Tag: Barry Bonds

MLB 40-40 club: The complete list of all 5 players to have 40 HR and steals, now including Ronald Acuña

Knocking 40 home runs while stealing 40 bases is one of baseball’s most elusive milestones.

It’s fairly common for a Major League Baseball player to excel in either power or speed, but very few players are masters of both crafts.

One of baseball’s most elusive milestones is the so-called “40-40 club,” which is reserved for players who hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in a single season. It’s such a rare feat that, in the nearly 150 years of organized MLB league play, only four players in history had accomplished it prior to 2023.

That changed on Friday, though, as Atlanta Braves right fielder Ronald Acuña Jr. knocked his 40th home run of the season, becoming the fifth player to join the exclusive club. He’s also the first player to do so since Alfonso Soriano in 2006 with the Washington Nationals.

Here’s a look at the complete current list of players that comprise MLB’s 40-40 club.

Aaron Judge is not the MLB single-season home run king. Sorry, Roger Maris Jr.

No matter how you feel, Barry Bonds is the single-season home run king until someone hits 74.

Barry Bonds is the MLB single-season home run king.

Want to know how I know Barry Bonds is the single-season home run king? Because I checked the Major League Baseball website, and there he was, number one on the list. Barry Bonds, 73 dingers.

So why then do I hear people bestowing this title on Aaron Judge, an incredible player in his own right, but very obviously not the home run king. Last I checked, he had 61 home runs, tied at seventh with Roger Maris. And I assume you knew this already, because his pursuit of 61 was well covered. ESPN even ticked off some college football fans by interrupting their game with live coverage of Judge’s at-bats.

So imagine my surprise when I heard Roger Maris Jr. say Judge “should be revered for being the actual single-season home run champ.” I almost spit out my lemonade. How did he get from 61 to 74 so fast?! But nope, never happened. I checked the MLB website again, and there was Bonds, still No. 1.

Maris Jr. was actually advocating for MLB to “look at the records and do something.” Apparently, he doesn’t think Bonds’ home run record should count due to the should-be Hall of Famers’ obvious ties to steroids. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, who hold all the records between one and seven, would be wiped from the records too. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think all of those incredible seasons were aided by performance-enhancing substances, but respectfully, Maris Jr. couldn’t be more wrong.

The time for MLB to do something — if it really wanted to — was more than two decades ago. If the league didn’t want these astronomical single-season numbers, it would have tested for steroids when it had the chance. But it did want those numbers, it benefitted from those numbers, it didn’t start testing until after Bonds set the record in 2001, and now it should be stuck with those numbers for the rest of time.

That includes the all-time record of 762 home runs that Bonds holds and many of us will never live to see broken. It’s a potentially flawed record, and that’s exactly why the league should never touch it, because the history of Major League Baseball is flawed. You can’t go back and erase something because you don’t like it. It happened already. Live with it.

If you don’t want to acknowledge Bonds’ record as a fan, fine, just say you think he cheated and keep it moving. But until Judge hits 73 home runs himself, he’ll never be the MLB home run king, because as far as the record books are concerned, he’s not. He’ll have to settle for being the American League home run king. And for a league that’s been around for more than a century, that’s really not so bad.

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Barry Bonds being intentionally walked with the bases loaded is a reminder he’s a Hall of Famer

That really happened.

Barry Bonds may not be in the Baseball Hall of Fame as of right now.

As absurd as that is, we don’t necessarily need him in Cooperstown to know what an all-time baseball great he was, arguably the greatest hitter ever to lace up spikes, and a home-run hitter for the ages.

On Wednesday, there was one video going around that was a reminder just how dominant he was. Back in 1998, the Arizona Diamondbacks were up 8-6 on the San Francisco Giants. The bases were loaded and there was Bonds striding up to the plate. The slugger was in the middle of an amazing season, although not an MVP year by his standards.

Still: The D-Backs chose to intentionally walk him. That’s right, they walked a run in instead of letting him swing the bat. Instead, they threw to Brent Mayne … and Buck Showalter’s move WORKED! Game over, Diamondbacks win.

But who else would be intentionally walked with the bases loaded? Exactly.

