Kuzul

After reading the TMZ story of a paternal court judge telling former NFL star Terrell Owens that his career was over I couldn't help but think of former MLB star Barry Bonds and the similarities in the circumstances surrounding his exile from pro baseball.  Much like Bonds in his final season Owens was an extremely productive player. In 2010 he played to the tune of: 72 receptions, 983 yards and nine touchdowns.  Also like Bonds, Owens has been blockaded out of the league, by what any reasonable person would deduce is a sad display of collusion.  In an age when offense is so valued across sports, and stars that can sell tickets are as prized a commodity as a championship ring, it’s simply hard to believe that guys like Bonds and Owens could not find work after their respective final season of 2007 and 2010.   Both men are polarizing stars ...

Former San Francisco Giants slugger Bonds got another free pass last week when he was sentenced to what basically amounts to a slap on the wrist for his conviction in an obstruction of justice charge against him stemming from the 2003 grand jury investigation of BALCO.Rather than take his licks—250 hours of community service, 30 days of house arrest, and two years of probation—Bonds is hoping for yet another walk.Earlier today, according to The Los Angeles Times, Bonds' attorneys filed an appeal to have the conviction overturned.If the appeal sticks, Bonds will be completely exonerated of any wrongdoing as far as BALCO, steroids, and performance-ehancing drugs are concerned. (As current Giants pitcher Brian Wilson might say, "those chalupas never happened.")It's not as if Bonds is against community service. Or that he can't stand the thought of being holed up in his posh Beverly Hills mansion for a month.No. This is Barry making ...

Jose Bautista's improbable rise to stardom in the Major Leagues is one of the best post-steroid era stories in baseball.Recently Yahoo Sport's Jeff Passan wrote a must-read piece (after you finish my article, of course) breaking down Bautista's path to the Majors and the Toronto Blue Jays.Bautista has his doubters, for sure, that just can't wrap their mind around the notion that a player who had never hit more than 16 homers in any season in his career could jump to 54 in a single season without the use of performance enhancing drugs.Bautista explains, and Passan eloquently describes, that he was unable to make the necessary adjustments to become the hitter he is now because any decrease in productivity would have jeopardized his career.Thus, he went through five teams before finding the stability he needed in Toronto. A team that would work with him and allow him to make the ...

Since the beginning of baseball, there have been players who have had mind boggling, amazing, record-breaking seasons. Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, and Ted Williams are some of the best to ever play the game of baseball, and they have all had historic seasons. So have many others.These are the top 5 hitting seasons of all time.Begin Slideshow

To the surprise of no one, the recent Barry Bonds perjury trial ended with a result that satisfied neither party and only really succeeded in stirring up another round of PED-related articles.  One of the most common type article to enter the fray is how the Hall of Fame will view such candidates; after all, Bonds (and others guilty/suspected of usage) put up some impressive numbers during his career.  Some writers are calling for the Hall of Fame to establish new guidelines on voting procedures for the next election; others are calling for an outright ban of all PED users. Both of these ideas strike me as rather unnecessary.  I mean, isn’t it the job of the HOF voters to decide who is worthy of induction?  Besides, a lot of the arguments that are being used against PED users don’t really hold water—and could set a serious double-standard when it comes to past ...

Barry Bonds holds the following major league records:* Home runs in a single season (73), 2001* Home runs against different pitchers (449)* Home runs since turning 40 years old (74)* Home runs in the year he turned 43 years old (28)* Consecutive seasons with 30 or more home runs (13), 1992-2004* Slugging percentage in a single season (.863), 2001* Slugging percentage in a World Series (1.294), 2002* Consecutive seasons with .600 slugging percentage or higher (8), 1998-2005* On-base percentage in a single season (.609), 2004* Walks in a single season (232), 2004* Career Walks 2,558* Intentional walks in a single season (120), 2004* Consecutive games with a walk (18)* MVP awards (7—closest competitors trail with 3), 1990, 1992-93, 2001-04* Consecutive MVP awards (4), 2001-04* National League Player of the Month selections (13—second place in MLB is Frank Thomas with 8; second place in NL is George Foster, Pete Rose and Dale Murphy) ...

They're all living the life every single sports-loving kid across the country hopes to experience one day, but is it worth the price?  Kobe Bryant is back in the national spotlight for reasons unrelated to his superhuman abilities on the basketball court.  Barry Bonds is portrayed as a baseball villain, despite beating federal prosecutors on all of its most serious charges and walked out of a United States Courthouse flashing the victory sign.  Fastballer Roger Clemens is currently visiting his tailor for nice suits as he prepares to walk in and out of a federal courtroom for several weeks later this spring. They're three of the world's biggest sports stars, yet we're talking about everything but their athletic accomplishments.  Did they create the situations currently facing them?  Is the media chomping at the bit to chew them up and spit them out?   Have these three superstars made poor decisions?  Whatever the case, Kobe, ...

Barry Bonds was found guilty of obstruction of justice, one of the four charges levied against him yesterday. Although the jury was unable to reach a decision on any of the perjury charges, logic tells you that he probably did know that he was taking illegal performance enhancing drugs, (PED's). The issue was not so much of whether Bonds knew and lied to the Federal Grand Jury, but whether the government could prove it.  Although the government spent tens of millions of dollars, their case was weak and based on circumstantial evidence. The biggest gaffe federal prosecutors made was when their own witness, Dr. Arthur Ting, contradicted earlier testimony by another of their star witnesses, Bonds' former business manager and friend, Steve Hoskins. In Law School 101, the first thing you are taught is that you better know the answer before you ask a question of any witness.  Ting's blatant contradiction of Hoskins' testimony completely undermined ...

Barry Bonds is the all-time home run leader in major league baseball with 762. He also holds the record for most home runs in a single season with 73 in the 2001 season. Overall, Bonds ended up with a career .298 batting average, 2,935 hits, 1,996 RBI, 2,558 walks (MLB record), 688 intentional walks (MLB record), and 514 stolen bases. Barry was a 14 time all-star, 8 time gold glove winner, 12 time silver slugger award winner, 7 time NL MVP and 3 time Hank Aaron award winner.  Let that sink in for just a minute, all of these statistics, awards and accolades for one man. Yet, he is still probably most widely remembered for his association with the BALCO scandal ahead of all of these other things. This week we were reminded, once again, that the greatest player of his generation had to cheat to achieve that status. The government has ...

A sport bruised by work stoppages. Millionaires fighting with billionaires. Fans showed their displeasure the best way they knew how. They stopped going to games. Things picked back up in the late 1990s, with more fans piling into more parks than ever before. There was some thought that fans came back because of the sudden surge of offense via the most exciting thing in the game, the home run. Things really picked up in 1998 when Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Ken Griffey Jr. and Greg Vaughn all finished with 50 or more home runs, with McGwire and Sosa both eclipsing the record set by Roger Maris in 1961. Nine other players slugged over 40 homers. A whole bunch of failed drug tests, grand jury indictments and 13 years later left people connecting the dots between that power surge and the use of performance enhancing drugs. Most notable of course being steroids. So while saying home runs ...