Posted on 05/28/2006 6:01:06 PM PDT by Pokey78
Barry Bonds was in Milwaukee recently and the commissioner of baseball wouldn’t make the 10-minute drive from his house to watch him. So it follows that Bud Selig wasn’t in when Bonds moved past Babe Ruth on the home run list.
Nor were any of Ruth’s children. Nor any high-level officials. Nor anybody whose presence screamed, “I’m important, so I’m here.”
Barry Bonds hit his 715th home run Sunday. But every overblown ESPN news break-in couldn’t drown out the sad reality of the moment. It was as awkward as it was historical. Some wanted to watch. Most wanted to cover their eyes.
This wasn’t a player punctuating greatness. This was the most vilified sports star we’ve ever seen affirming his place among the five darkest moments in baseball history.
Count them. Like plagues:
1. Eight members of the Chicago White Sox are banned for conspiring to throw the 1919 World Series.
2. Pete Rose, the game’s greatest hitter, agrees to a lifetime ban for betting — on baseball.
3. Baseball cancels the 1994 World Series, not because of natural disaster but rather mutant labor negotiators.
4. Congress holds steroid hearings. Among the Murderers Row giving testimony: Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro and Jose Canseco — who ironically turns out to be baseball’s shining light.
5. Bonds passes the great Ruth and closes in on the great Hank Aaron. But he’s the poster child of the steroid era, and his baggage and personality have led him to become the sport’s greatest pox instead of ambassador.
This is a sport that embraces its heroes and statistical achievements. Numbers are dipped in gold. 56. 61. .400. 714. 755.
Now here comes a man who puts up incredible numbers and few outside of San Francisco want to celebrate. Selig said weeks ago he wouldn’t show up for 715. Hold the pomp, shelve the circumstance. Selig would close his eyes and pretend it didn’t happen. There’s an old country-western tune that applies here: “If the phone don’t ring, you know it’s me.”
The NFL had a vested interest in helping reshape Ray Lewis’ image after his Atlanta murder trial. The NBA needed Kobe Bryant to be a smiling pitchman again after rape charges were dropped.
Baseball isn’t moving to resuscitate Bonds. His image couldn’t be saved by “House.” He is impossible to like. A fan catches a home run ball. Bonds refuses a request to sign the ball but asks the fan to sign a release so he could use his likeness on his TV show. This is the sport’s ambassador?
Frogs, locusts, diseased cattle.
Gambling, strikes, steroids.
It’s all relative.
Embarrassment: The “Black” Sox scandal is still debated 87 years later. It has kept “Shoeless” Joe Jackson out of the Hall of Fame. Rose was never accused of throwing a game. He just gutted its integrity by betting and lying about it. The all-time hits leader was thrown out and isn’t in the Hall.
Embarrassment: Fans have learned to hate two words: collective bargaining. But nothing in the long, inglorious history of labor woes equals the cancellation of the 1994 World Series. Owners and players couldn’t figure out how to divide millions.
Embarrassment: Steroids have tainted this entire era of players. Bonds just happens to be the leader in the pharmacy. For baseball to strip him or any player of their statistics is nonsensical. What of the steroid-using pitchers Bonds homered off of? Do two druggies cancel each other out? How to determine which homers were drug-aided and which weren’t? It’s a futile exercise. But we know what steroids have done to the record book. Not players. Steroids.
Bonds says he doesn’t care what people say or think. If that were true, he wouldn’t be trying to reshape his image on TV. ESPN was only too happy to sell itself out, giving Bonds a time slot and a blank script for a weekly 30-minute soliloquy called, “Bonds on Bonds.”
My wife and I watched the other night. There was tape of Philadelphia fans booing Bonds as he stepped to the plate.
“Why are they booing him?” my wife asked. “There’s steroids in hot dogs and Babe Ruth ate those.”
My wife. Funny girl.
Bonds juiced because he was jealous. Relying on interviews, documents and grand jury testimony in the book, “Game of Shadows,” authors alleged that Bonds decided to turn to muscle drugs after witnessing the attention paid to the McGwire-Sosa home run chase in 1998.
Follow the growth. Bonds averaged 31.8 home runs from 1986 to 1999. He averaged 51.6 from 2000 to 2004, including 73 in 2001. He hit one home run every 16 at-bats in his first 14 seasons. He hit one every eight at-bats in his next five.
I know. Good hot dogs.
History views Ruth as a home run hitter. Bonds will be viewed as something far less. A lab creation.
When he was a Mariner his postseason # were very good, but he's (justifiably) being judged by his PS #'s in the Bronx, where the pressure cooker is intense. Last year against the Angels he hit .133 with 0 HRs and 0 RBIs. The year before that against Boston (his first year with the Yanks) he hit .258 with 2 HRs and struck out 6 times (mostly in pressure situations).
A-Rod has a big ole monkey on his back, and the critter will be there until he comes up big when it matters.
LOL
you aren't going to grow a pair of anything (except maybe biceps) when you are on the roids.
if you need a 3 run homer when you are up by 10, ARod is your man.
If you need a 3 run homer when you are down by 2, Jeter is your man.
It's a difference between Mr. May and Mr. November.
ARod isn't a bad player. Hell when he's done, he MIGHT just be the all-time home run king. But until he wins a World Series he will be remembered as a player who disappeared when his team needed him most and when the games were out of reach, he was great in mop up time.
And I think Selig is partly responsible for the problem.
Selig came in in 94 as ACTING Commissioner, but he never left. The Commissioner's position was created to be impartial, but Selig can't make that claim; regardless of the fact that his daughter is president of the Brewers, he is still the de facto owner.
If you can explain to me just exactly which Professional Baseball rule that Bonds broke with regard to steroids, I will agree with your comment - but not before. Please quote the MLB rule that outlawed steroids, when that rule took effect, and how many times Bonds failed a "drug test" administered by MLB to implement that rule. When you answer all of those questions, I think you will see that Bonds may have used steroids, but at the time, they were not forbidden by MLB. Looks like you don't have the facts on your side - only your emotional outburst to condemn Bonds (whom I do NOT like either).
Oh without a doubt.
Selig is the worst Commish ever.
Maybe when President Bush is done, HE can become commish?
Might work.
Agreed. Bonds is not the Babe. The Babe did it on hot dogs and beer.
Bush would be great, I've also heard that Clarence Thomas would resign from the Supreme Court if offered the job.
When did MLB outlaw murder or theft? Steroid use is a violation of federal law unless a doctor gives it to you. Bonds violated the law outside of baseball. We'll soon see if he's indicted for it. I hope so since he is a cheat and a lame excuse for a human being.
oh that would be awesome...
Clarence Thomas would make things right.
Even Wily Mo?
yep.
People give Canseco all the credit, but it was Cammy first.
I've watched him when he was in Cincy.
Even Wily Mo :)
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