Originally Posted by kane

It really is hard to compare eras. The guys these days are so much bigger and stronger. They throw harder, run faster and are full time athletes. I read the book The Big Bam about Babe Ruth. Many of the players in those days didn't make shit playing ball so they played ball then went and worked on a farm or whatever in the off-season. Today guys play winter ball, have scouting reports, specialty pitching and better equipment. It was obvious that MLB wanted more home runs and more scoring so they juiced the balls and shrunk the parks and things like that to increase home run totals. There was a year where Babe Ruth hit 45 homes runs and the next highest guy on his team had 9. These days you see a lot of teams with 4-5 guys that hit 25-30 or more.

All that said Bonds before he started bulking up, was one of, if not the best player of his era. He was hitting home runs (not as many obviously), he has gold gloves, has a great arm, stole bases etc. If, when it is all said and done, he is found out to be roided up and on hgh or other things like that I have to wonder how many of his home runs are from that, how many are from the better gear and the stadiums/equipment of the era and how many were just because he is an amazing hitter.