By Kevin Dowd

The Washington prep basketball regular season began Nov. 30. It ends the second week of February. We’re thus at the midway point, and this lapsed prep sports reporter will thus proceed to spend altogether too many words recapping what’s happened so far around the state and pointing out a few things to look for as the postseason approaches. I can’t help myself.

We’ll tackle boys basketball now and then move along to the girls some time over the weekend. Methodology: I divided the state into five entirely subjective regions. For each one I highlighted a few teams having particularly interesting seasons, plus any other interesting tidbits or trends that have jumped out to me as I watch from afar. Pretty simple.

Sadly, the wonderful WAPrepZone.com appears to no longer be tracking basketball results with the thoroughness it once did, which makes exercises such as this one a touch more difficult. Thankfully, ScoreCzar.com has a pretty darn helpful database of information to which I would suggest any interested parties refer. Also thanks to Tim Martinez at The Columbian for putting together this handy little composite table of all the many top ten rankings that are compiled by various organizations.

Onto the good stuff!

Continue reading “High School Basketball Halfway Report, Boys Edition”

 

I feel like the above is an obvious statement. The man hit 762 home runs, more than anyone who has ever walked this green earth. In 2001, he hit 73 home runs, which is another all-time record. He played 22 seasons and hit .298 and was a fourteen-time all-star. In 1998, the Arizona Diamondbacks intentionally walked him with the bases loaded. Bonds walked 130 times that season and it was only the eighth-highest walk total of his career. He won seven MVP awards, was in the top ten six more times, stole thirty or more bases nine times and won eight gold gloves. He was perhaps the best player in baseball in 1990 and without question still so fourteen years later, in 2004, when he posted an OPS of 1.422 (bolstered by a .609 OBP (both all-time marks)) and averaged a home run every 8.3 at-bats, maybe the most dominant single season by a batter in baseball history. Did I mention he hit 762 career home runs? I did. Barry Lamar Bonds was something else.

The 440 members of the Baseball Writers Association of America who have a say in the matter know this, and yet still just 195 of them cast a ballot for Bonds in the most recent voting for the Hall of Fame. That’s 44.3 percent, or 0.9 percent more support than was shown to Edgar Martinez. Look, I’m from Seattle. Edgar is in my mind the greatest designated hitter of all time. Love the guy. There used to be a prominently displayed button in my basement that read “Edgar Esta Caliente.” But a reasonable mind could consider Bonds the greatest baseball player of all time, period, sans qualifiers, which is a more impressive thing. It’s great to be the fastest gazelle on the savannah, but there are cheetahs out there. That is the first time Edgar Martinez has ever been compared to a gazelle. And yet: 44.3 percent. Seems off.

Continue reading “Barry Lamar Bonds Should Be In Cooperstown”