Pretty much every news media outlet from paper to TV station to blogger to the president of these United States has had something to say about Barry Bonds breaking Hank Aaron’s all-time home run record recently (on the same day that the A-Rod hit into the 500-club no less). Time Magazine recently had an extremely poorly organized feature taking the reader through Bonds’s stats year-by-year from his rookie season in 1986 until 2007. Unfortunately you had to click 22 times to get from 1986 to 2007, which made it nearly possible to view the data in any meaningful way. Not only that, they had a very curious statistic up there called “Runs per at bat” and listed numbers from the 10s to the 20s. Now, as someone who watches baseball religiously, I would be absolutely impressed if Bonds had managed to score an average of 10s of runs per at bat. That would be quite remarkable, albeit impossible. Instead what they meant to have up there was “At bats per home run”. I have compiled their statistics into 3 graph’s that I think without question seal his fate as a complete and utter disgrace to the game. (Note that his batting average didn’t really correlate with weight or at bats per HR, which means he didn’t connect with the ball any better than he ever had. All it means is that when he did connect, it went further.)

Let’s all hope that in due course his record will be broken and order will be restored. I will quote the words of Gordon G. Chang over at Commentary Magazine/Contentions:

Saturday night, in my old hometown of San Diego, Barry Bonds launched a 91-mile-an-hour fastball into the left-center stands of Petco Park. By doing so, the left fielder of the San Francisco Giants tied Hammerin’ Hank Aaron’s record for most career home runs, the most hallowed mark in American sport. As he rounded the bases, fans booed and held up uncomplimentary signs. The commissioner of baseball, in the stands at the time, stood grim-faced with his hands in his pockets.

The unenthusiastic crowd reaction was both predictable and understandable. Allegations of steroid use have dogged the slugger. Barry Bonds will never outlive the perception that he cheated his way into the record book, and except in the Bay Area, he is considered an embarrassment to baseball.

Because this is contentions, let me put Bonds’s disgrace into broader perspective. On the same day that Bonds tied Aaron, A-Rod, sometimes known as Alex Rodriguez, became the youngest player in major league history to hit 500 homers. When the Yankee third baseman breaks Bonds’s mark—some say he will even surpass 800 home runs—he will help rub out the stain of steroid use that has tainted his sport. In these times when many think our global position is in decline, let’s not forget that America’s greatest attribute is not its strength, but its capacity for self-renewal. We are a nation of A-Rods.

Go Yanks. Cheers.