Bonds becomes first player ever to record 500 home runs and 500 stolen bases
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Tuesday, June 23, 2015 | BataviasBest.org
On This Day in Sports History 2003, San Francisco Giants great Barry Bonds stole his second of two bases in a game against the Los Angeles Dodgers – giving him 500 SBs for his career.
Typically, the stolen base milestone would have been noteworthy enough, but to go with the over 600 home runs he had already hit up to that point, Bonds became the first (and still to this day the ONLY) MLB player to reach at least 500 HRs AND 500 stolen bases in a career.
Bonds’ milestone moment came in the ninth inning with former Dodgers closer Eric Gagne in the game for LA. Moments following Bonds’ stolen base, Giants catcher Benito Santiago singled home Bonds to score the game-winning run and beat the Dodgers 3-2 in walk-off fashion.
Despite his long list of transgressions over the years following his reaching of the 500/500 milestone (mostly PED-based), Barry Bonds (in my opinion) is still the greatest baseball player to ever play the game. Not only will Bonds likely remain as the sole member of the 500/500 club for quite some time, he is also the sole member of the 400/400 club – both of which may remain exclusive to Barry forever.
Here is an excerpt from a 2013 CSNbayarea.com column remembering Bonds’ milestone:
No active player is even close to joining the 500/500 club. Alex Rodriguez, 37, needs 182 more stolen bases. Albert Pujols, 33, needs 18 more home runs and 408 more stolen bases. In fact, there’s only one active player with more than 500 stolen bases, Juan Pierre, with 609, but he is 482 home runs shy.
As you can see, Bonds’ feat will be extremely difficult for any player to match any time soon and may even be impossible for those chasing the long-time San Francisco Giant. Going forward, you can hate him if you want, but one thing you cannot deny is the fact Barry Bonds was a great baseball player.
Even before the steroids.
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