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[WasabiKing]

3) Increased bat speed = Better plate coverage = Higher average

Not really, if you're busy trying to kill the ball on every pitch, the risk/reward margin goes higher. Instead of playing small ball, you're going to hit the ball harder, which takes bloopers to flyballs, hard grounders turn into faster put-outs/ground-outs, etc... Not all of it can be for the positive.

Since I live in SF Giants territory, and I listen to the flagship station, all these guys defending Barroid make me irritated because of the BLIND ALLEGIANCE. I mean, it got as crazy as people talking about why his head size seemed smaller this year, but it doesn't mean anything at all. I'm not really saying it's a factor, although I crack on that all the time, but c'mon.

As for why this was done, it's the MLB who forced a press conference. I don't think the Giants are dumb enough to set one up. And let's be honest, he's the big show, the star of the league. Just some of the stuff he said reaffirms why he is a horrible human being, or a side-effect of personality flaws of children affected by an alcoholic parent. Either way, as a human being, he's a piece of crap, but as a ballplayer, a phenomenal athlete*.

And this man agrees with me:

 

[Shinobi]

Are you kidding? The guy was good before, but he only turned into a perennial MVP when he started juicing + wearing body armor and crowding the plate like a mofo.

:lol WTF are you talking about? The man was already a perennial MVP WINNERin Pittsburg from 1990 when he was still as thin as his bat. He should've won four MVP's in a row but got fucked over by Terry Pendleton for fucks sakes. If you're gonna piss in my corn flakes, at least have some fucking facts to go with it.

I always find myself wondering where he'd be if he had to face pitchers from earlier eras who would NEVER have stood for crowding the plate like that -- Gibson, Drysdale, etc. Oh wait I know where -- on his ass, where he belongs.

No real point comparing eras, since they all had distinct advantages and disadvantages. Gibson's era also had a higher mound to pitch off, which many people say made a huge difference.

Baseball is -- pardon my French -- completely fucking nuts to allow Bonds to continue blithely towards the record. Do they really think it's going to be good for PR when he breaks Aaron's record and is inevitably found to have been breaking the rules for years? If they had any clue, they'd bust him now and save themselves the embarrassment of an asterisk.

They all buried their heads in the sand in '94 when they were first tipped off by the FBI. They buried their heads in the sand again when Big Mac and Sosa "saved baseball" with their home run chase (probably the most overhyped sporting "event" in recent memory). I recall the vast majority of people back then saying they didn't give a shit about McGuire's andro use. And considering baseball had no mechanism dealing with steroids until two or three years ago, what can they really say? They can't prove Bonds has used anything since mechanisms were brought into place, and I'm not sure they could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he did before. Hell, it could be argued that half of Sosa's home runs in the last few years were hit with corked bats, but if you can't prove it who gives a shit what could be argued.

So MLB is basically fucked, and frankly that's their problem. Bud should've nipped it in the bud when half the league knew what was going on. Bonds is mean spirited enough that he'd take down everyone he knew was using the same shit if they so much as threw an asterisk beside his name. I really don't think MLB wants that dilemnia.

The funniest thing about this is that seemingly everyone was piling on Canseco a few weeks ago because he was only "looking to make some coin" (a silly assesment considering he apparantely only got a one time sum of 350 k for the book deal), when if you ask me he's been the only straight shooter on the issue the last few years. Had Balco not been dimed out, people would still have their heads buried in the sand over this.