Barry Bonds

Dear Barry,

I can now say it with a clear conscience: you're a BUM, Mr. Bonds. I know, I know, you'll probably tell me that there's been no conviction yet and that the perjury/obstruction charges you now face are STILL bogus; after all, you're Barry Lamar Bonds—home run king, big-shot.

When the Reds reached the postseason in 2010, it was as if a 15-year siege had come to an end in Cincinnati. At long last, an organization stuck in the trenches of the National League had crossed over the breach.   

 Joey Votto’s 2010 season will resonate in Reds lore as the end of an era of losing in Cincinnati, and potentially a signal of things to come for a young and talented core.

 However, it also begs the question: in a Cincinnati Reds organization with such a storied history, where does Votto’s impressive third season rank?

The Steroid Era has been one of the most exciting movements in all of sports.  It provided baseball fans like me growing up as a kid in the 1990's with life-changing home runs to watch.

These unbelievable seasons of home runs, delivered by a lot of our favorite players, seems surreal in 2011. It's almost like it never happened.

When I was a youngster, I didn't understand the magnitude of what McGwire and Sosa, and Canseco did. Now in 2011, people are shocked by a 50-homer season.  

In honor of Martin Luther King Day, and to honor African American players in the major leagues, I have compiled a nine player lineup of the greatest African American players in baseball history.

There were a number of tough decisions in naming the team, and the likes of Ken Griffey Jr, Joe Morgan, and Frank Thomas, among many others didn't make the cut.

So here it is, the starting nine African American players in honor of Martin Luther King Day.

The magic number is 762, set by the great Barry Bonds.

He banged out 762 home runs over the course of 21 phenomenal seasons. And as soon as Bonds hit 756, baseball players all over the world aspired to be the one guy who "caught Bonds" the way Bonds "caught Hammerin Hank Aaron."

While 762 may be a long, and I mean very long shot for almost everyone, there are a few chasers still going.

Many say Alex Rodriguez who sits at 35 years of age and has 613 homers will be the guy to do it. But he is going to need 150 more and how much longer can he keep up his 30 a year pace?

This is a difficult time for many of those who believe the game will forever be tainted by the Performance Enhancing Drug era.

I refuse to call it the "Steroid Era" as many of the so-called cheaters never actually took a steroid. If you're going to label something, it may as well be accurate.

I will admit that some of the things MLB players did during this time disgusts me. It's not so much the fact that they cheated, but that they were so smug and arrogant that they thought they could get away with it.

Now that we've had time to digest the latest results of the Baseball Hall of Fame voting which welcomed two new members, Roberto Alomar and Bert Blyeven, we examine the possible solutions to fixing the voting system.

Last week, controversy surrounded the steroid users or suspected users and therefore they got in some cases surprisingly low percentages, like Jeff Bagwell's 40 percent and Rafael Palmeiro's 11 percent. 

Robert Alomar and Bert Byleven have been elected to Cooperstown this year. Both men narrowly missed out on being elected last season.

Alomar spent time with seven different teams during his Hall of Fame career. It is amazing to that a player of his caliber bounced around so often and never spent more than five seasons with one team. Alomar was a 12-time All-Star and won 10 Gold Gloves as a second baseman. In addition, he also won four Silver Sluggers and was the 1992 ALCS MVP, as well as the 1998 All-Star Game MVP.

One of the all-time great sports debates has always been as to who deserves to be in the Hall of Fame and who doesn't.

On paper, Rafael Palmeiro is a sure-fire Hall of Famer. Unfortunately, in the real world he is not. He is the poster boy for the steroid era, and he in turn sullied the game the same way others like Rose and the Black Sox did.

Despite vehemently denying the use of steroids, he failed a steroid test, was named by Jose Canseco as a user and he was also named in the Mitchell Report. The amount of evidence against him is staggering, and because of that evidence, Palmeiro must be kept out of the Hall of Fame.