Where the game went wrong

By Tony Arnoldine Sports Central Columnist

It is very hard to argue that there is another player who is statistically better than Barry Bonds. 637 homeruns, over 1,700 RBI, and 500 stolen bases. No other active player even comes close to these achievements. Bonds is considered by many as one of the greatest players of all-time, if not the best. But when did we stop taking a player's character into consideration?

Barry Bonds' name has only come up in the "who is the best ever?" discussions recently, most notably after he hit a record 73 homeruns in 2001. When a person considers the best players of all-time, Bonds' name should come up after Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, and Willie Mays. Now the bandwagon-jumping baseball "experts" seem to throw Bonds' name into the mix before even considering those former greats.

Before that monster season in 2001, where he also walked 177 times and drove in 137, Bonds was looked at as a cocky showman, one who had never hit more than 50 homeruns in a season. Obviously, he had the talent to back it up, but many frowned on his actions.

In the old days, if a player hit a homerun and then did a dancing twirl before slowly jogging to first, he would have been beaned the next time up and ridiculed by the fans. Now this is praised.

When a ball is hammered 500 feet over the fence and is a sure homerun, there is a little room for celebration. But when it isn't certain if the fly ball is a homerun or a double off the wall, the premature celebration can cost the team.

Sammy Sosa is the prime example of this type of hot-dogging. Just last year, Sosa hit a ball deep towards the wall at Wrigley Field. Sosa went into his patented jump and began the slow jog to first. The ball hit off the wall and thanks to Sammy's ridiculous showboating, what should have been an easy double -- maybe stretched into a triple -- turned into a single, with Sosa barely reaching the bag by the time the ball was back into the infield.

Despite these antics, these two men are considered the best in the game. Let's not forget Sosa's corked-bat incident -- how quickly that was erased from the public's memory. When Albert Belle's bat busted, full of cork on the inside, the public immediately put him in the doghouse, a place that Belle would never escape from.

Ten years ago, Bonds and Sosa would be considered bad boys of the game. Wait ... 10 years ago, Bonds and Sosa were considered bad boys of the game. Oh, how quickly things change...

Article courtesy of Sports Central.