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Originally posted by inconspicuous no, it's not with his career ending after '98. before '99, he was 35 years old and didn't yet have 411 home runs. It's very debatable whether he would have gotten to 600 without steroids.

Huh? Bonds age at the begining of the 1998 season was 33. And, yes, he did have 411 homeruns at the end of the '98 season. He could have averaged 25 homeruns and had 600 by the time he was 41. Mays played till he was 42.

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Originally posted by Shamez214 Huh? Bonds age at the begining of the 1998 season was 33. And, yes, he did have 411 homeruns at the end of the '98 season. He could have averaged 25 homeruns and had 600 by the time he was 41. Mays played till he was 42.

We're both off--he was 34 when he started the '99 season. He turned 35 halfway through it.

Also, he had a knee which, by 2002, had deteriorated to the point of having no cartilage left anyway, so it's not as if it's such a lock that he'd play that long.

As for Mays, yes, he played 'til 43, but he had a total of 73 home runs in his last 5 seasons, and only 32 in the last 3, so it's not like you can just assume that Barry's going to have 25 a year based on that. Consider also that in Mays's 3-year stretch from ages 31-34 (Bonds's ages in his last 4 years before steroids), he had 186 home runs to Barry's 152 over that same stretch, so that comparison falls apart even more. Bonds was already less productive at that age than Mays was, and Mays only managed 132 more home runs in his career. It's fair to say Barry would have had a chance to do a bit better, but to take it as a given that he was going to hit 70 more home runs at that age than Willie Mays is unreasonable.

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Originally posted by inconspicuous We're both off--he was 34 when he started the '99 season. He turned 35 halfway through it. Also, he had a knee which, by 2002, had deteriorated to the point of having no cartilage left anyway, so it's not as if it's such a lock that he'd play that long. As for Mays, yes, he played 'til 43, but he had a total of 73 home runs in his last 5 seasons, and only 32 in the last 3, so it's not like you can just assume that Barry's going to have 25 a year based on that. Consider also that in Mays's 3-year stretch from ages 31-34 (Bonds's ages in his last 4 years before steroids), he had 186 home runs to Barry's 152 over that same stretch, so that comparison falls apart even more. Bonds was already less productive at that age than Mays was, and Mays only managed 132 more home runs in his career. It's fair to say Barry would have had a chance to do a bit better, but to take it as a given that he was going to hit 70 more home runs at that age than Willie Mays is unreasonable.

Regardless of whether or not Bonds hit 600 homeruns, everything else I said still holds water.

Bonds was equal to or better than Mays in almost all offensive categories.