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I'd go with Clemmens. With all due respect to Bonds whose accomplishmnts are obviously mercurial, good pitching has been harder to come by than good hitting during the course of these two players careers. Pitchers appear to be over matched against todays crop of hitters (for whatever reasons). In my mind that gives pitching accomplishments an edge over hitters.

Both have been great players for a long time. Bonds has six MVPs (soon to be seven), Clemens has six Cy Youngs (maybe soon to be seven).

I would contend that, despite his dominance, Clemens has never had a stretch in his career where he so utterly laid waste to the competition the way Bonds has over the past 3+ seasons.

It'd be a tough choice, but I'd go with Bonds. Not to belittle anything that Clemens has accomplished, but what Bonds has done over the past 4.5 years has been simply inhuman. This all comes after his prior seasons of "normal" baseball which by themselves were HOF worthy.

Beyond that, I feel that Bonds is at least tied for the best hitter to ever play the game (Williams). I can't say the same about Clemens and pitching.

Not a tough choice at all. Both are very deserving and both will ne first ballot selections, but if I could choose only one, it's Bonds in a walk. Clemens is certainly among the 20 or 30 greatest pitchers ever; Bonds is among the 3 greatest hitters ever. The only other hitters in Bonds' class are Ruth and Williams.

I would pick Bonds easily.

Bonds' achievements are exceeded only by Ruth and Wagner.

(Wagner was in the Top 5 for RBIs' 14 seasons in a row for teams that dominated the very compeitive early years of the National League. Williams is NOWHERE near the hitter that Wagner was).

While Clemens is certainly a genuinely great pitcher he is matched very closely by Seaver and his performance numbers, as opposed to results, are exceeded by Randy Johnson.

Are you kidding? Ted Williams has the second highest OPS+ in the history of the game (Wagner is #35). He is the career leader in OBP (Wagner is #92), second all-time in SLG, and beats Wagner by a mile in homeruns (512-101), runs (1798-1736) and RBI (1839-1732) despite missing close to four of his prime seasons defending our country.

Please let me know what would lead you to make such an absurd statement.