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As we noted in our March 8 post, 2006 should be a tough year for Barry Bonds and the long ball in baseball. The writer of this article is still giving the slugger plenty of lattitude, saying he'll hit a respectable 25-to-30, which should put him within striking distance of the all-time mark in 2007. But he also notes, "Anyone with semi-educated eyeballs can see that Bonds' batting stroke does not have the same frightening torque of 2001 or 2002. But remember, the man turns 42 in July. " Other writers are starting to sink their claws in much deeper. One Detroit Free Press columnists says Bonds is “ reputed to be a jerk of such magnificence that other jerks removed their hats and stood when he passed by.
Bonds is in for an interesting few months, a season of boos reminiscent of the Kobe Bryant Rape Tour a couple of years back. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.”

The columnist goes on to paint the saga of doped up home run records as symptomatic of a deeper cultural flaw:
It would be a mistake to believe the issue here is that an arrogant ballplayer crossed the line. No, the issue is that the line itself is being erased.

Bonds, is the latest manifestation of an ongoing national embarrassment: the prodigious amount of cheating in fields as varied as pop music, education and journalism. To the best of my knowledge, nobody keeps stats on this sort of thing, so maybe people are cheating now with exactly the same frequency they always did, but it sure doesn't feel that way.

Now there's this. Caught -- allegedly -- using steroids to enhance his performance, Barry Bonds trots out onto the field as if nothing's wrong. Just another day at the office. Just another shameless man in a shameless era.

We are witness to a yawning dearth of integrity. And a corresponding death of authenticity.

Think about it: When Hank Aaron smacked the 1974 home run that put him in the record books, it was a tribute to his endurance, his hard work, his strength and, given the racist death threats he faced, his courage. When Bonds overtakes Aaron, what will it be a tribute to? Better living through chemistry?

Barry Bonds looks like a baseball hero. But you don't have to look too closely to realize he's anything but.

As we noted in March when Sports Illustrated’s “The Truth” cover story on Bonds and steroid use appeared, it’s time for the more confrontational attitudes of a bear market to take root. Bear markets are nature’s way of lifting the veil on mass delusion – and that's what's starting to happen now.

Bonds is just 47, or one strong season, from Hank Aaron's all-time record, but there are several socionomic reasons to suspect that he will never get there. In addition to the high likelihood of a renewed downturn in social mood and all the nastiness that it is likely to engender towards Bonds home run chase, there is the tight correlatoin between bull markets and home runs. First, there is the matter of his age. Back in May 1999 (see Additional References below), The Elliott Wave Theorist explained that the careers of the greatest baseball players tended to last a Fibonacci 21 years. This is bonds 21st season. For some reason, the human body tends reach maturity at 21 and perform at the peak level necessary for the highest forms athletic achievement for a 21 years. Bonds will be (21+21) 42 in July; so his time is well near up.

Then there is the fact that home runs tend to peak with bull markets. This was covered in the September 1999 issue of The Elliott Wave Financial Forecast. We called for a decline in home production in the oncoming bear market. Since then the home run totals for all major league teams looks like this:
1999: 5,528
2000: 5,693
2001: 5,458
2002: 5,059
2003: 5,207
2004: 5,451
2005: 5,017

Notice how the total peaks in concert with the all-time high year for stocks. Also notice the dip into the bear market low year of 2002 and the rebound through 2004. The total trailed off seriously in 2005; is the home run deficiency trying to tell us something about the future direction of social mood? We think it is. Barry Bonds recent drought is likely making the same point. 

September 1999, EWFF
Another “Home-Run” Year
For the first time since 1986 and 1987, the two seasons leading to the 1987 crash, the record for the total number of homers (5,064 last year) is likely to fall in consecutive years. home runs are running 11.1% ahead of last year’s pace. On top of that, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa are replaying last year’s home run race. But “there is no home run mania sweeping the nation decidedly unlike last summer.” “The homer has become commonplace,” laments Bob Costas.

