Barry Bonds was considered one of the five greatest baseball players of all time and Henry Aaron eagerly concurred. That is, before the notoriously ornery ex-slugger of the San Francisco Giants came under intense scrutiny for abusing steroids to become the leading all-time home run hitter in baseball history.
The man they call “Hammering Hank” Aaron, who most baseball purists and pundits believe technically has the most home runs of all time and has the record for the most RBIs of all time, feels bad about Bonds’ and Roger Clemens’ federal trials next spring. Both are accused of lying about using illegal substances to bolster their historic careers.
“I’m just saddened by it,” Aaron told the Associated Press while watching the U.S. Open tennis tournament in Queens, N.Y. “I’m not a judge and I’m not a juror and I don’t know who’s guilty and who’s what. I’m just saddened for baseball and saddened for Clemens and Bonds both.”
It is even more tragic because both Bonds and Clemens were considered first-ballot Hall of Fame locks BEFORE they allegedly began doping up. Bonds, in particular, was voted the Player of the Decade of the 1990s by the Sporting News. He is the only player to ever win three Most Valuable Player Awards including two in three years in the early 1990s, the first person to ever have 400 home runs and 400 steals, the only player to ever reach 500 home runs and 500 steals, and captured 8 Gold Gloves which is awarded to the best defensive player at his respective position. All this happened before the new millennium and the new perspective of the latter part of his career.
Aaron, at the U.S. Open to receive the U.S. Tennis Association’s “Breaking the Barriers” honor, says he hasn’t given any thought to whether Bonds’ or Clemens’ records should stand, be wiped away or accompanied by an asterisk.
The distinguished Aaron probably doesn’t want to be made to look stupid again. During Bonds’ “historic” assault on the all-time home run list in the early 2000s, Aaron frequently lauded Bonds in public. This time, he will keep his opinion about records to himself.
–terry shropshire
