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By any measure, Barry Bonds is having a season for the ages.
By JOHN ROMANO
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 4, 2001
HOUSTON -- Before it is too late, take a moment to ignore the home runs. Act as if the number and nuances are inconsequential.
For, in the case of Barry Bonds, the length of his home runs does not measure the distance of his season.
The question of whether Bonds will catch Mark McGwire's single-season record of 70 remains an open one. Bonds, for the third game in a row, failed to leave the park Wednesday night, although he broke Babe Ruth's record for walks in a season during a Giants victory.
Yet in many ways, Bonds already has surpassed what McGwire accomplished in 1998. The enormity of his numbers, across the board, rival some of the greatest offensive seasons in history.
"I never dreamed of being where I'm at right now in my career," Bonds said.
Bonds, potentially, could have one of the top three seasons of all time in home runs, walks and slugging percentage, and one of the 10 best seasons for on-base percentage.
His 69 home runs, of course, are second behind McGwire. His sixth-inning walk Wednesday was the 171st of Bonds' season, breaking Ruth's record, which had stood for 78 years. He has an on-base percentage of .510, which puts him in line to be the first player to go over .500 since Ted Williams and Mickey Mantle did it in 1957.
Most impressive of all, however, is Bonds' slugging percentage. This figure measures not only a player's power but also his consistency (dividing total bases and at-bats).
In more than a century of major-league baseball, Babe Ruth is the only player to have posted a slugging percentage higher than .765. Bonds began Wednesday night at .845.
His season is as much a masterpiece as Williams in 1941, Ruth in 1921 or any other you are inclined to choose.
"You hate to see the season coming to a close. You want to remember and see this picture for a long time," Giants manager Dusty Baker said. "You know sometimes you have a song that goes off on the radio and you wish they would keep playing it for another five minutes?
"That's how it's been this year, watching Barry hit."
The disparity between Bonds in 2001 and McGwire in 1998 in terms of slugging percentage illustrates the remarkable differences in their overall productivity. McGwire's slugging percentage was .752, a highly impressive number that had not been seen since 1927. And yet Bonds is nearly 90 percentage points higher than McGwire.
For McGwire to have reached a slugging percentage of .845 in 1998, he would have needed to go 15-for-15 -- with 15 home runs.
"What he has done this year has been incredible," Astros general manager Gerry Hunsicker said. "You're talking about one of the greatest hitters of his day and one of the greatest seasons."
McGwire has correctly pointed out that Bonds has not endured as much pressure or scrutiny as he did. McGwire was chasing a standard that had stood for 37 years and had taken on mythical qualities. McGwire also was under the microscope since the start of spring training after finishing the previous season with 58 home runs, three shy of Roger Maris.
Bonds, 37, may be the greatest player of his generation but has never been classified as a pure power hitter. Like Maris before him, Bonds had not even hit 50 home runs in a season before making his run at history.
The quest for Bonds did not begin in earnest until the season's second half. Although now he is facing time restraints McGwire never had.
When McGwire came within one homer of Maris, he had 20 games remaining in the season. Bonds had seven games to go when he hit No. 69, and now is down to four.
Pitchers also are avoiding Bonds like no hitter before him. Always a patient hitter, Bonds has been drawing walks at an obscene pace the past two weeks. He has a nine-game walk streak, with 18 walks overall in that span. At that pace, he would draw 324 walks in a season. And that does not even include being hit by pitches in two of his last three games.
Bonds expressed annoyance after being hit by a pitch and walked twice in the series opener Tuesday, but he also admitted the Astros had some justification in avoiding him because they are in a pennant race.
He said he expects the Dodgers to be more aggressive against him in a three-game series at Pac Bell Park this weekend because Los Angeles already has been eliminated from the postseason.
"If we get in a situation where we are out of it, and L.A. is out of it, then maybe I might feel a little upset," Bonds said. "But if we are all in it, we are all in it. Take it like a man and move on."
How remarkable is Barry Bonds' 2001 season? Babe Ruth is the only player in history with a slugging percentage higher than .800. In fact, Ruth is the only player with a slugging percentage higher than .765. Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron and Mark McGwire never combined power and average well enough for that type of slugging percentage. Yet Bonds went into Wednesday night with a slugging percentage of .845. Here is how Bonds matches up against history's top five:
Player Year SLG
Babe Ruth 1920 .847
Babe Ruth 1921 .846
Barry Bonds 2001 .843
Babe Ruth 1927 .772
Lou Gehrig 1927 .765
Babe Ruth 1923 .764