the pitcher wasn't able to catch the corners of the plate. The manager has already decided that if the batter gets walked that he has a back up plan. Kind of an unintentional intentional walk, so to speak.