25
2011
A Look At “Unbreakable” Records: Barry Bonds’ Seven MVP Awards.
An article by Former Writers
Being labeled as being the most valuable in any aspect of life is a pretty special occurrence. It’s not every day that you or I get an honor like that, and the same goes for professional sports. There have been plenty of players in Major League Baseball that have extraordinary careers and get elected to the Hall of Fame, yet either fail to win an MVP award or possibly just win one. When a player has the honor given to him more than once, then we have a special athlete on our hands.
There have only been 29 players in Major League history that have won multiple league MVP awards, with only 10 of those 29 winning the award three or more times. Barry Bonds is in a club by himself since he won the NL MVP award an astonishing seven times. The three-time winners include: Yogi Berra, Roy Campanella, Joe DiMaggio, Jimmie Foxx, Mickey Mantle, Stan Musial, Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez, and Mike Schmidt.
Even though I’m from the school of thought that Barry Bonds took performance enhancing drugs during the later part of his career, being named the best player in your respective league for 31% of your entire career is pretty amazing, especially since the last four times he won the award, he did so consecutively.
I can only imagine what it would be like if Bonds accomplished all that he did in his career without using performance enhancing drugs. He is the all-time and single-season home run leader, with 762 and 73 home runs, respectively. He finished with a .298 career average, 1,996 RBI, 514 stolen bases, 2,935 hits, 2,227 runs scored, and 2,558 walks (another record). Along with his seven MVP awards, he holds 12 silver slugger awards, eight gold gloves, and was selected to the All-Star game 14 times.
If I look at these statistics without knowing the name of the player and I was asked whether this player is a Hall of Famer, I would say yes without a hesitation. However, with the PED cloud following him for the rest of his days on this Earth, I’m quite positive that he won’t even come close to getting the necessary 75% vote needed to be inducted into the Hall- and I don’t want him in there.
Being in the Hall of Fame is an honor and those who cheated to get ahead of their competition (McGuire, Sosa, and Clemens also come to mind) don’t deserve to be honored with the best players in the history of the game. It’s too bad because before Bonds started putting up these ridiculous power numbers, I would have considered him a Hall of Famer anyways. Do you think he should be inducted in Cooperstown?
The last question I ask every week is a simple one: can this record be broken? I actually think there is a small chance. I don’t think A-Rod will be winning anymore of these as he’s entering his late-30s and is already showing signs of slowing down. However, Albert Pujols has the opportunity to challenge this record because he’s such an amazing player that he is somehow involved in MVP discussions on a year-in-year-out basis. Who do you think has a chance to challenge this record?
About the Author: Former Writers
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There’s no way this record ever falls, but if we had a real commissioner Bonds would have been stripped of these awards a long time ago.
Has a player ever had any award stripped?
Rose? Thorpe?
Rose? Which award?
What do you mean? Didn’t Rose win an MVP and a Rookie of the Year?
Rose didn’t have any of his awards or any of his records stripped.
Your saying he was stripped of those? I was never aware they had stripped him of those awards.
I guess I was mistaken. I thought being banned from baseball meant having any awards you won stripped. So the whole big deal with Rose is that he wont have a HOF plaque? He got off easy.
That’s pretty much it. There may be some MLB sanctioned events he can’t take part in, and he can’t get a job in the league, but everything he did as a player or manager still stands.
If Barry Bonds had not taken PED’s and his career ended naturally he would have made the Hall.
I think baseball should form a committee to look into how to handle all the records that had been broken in the mid 90′s to the mid 00′s.
The beauty of baseball is the historical statistics and these stats are tarnished.
Hell, they put an asterisk by Roger Maris’ name because the season that he broke the home run record was a few games longer.
Why not put an asterisk by the names of all the drug cheats – if not remove the stats all together?
Only if we go all the way back. I mean Mays, Mantle, Ruth etc etc
Guys have been “cheating” since day 1. I see no difference in guys taking ‘roids before the ban and guys popping greenies before they were banned.
Also, I want anyone who was a reporter during the “Steroid Era” who knew it was happening but didn’t speak up to lose their voting privileges. Can’t have the guys who were complicit in the “cheating” also being the gatekeepers to the HoF, can we?
