Shameless Braves fans make me seasick. :) Go Cubbies.
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.
No where
It's what he TOLD the Grand Jury.
I don't have to prove it.
Hell no one has to PROVE it.
He's a cheater and a roider. YOu can't change that no matter how much you want too.
I'll just bookmark this thread so I can talk to you again if he gets indicted for perjury.
LOL
Then you don't want to be proven wrong.
LOL
I knew it.
Have a good day Roider fan.
LOL
some fans do need it (Jeffery Maier comes to mind).....
When he gets convicted of anything you can contact me. Until then you are just one of many accusers.
I'm witchya heah. My head size and muscles increased dramatically too after a year of eating Corn Flakes and swallowing fish oil, like our hero Barry did. I'm up to 7.15 homeruns in my softball league too, thanks to this improved diet!
Great example of the "drive by" media.
The story is, Art Rooney's brother ownss a racetrack here in Florida and he knows Jeb Bush.
He asked Jeb "do you want your hat in the ring?" and Jeb said "no."
That weas the extent of the "running."
LOL
I'm not a Braves fan
Not even close.
Just calling them as I see them.
Clemente has more Gold Gloves, but he didn't win 8 in a row.
Add to that, Jones is ONLY 29 years old. Jones will surpass him.
Steroids may have helped him hit harder and farther, but he still has to see and hit the ball.
HGH improves human eyesight. Increased bat speed and improved eyesight is a huge advantage.
Dan, rather, not Art.
;-)
Got to correct myself.
Clemente DID win them all in a row. I retract that. I could've sworn he missed a year in the 60s, but I was wrong.
My bad.
Who cares about the perception when one can think for oneself and provide both anecdotal and statistical evidence to back up a point?
The clutch guy on the Yankees was and is Derek Jeter.
The same guy who hit .200 in the 2004 ALCS? and completely disappeared for over two weeks when the Yankees were losing the 2001 Series?
People see what they want to see. And they've decided to cast the record-breaking $25M/yr salary of Alex Rodriguez as the goat and the massively overpaid $19M/yr Jeter as the hero. Despite the better fielding SS moving to 3B for the good of the team when the worse-fielding SS refused to move.
"Steroids may have helped him hit harder and farther, but he still has to see and hit the ball. Steroids won't help that."
Not true. Without steroids this truly gifted player WOULD NOT have broken Ruths total. One reason a Bonds is a Bonds is that he can see the ball and react. What he loses over time is not so much the ability to see what is coming but the ability to get his bat 1. thru the window in time and 2. with enough power to punch the ball out.
It was quite clear in his last fight that Muhammad Ali saw every one of Larry Holmes's punches coming at him but he couldn't do a damn thing about them.
Without steroids age and it's afflictions would have robbed Bonds of enough window and power to keep him well away from the numbers he is posting now.
Where can we reach you, will you be out on the golf course with OJ hunting for the real killer?
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