Let's juice and hit home runs!

I'm not even sure this picture of this guy is real. I sure hope it isn't. Anyway, the guys at Deuce of Davenport, who excel at finding all sorts of interesting things, keyed us in to a new blog that's been recently put up by a guy called Dr. Asterisk who is taking a pretty detailed look at the steroids era of baseball. It's worth it to take a look.

I have one issue though, and since you can't comment on the blog, i'll have to do it here. Dr. Asterisk thinks Bonds has had an easy time thanks to AT&T Park's short right field (309 ft). He says during Bonds's record 73 home run season, 12 home runs would not have happened had the Giants still been playing in Candlestick. This is because Candlestick was 330 ft down the right field line and during the 73 home run season Bonds hit 12 home runs between 309 and 330 ft. Although that's not an unreasonable theory, I don't think it's 100% right.

The reason why is that while right field is short, it has a 24-foot high wall. As an SF native, I have seen Bonds hit laser beams onto the right field walkway at AT&T. They don't use physics to determine how much further the ball would have gone had it not hit me in the head as i'm walking on the walkway. Therefore, just because a homerun is listed as having gone 315 ft at AT&T Park by Bonds doesn't necessarily mean it wouldn't have gone out at Candlestick. When you factor in that the ball is at least 25 ft off the ground and still traveling before it hits my noggin' at 315 ft, there's a good possibility it could have gone 330+ feet and made it over an 8 ft wall.

Plus, AT&T Park really only helps you out right down the right field line. Deep right center field is where home runs go to die (421 ft). The law of statistical averages would say that for every down the line cheap home run Bonds gets, he loses at least one in that deathtrap of deep right-center field. In addition, AT&T Park has always been known as a pitcher's park. How do I know? Because Scott Spiezio's back breaking home run in Game 6 of the 2002 World series in Anahiem would have been a flyout in San Francisco. God that hurt like hell, and it was all because of that stupid ass "win the All-Star Game get home field advantage" bullshit. F_ck you Selig.

But back to normal. My point is that some of those 12 home runs still would have cleared the fence at Candlestick. And some of the balls he hit into deep right field at AT&T Park that didn't go out, would have gone out at Candlestick. So in other words, who knows. You can't really say with any certainty that he would be better off at AT&T Park versus Candlestick unless we get some MIT guys to figure this out by using physics and ball flight paths.

This is all sort of a moot point anyway, since Bonds did steroids and is wiped off Dr. Asterisk's home run list. I just had to stick up for my thick-skulled home town steroid abuser.

-WCK