USA Today’s cover story on the fans’ “ho-hum” reaction to the greatest home-run display in history suggests that performance will eventually catch up to the slowly developing bear market in fan interest. It shows that measured in 10-year spans, the bull market in home runs has traced out a five-wave pattern of its own. The fact that the multiple from high to low is 2.618 strengthens the case for a peak this decade. As we have said before, in the cultural realm, the completion of a five waves leads to changes in style and performance simply because “it’s time.” Sluggers will tire and stop hitting home runs just as fans become tired of watching them. In May, EWT noted that the greatest athletes seem to have internal clocks that reflect mass changes in social mood to an almost uncanny degree.

May 1999, The Elliott Wave Theorist
“It’s striking that within a few weeks of each other, the giant, singular figures of three major sports basketball’s Michael Jordan, hockey’s Wayne Gretzky, and football’s John Elway have retired,” notes subscriber Rick Peterson. “Only pro baseball was left out of this remarkable trend. Or was it? Baseball’s Joe DiMaggio died in recent weeks and was eulogized as a legend among legends, a man of singular grace and style, the
‘classiest’ player of them all. It’s remarkable that this pattern is playing out now, with the stock market also suggesting the
‘glory days’ are pretty much over.” This gentleman must be reading The Elliott Wave Theorist, where we argue that these trends are not coincidence, but intimately related. These men and their stature are products of bull market social forces.

Getting out on top and at the top will not be the feat for which these heroes are remembered, but it may be the one that goes the furthest toward preserving their bright legacies. These guys played exactly the right number of seasons. For Jordan and DiMaggio, it was 13, and for Gretzky it was 21. Is the perfect career length a Fibonacci number? To come closer to an answer, we investigated the duration of other all-time greats in their respective sports and found a clear tendency for the number of years played to cluster around Fibonacci numbers. In baseball, for instance, the all-time top ten players (as identified by the Sporting News) had an average career length of 21.3 years. Gretzky broke the scoring records of Gordie Howe, who played 35 seasons, one more than a Fibonacci 34. The career of the sport’s other undisputed great, Bobby Orr, spanned 13 years. The all-time leading goaltender (in victories and shutouts) was Charlie Sawchuk, who played 21 NHL seasons. When Jordan retired, USA Today issued a list of the greatest basketball players. It showed that, plus or minus one year, all played a Fibonacci number of seasons. In order of greatness, they were Michael Jordan (13), Will Chamberlain (14), Bill Russell (13), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (20), Larry Bird (13), Earvin “Magic” Johnson (13), Oscar Robertson (14) and Jerry West (14).

For the record, other than a 13-year career by walter payton, the game’s all-time leading rusher, we found no strong Fibonacci correlations among the greatest football players. EWT opined in 1985 that unlike baseball and basketball, football is a “bear market” sport. Therein may lie the difference.

Viewed against their productivity, some of the best athletes reveal an all-too human tendency to overstay their greatness. Babe Ruth is a prime example. After 21 seasons with the Red Sox and Yankees, he jumped to the National League, where he had 6 homers and hit a measly .181 for the Braves in 1935. Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s home run record in his 21st season as a Brave. After that, he had two forgettable seasons with the Milwaukee Brewers. Willie Mays, who played 22 seasons with the Giants, is ranked right behind Ruth as the second best player on the all-time list. But the papers are still talking about what happened when he went back to New York and the Mets in his final season. “It was gut wrenching to see Willie Mays misplay flyballs in the 1973 World Series,” said the April 26 issue of USA Today. This evidence indicates that when a great player chooses to play past his Fibonacci time, his abilities deteriorate rapidly, driving him to quit a year later. Quitting at the top is the best move one can make. It may not seem as Herculean as their scoring records, but Jordan and Gretzky wisely turned down enormous incentives to play one more season. Jordan’s retirement cost the Chicago Bulls all hope of contention, the city of Chicago an estimated $1 billion and his heirs well over $30 million. Gretzky’s own wife was reportedly trying to convince him to play one more season. The ability of so many of these heroes to resist such pressures is another display of the classic form that made them the great men that they are.