Posted on 08/08/2007 8:12:46 AM PDT by hardback
This is why he did it. This is, ironically, what he wanted: all eyes on him, urgent cut-ins, the undivided attention of the world. He saw all the love and adoration that was heaped upon Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa nine years ago, and he reacted in typical Barry Bonds fashion.
Like a petty, selfish, spoiled child.
In the end, there is no mystery to this crime story. We know what Bonds did - he admitted it to a grand jury, after placing his hand on the Bible - and we know why he did it. For the most juvenile, sophomoric and stupid of reasons: He was jealous. He had everything, he wanted more.
Bonds was the best all-around player in baseball back then, a certain first-ballot Hall of Famer who already had won six Gold Gloves and three MVPs. And who were they? McGwire and Sosa were good players, sure, but they were never in his class. They cheated their way onto the big stage, so he responded in typical Barry Bonds fashion, like a man without the slightest hint of conscience. He cheated, too.
And he cheated better. He wasn’t going to take a backseat to the white boy, as he called McGwire, according to girlfriend Kimberly Bell.
So he smashed McGwire’s ill-gotten record for homers in a season, and then he set his sights on the most hallowed milestone in sports. Last night in San Francisco he stole that record from the great Hank Aaron with a solo shot off Washington’s Mike Bacsik. In San Francisco, thousands of soulless toadies took great delight in Bonds’ tainted achievement, but beyond the bay, the moment was met with almost universal disgust. Perhaps the only legitimate record set last night was: most eyewitnesses to a crime in human history.
On one level, it is, of course, a sad day in sports. An asterisk is now seared into the baseball record book like a permanent needle mark. Fathers will forever be telling sons about the infamous Steroid Era, a time when the games were not played on the level and the numbers were as phony as a Clinton family photo op. That is too bad.
But you know what would have been much, much worse? Another 1998. Another scam, another sham, another celebration like the one that erupted around McGwire and Sosa, two frauds who mainlined their way into the hearts of American baseball fans. They saved baseball, remember? Sure they did. They saved baseball like Ben Johnson saved the 100 meters, like Rosie Ruiz saved the Boston Marathon.
We’ve probably all been scammed once in our lives. If you were a baseball fan, you got scammed in the summer of ’98, taken for a ride by Sosa and McGwire. Remember it? No one booed back then, but oh, how we wish we had. Oh, how we would like to go back in time and point a finger at these two juiced-up frauds and tell them they weren’t going to get away with it.
Hey, McGwire, you hit .201 before you discovered the joys of performance enhancers. You hit 22 homers in 483 at-bats in 1991. You’re about as much of an all-time great as Dave Kingman was.
And you, Sosa, we caught you corking bats. We know you have no qualms, no conscience about cheating the game. You expect us to believe you just kind of filled in?
Liars, cheaters, frauds, phonies. Together they spit on Maris and Mantle and Mays, and all the other 180-pound stars who did it for real. They chose the shortcut, better hitting through chemistry, and thought they were going to get away with it. They had the union zealots behind them, they had a linguini-spined commissioner and they had the starry-eyed sycophants from ESPN who wanted to believe that flaxseed could make a man’s head grow a size and a half. Oh, but along came tenacious federal agent Jeff Novitzky, the BALCO grand jury and“Game of Shadows,” the brilliant expose that split sports fans into two camps: You either flat-out know that Bonds is a lying, cheating, chemically enhanced creep, or you didn’t read the book.
It’s all there in this devastating, 300-page disinfectant. You digest the facts laid out by Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada, and you understand that what we saw last night would not have happened if Bonds hadn’t broken federal laws and, thus, violated the rules of Major League Baseball.
It is too bad he got this far, but in the end, there is great consolation in the reaction of the public. He might have gotten to 756, but does it feel like he got away with it? There is no one left who genuinely, honestly believes in his heart that Bonds did not cheat. There is no one who believes Bonds would have been rounding the bases last night, two weeks after his 43rd birthday, if he hadn’t taken a detour through the BALCO labs.
We got fooled once, in ’98, and the joke was on us. We got fooled twice, last night in San Francisco, and the joke was on Bonds. He stole Aaron’s record, but he did not get away with it. Hundreds of millions of people watched this historic moment, all of them eyewitnesses to a crime.
Go A-Rod.
Congratulations to Barry Bonds! You did it! You set your eyes on the prize and through all the criticism, naysaying, grousing and backbiting you fought on and you accomplished an awesome goal!!!
Three cheers, Barry!! You soldiered on and got ‘er done!! I am proud of you!!
Listen up, children - Cheaters DO win.
Hank Aaron is STILL the home run champ!
Author does not acknowledge the function of professional sports in society.
but Cansco is about to out A-Rod in his new book. I put my money on Rob Howard.
This writer needs to chill out a bit. Has he never read Ball Four? Back in the 50s and 60s, ballplayers popped more pills than Johnny Cash. They were all benny-popping speed freaks. It’s not as if athletes suddenly became evil. And it’s not just Barry that’s tainted. It’s this whole era.
My favorite thing about Barry is that all his awards and accomplishments are individual accomplishments. He never won a championship. It’s a team sport. Chuck Knoblauch has more rings than Barry. I like that.
As for 1998, it was great if you were a Yankee fan.
Bonds was the best all-around player in baseball back then...
No, Ken Griffey Jr. WAS the best all-around player in baseball back then (before his injury problems).
Go A-Rod indeed.
I knew it would never happen, but I think the best thing that could have happened would be for whomever caught the ball to throw it back on the field like they do in Wrigley Field. That would have been sweet justice.
Isn’t that federal perjury grand jury on Bonds still meeting in San Francisco?
I think you mean Ryan Howard.
A-Rod was hitting 40 plus homers when we was in his early 20’s. He could play tight end in the NFL if had wanted to. I don’t care for him but I recognize the talent that he has.
Like a petty, selfish, spoiled child.
I call BS. I am no fan of Bonds and agree that his accomplishment is tainted, but if you heard the interview last night, it was a reasonably class act and not that of "a petty, selfish, spoiled child."
In this story he doesn’t but Gerry Callahan has covered the Red Sox for years so he knows what sports teams mean for fans.
Pro-Baseball and Football are not sports. They are a business. As in business, everything goes....just about.
Classic.
If Roger Maris can go for years with an asterisk next to his name, Bonds should have a syringe next to his.
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