Kuzul

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 ...

Mad Magazine should feature Manny Ramirez on their covers. He’s one of the original Boston Red Sox Idiots. And, now we have confirmation he is crazy as a Looney Toon. Imagine having been banned once for 50 games for using a forbidden substance, and then to use the proverbial putative something again. Imagine being so stupid that you are caught once more with hormones, steroids or the creeping crud inside you. The threat of a 100-game suspension and humiliation is a great motivator toward retirement. The motto of Manny Being Manny rivals only the other imbecile’s mantra: ”What, me worry?” Don’t worry, Manny. Be happy. Your career is in the garbage dump and your miscue is now beyond rescue. You just flushed 500 home runs down the poop chute. Some people get ulcers, and others give them. If Manny is ulcerated, it is only along his medulla oblongata. If using ...

Manny Ramirez has announced his retirement from major league baseball, rather than continue with the league's drug use program.The slugger is just the most recent in a litany of elite hitters who have seen their reputations tarnished by the use of performance-enhancing drugs. How great could they have been without?Manny will go down as one of the greatest pure hitters of his generation, and will never sniff the Hall of Fame because "great" wasn't enough.Begin Slideshow

Barry Bonds awaits his fate in a federal courthouse in San Francisco for allegedly lying about knowingly using steroids. Whatever the outcome of that case, one thing is for certain: Bonds deprived us of more than we know as baseball fans.  It's not just the asterisks that we attach to the records Bonds broke; it's more than that.  It's what he didn't allow us to see: a great player who achieved so much through natural ability and dedication to his craft, who then got older and slowed down. That's right.  We didn't get to see Barry decline, and that's not fair to the game of baseball or its fans. One of the biggest reasons baseball is America's pastime—the game of our forefathers, and now our game—is because we can identify with those who compete on the diamond.  We see ourselves in so many of our heroes ...

While baseball is known as America's pastime, the sport is no stranger to controversy.Facing on-and-off-field scandals since before the dinosaurs walked the earth, Major League Baseball continues to battle its tarnished reputation.In a sport that requires class and natural skill, rather technique, many players have tried to cheat the system.From the most prolific home-run hitters in history using steroids during their primes to players purposely losing games to win bets, baseball has faced arguably the most controversy of any professional sport.While baseball enters a new era with dominant pitching and egotistical millionaires, it is on the way to cleaning itself up.But let's look back at the craziest scandals and stories in MLB history.Enjoy.Begin Slideshow

The fate of Barry Bonds appears to be close at hand. On Monday, Bonds' former mistress, Kimberly Bell, recounted that the former Giants star told her in 1999 that he had taken steroids to recover from elbow surgery. The next day, slugger Jason Giambi took the stand and stated that he had received a shipment of testosterone from Bonds trainer, Greg Anderson, in 2002. When asked by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Nedrow if he understood what he had received was a steroid Giambi simply replied, “Yes.” Wednesday, the prosecution called scientists from Qwest diagnostics to testify about the 2003 MLB series of drug tests, in which the Feds claims Bonds’ sample tested positive. It was damning evidence and it proved absolutely…nothing. Zilch. Look, we all know by now that Barry Bonds is not a real nice guy. We didn’t necessarily need to hear the threatening, psychotic voicemails he left on Kimberly Bell’s answering machine ...

The scars of MLB's recent past are beginning to heal and fade. The Steroids Era is growing smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror.It's been over six years since Major League Baseball was first embarrassed on Capitol Hill in the "steroids hearings" of March 2005. Over three years have passed since the release of the Mitchell Report.Despite the march of time, there are still a handful of retired MLB stars who, well, we simply wish would just go away—Jose Canseco and Roger Clemens among them.These players, whether we liked them or not, earned headlines during their playing days for just that—playing the game of baseball and playing it very well.Now, in retirement, they grab headlines from time to time for all of the wrong reasons—not only adding further public embarrassment to their already tarnished images but, often, also bringing further shame to a sport that is increasingly gaining momentum in ...

This is the second article in a twenty-some volume series selecting players at each position by the beginning letter of their last name. Some letters such as I, O, Q, U, Y and Z will probably not field a time. I haven’t researched them yet so I can’t say for sure. It is a fun list, a conversation starter and I hope I can get it finished. I was actually inspired to do this list from author Sue Grafton’s Mystery Alphabet Series.I decided to us a modified 1961 Topps look for this particular letter. I hope you enjoy it.Begin Slideshow

There's not much to say about Barry Bonds and the legal situation he's wrapped up in. The former “best player in baseball” and current home run champ has been under the microscope of Congress since he claimed to never knowingly use steroids during his 22-year career.  This was back in 2003 and Bonds is finally facing four counts of perjury along with other charges some seven and half years later.   Former trainers, former mistresses and former teammates have emerged over the years as major players in the “Bonds Perjury Case.” Whether those key figures pose any threat to Bonds and his future engagements with Congress has yet to be seen.   It's utterly sad that the career of a man who seemed to be the greatest hitter of all-time has publicly spiraled to the depths of the media. However, at this point, Bonds' main concern is ...