By the way, this is has been done since, for what it’s worth:

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The Baseball Hall of Fame is a silly museum that we should just continue to ignore

We don’t need a bitter voters to tell us who the great players were.

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The Baseball Hall of Fame is officially, and sadly, a joke.

Congratulations, baseball writers. You did it. You saved your little upstate New York museum and in doing so let everyone know you don’t really love the game, you just love having some power that you no longer deserve.

In cased you missed it, the 2022 Hall of Fame class was announced yesterday and it was made up of just one legendary baseball player – David Ortiz.

Left out of that class were some other legendary players, including Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Sammy Sosa. Curt Schilling also didn’t get in and is now off the ballot.

While those first three didn’t make it because of their ties to performance enhancing drugs, Schilling was basically not voted in because of his personality and the things he has said and done in the past. I personally don’t like Schilling at all but the great Bomani Jones did recently make a good argument for why the former three-time World Series champ should have been voted in.

Not having those guys in the precious Hall of Fame makes the Hall of Fame a pointless place to visit or talk about it. It’s a sham and a waste of time because it’s a game of favorites picked by people who don’t care what you think, because level-headed people like you and I know that Bonds, Clemens, Sosa and yes, Schilling, deserve to be in that club.

Let’s stick with the steroid-era discussion, though. It’s easy to elect those guys and make a mention of what they did, or were suspected of doing, and allow them to be in the Hall of Fame. Everyone will be OK and the museum will remain standing.

Life will go on. Trust me!

Bonds is the home run king. Clemens is one of the best pitchers to ever take the mound. Sosa brought baseball back with that fun summer in which he and Mark McGwire chased Roger Maris’ home-run record.

Those legendary players are baseball and are big characters in the story of baseball, a story that can’t be told without them. They should all be in Cooperstown and they should have all been in the first time they were eligible.

Players who are in the Hall of Fame should stand up and boycott the silly museum until those former stars are put in, because without them there is a big stain on the reputation of the place, a stain that has been created by the writers who think they are doing the opposite of that.

Until that happens there’s really no point to visit the museum or talk about it or give it any serious thought. It’s a silly playground built by people who care more about themselves than the game that so many people love.

We know who deserves to be in and we don’t really need the voters to tell us who the great players were. We really don’t need Hall of Fames, to be honest. We saw those players play. We saw the incredible things that they did. We get it. We know.

Oh, and Jonathan Papelbon got 5 votes? Really?

LOL.

Quick hits: Awesome mic’d up video of Travis Kelce… Sean Payton/Kevin James jokes… NFL OT ideas… And more.

– This video of a mic’d up Travis Kelce during his game-winning touchdown on Sunday is too good.

– Sean Payton announced yesterday that he was leaving the Saints and everyone made jokes about Kevin James.

– NFL fans came up with a number of interesting ways to change the NFL’s overtime rules.

– Do you play Wordle? Here are 8 great starting words to use.

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MLB world reacts to the snubs of Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens from Baseball Hall of Fame

Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens have been snubbed from Cooperstown.

Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens have been passed up for the Baseball Hall of Fame once again.

On Tuesday, the Baseball Writers’ Association of America voted for which players will make up the 2022 Hall of Fame class in Cooperstown. Only one player was selected, David Ortiz, who makes it in as a first ballot Hall of Famer with 77.9 percent of the vote.

Both Bonds (66 percent) and Clemens (65.2 percent) fell short of the 75 percent mark needed to make the Hall of Fame and are now officially ineligible to be voted upon by the BBWAA as their 10-year window has closed. Technically, both Bonds and Clemens can make it in via the Today’s Game committee, which is run by the Hall of Fame itself, but will need 12 of 16 votes to make it in.

It was a long shot for both Bonds and Clemens — the former especially — to make it into the Hall of Fame. Bonds’ history with performance enhancing drugs as part of the BALCO scandal was a major layup for many in the Hall of Fame, enough to keep him out throughout his entire 10 years of eligibility even though the support for him grew with each passing year.

Ortiz, for what it’s worth, has also reportedly tested positive for a banned substance during an anonymous survey test conducted by the MLB in 2003.

Here’s how the baseball world reacted to both Bonds and Clemens being snubbed by the BBWAA in their final year of voter eligibility.