Otherwise, keeping guys like Bonds out of the Hall of Fame is nothing but moral posturing and hypocrisy.
yeah, donal, that’d be hard press, noone will admit they knew and did nothing, only after the fact douc-h bags like buster olney and jayson were saying : “ohh, we kinda knew but didn’t say anything just to get in the piece of the PED pie.”
hell, even you boy sandy KNOW came up and said “i was suspecting he was doing something, but never questioned him”… of course he wasn’t, he was a major part of those playoffs caliber teams… point is, all these guys knew, baseball was not as popular until all this guys started hitting home runs at record pace level, griffey jr would’ve hit 80 hr’s had he take steroids imo. they helped owners fill stadiums even though the teams weren’t as good, because all they care for is the $, they all knew but looked the other way because it filled stadiums..
we as fans or at least me,could’ve cared less if we won with guys using steroids, everyone was doing it, the 2000 yankees team had 15 players on the roster that were either on steroids or linked to steroids. you think yankees fans cared?? no, why should they, same goes with me, if the mets won a WS and half the guy cheated, well, what are they gonna do? take away the champiosnhips years after the fact? no. it is what it is
In Olney’s defense, he doesn’t jump on the “ban the cheaters” bandwagon.
I also wonder if it’s really “cheating” if there is no rule against it and it is readily available to whoever wants it.
Everything Bobby Bonds did was voluntary on his part and now he lives with the disdain of baseball fans everywhere. I say put him in the Hall along with Sosa, Macquire, Clements and other ‘roid users BUT they go in with an * followed by this statement.” He was elected to the Hall of Fame by a vote by the Hall Of Fame committee. During his career he tested positive or there was substantiated evidence of banned substance abuse which enhanced his performance. You should view his baseball accomplishments based on these facts.”
I don’t think anyone will break Tatis’ 2 grand slams in an inning.
If baseball really cared about fairness or steroids they would strip players of rewards and reset the records when those players like Bonds are caught with steroids. We all knew Bonds (and other players like Sosa, Canseco and McGwire) were on steroids. Even Bonds hat size grew and that just doesn’t happen naturally. He should be banned from the HoF and his records should be wiped out. Its not fair to players that don’t do steroids to have to try to compete with guys that had an unnatural advantage. It only increases the temptation and makes it almost a necessity to do steroids if players are going to be as good as those in the past. Guys like Bonds and McGwire had amazing careers only because they pumped up on steroids and PEDs. If Pete Rose could be banned for life because he gambled on baseball then why can’t guys who actually had a negative impact on the game be banned? Selig is a horrible commissioner though so he won’t take a stance on PEDs. It almost ruinned the game when it came out and those players should be punished for not only cheating but also hurting the game as a whole.
imo, this recors will NEVER be broken:
HITTING
Hits record of 4256
Career BA 344 (Ted Williams) or 366 (Ty CObb)
RBI’s in a season 192
PITCHING
No hitters 7
Wins by a pitcher 511
Losses by a pitcher 316
CG 749
GS 815
Innings Pitched 7356.1
K’s 5714
I agree.. I’ve written about most of those records!
agreed about almost all. certainly pitching records from the old days never will. It really was a different game back then.
The only one I could see happening is the RBI record. Someone in the right team that has a super lucky year (everything possible goes right) could make a run at that. Unlikely, but at least plausible.
ANY,
even manny who was an rbi machine in PED’s couldn’t break it, and those team with full on superstars lineup have never produce those types of season.. back then players just played baseball, now adays everything is under the microscope hence making the pressure even bigger you know..
Like I said, unlikely, but not undoable. Every so often, a fluke season appears (guys making a run at 60 HRs out of nowhere, stuff like that). Massive career #s, that just can’t happen.
2 guys in recent years have broken 160 (Manny at 165). So close enough to squint and say “1 more RBI per week and he would do it”.
If Bonds had just aged naturally and tailed off in his mid-30s, like Griffey did, and players are supposed to, he still would have been an easy HOF guy and considered one of the all time greats. Even without breaking the all time HR record. But, it was his choice alone, and since he had already made a ton of money, can’t really claim it was his only chance to support his familiy once his career was done!