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I think we should stop trying to police sports and
let them do as they please.

Who cares.

It's their bodies their lives why bother.

You can't stop it the money is to big..

No. Objectively speaking, Bonds hit more home runs in major league baseball games than Aaron did. That is the reality that a record records. That Bonds is a juicer doesn't make those home runs not exist.

I could go for an asterisk solution, but not for removing his name entirely.

Henry Aaron did something amazing, and he did it while getting hate mail and death threats. He chipped away at Babe Ruth's record by working hard and capitalizing on the talent he was born with.

Barry Bonds broke baseball's own rules and the unspoken rules of our society by cutting corners to get ahead.

If he used steroids, how can he NOT be stripped of the title? How can MLB look Henry Aaron in the eye and say, "Well, technically he DID hit more homeruns than you."

Marion Jones outran the field in Athens but her name isn't in the record books.

If the Olympics can deal seriously with cheaters, so can MLB.

Steroids are known to cause: nausea, delusion, paranoia, vomiting, high blood pressure, liver damage, jaundice, urinary problems, and an increased risk of developing diseases like heart disease and cancer.

Two players are roughly equal in skill and athletic ability. One of them takes steroids to gain an edge. This decision in isolation was his/hers to make, because they take responsibility for the adverse health effects. But when the two players are in competition with each other, the first player's decision creates an externality that imposes on the second player. If the second player doesn't want to get out-competed, he/she needs to take the drugs in order to keep up. The second player's decision isn't then totally their own. The first player's freedom to choose has now imposed on the second player's freedom to choose.

That's why you ban steroids. And that's why you strip the records if you can prove steroids were used. It's for the health and safety of the players, making sure there is no incentive to harm one's self.

Thanks. Well said.

By the way, Happy 75th Birthday to Mr. Aaron, the rightful all-time home run king.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090205&content_id=3800758&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

Is the home run record contingent on morality? Then, let's crown Aaron the moral home run champ, and name Bonds the immoral champ.

The truth is that long-term steroid use has minimal side effects, as a host of studies has shown. Steroid mania is a media effect.

The only legitimate reason they're banned is that they give an unfair advantage to certain players. But so do amphetimines, which Bonds also took and which have been used for decades. So do corked bats. So do spitballs.

If you start correcting records post facto for cheating, you soon run into a dilemma. If Sosa gets caught with a corked bat, do you erase some of his home runs? Which ones? If Jeff Kent sets a record for runs, and 20 of those runs come from HRs hit by Bonds, does that record go? Do we correct pitchers' ERAs for Bonds's now not-home runs? Do we erase Roger Clemens's records, even if it's not proven in court that he took steroids? (We all know he did.)

Stigmatize, yes. Erase the record, no.

There's no perfect solution, no guarantee of fairness. Marion Jones' relay teammates had to give back their gold medals, not because of any fault of theirs but because Jones broke the rules. If you're going to deal appropriately with Jones, as the IOC did, you have to accept the collateral damage.

Brian, your Sosa comparison doesn't hold any water. If you could prove that this home run or that was hit with a corked bat, then yes you take those away. The problem is you can't. However, if you can prove Bonds was under the influence then you do take them away. If the home run did not happen under legal circumstances it should be removed. When I was young I was at an Orioles-Royals game in Baltimore. In the first inning George Brett hit a home run, but shortly thereafter the game was rained out. George Brett did hit that homer, but it was stripped from his stats because the game wasn't legal since it only went for one inning.

This happens in sports all the time. A touchdown is taken away because on review it's seen the receiver was out of bounds. In auto racing victories are taken away after the fact if the car was outside of the rules. Letting records stand when it is known that they were obtained outside the regulations is absurd.

The Sosa analogy is fairly exact. We may end up with absolute evidence that Bonds took steroids in, say, 2003. Do we erase only those home runs? What about 2001? He was probably taking them then, but we don't have hard evidence. Do we take away those home runs, too? Even without evidence? Sosa was probably using the corked bat for a while, too.

And don't forget the genealogy of the actual rules involved--happy rules for juicers based on the Players Association's insistence on protecting players. If Bonds had been caught injecting himself on second base in the 7th inning of a game in 2002, what rules, precisely, would have been at issue? Would the Giants have had to forfeit the game? No. Would, under the drug policy of MLB, Bonds's home run in the second inning have been erased? No.

Show me the analogy to NASCAR, where established rules let everyone know that cheating means losing a win. Same with the Olympics and with 3-inning games.

You guys are making up a rule after the fact--specifically, that a home run hit on steroids has no standing--to justify an opinion.

Bench Barry
If prosecutors prove Barry Bonds bulked up on steroids, as long suspected, Major League Baseball must strip his home run records from the books.* Doug

Oh come on Doug! About 200 years from now, The Baseball Hall of Fame will not exist and the records of the Players will long be forgotten due to the total collapse of Western civilzation.

I know this shakes your faith in Gladiator Sports, but name me one ancient Roman Gladiator whose name sticks out in modern history, besides " Puff Up Julius the Killer Transgender Crossdresser"

Brian, there's no making up rules after the fact. It is established in rules and laws everywhere that one should not profit from ill-gotten gains. Otherwise the rules are meaningless. And yes, testimony can prove that Bonds was, for example, using steroids throughout the 2003 season. You seem to think that because another rule, corked bats, are going to be harder to prove after the fact we should ignore all other rule violations that we could prove. That is ridiculous. Am I to believe that your suggestion is that people who broke the rules should not be penalized because at the time they broke them enforcement was lax? The murder rate spiked in New Orleans after Katrina because enforcement was more difficult due to a shattered police department and court system. Most murders went unsolved. Should a murderer who committed his crime in 2006 and caught now be let go because he had no logical reason to think he'd be punished at the time he killed someone? Sometimes the punishment for breaking a rule is unclear beforehand, but that doesn't mean they should be excluded from punishment.

Sports Illustrated reported today that Alex Rodriguez tested positive for steroids in 2003, his MVP season.

Just to clarify (not that I think it will do much good): I claim not that infractions shouldn't be penalized because enforcement of the rules was lax, but that there were no rules. Under the collective bargaining agreement--that is, an actual binding contract written in language, not your nebulous moralism about ill-gotten gains and rules "everywhere"--there were, in 2003, no consequences for taking steroids. This is explicitly in the contract: even if your sample came up positive, as was true for over 100 players, you couldn't be punished in any way by MLB. You couldn't even be IDENTIFIED. If you now say that Bonds should be identified and punished, you are making a new rule.

Murder has always been illegal, by law. Corked bats have always been illegal, by the rules of MLB. If Bonds goes to jail for taking steroids, fine by me: he broke a law (a stupid one) already in place. But he didn't violate any rule of the game relevant to the record book. It's the same as if he killed his wife: he broke the law and he deserves to go to jail, but he still hit the homers.