or
A fish rots from the head down.
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.
well if you want to beat me over the head with them, get them right.
Just answer the question.
Jeter is the better postseason player.
and yes you have hijacked the damned thread.
How about you send me a FReepmail and take it off of the thread.
That was a good ride, but it's time to get off. Culture - juiced balls, juiced bats, & juiced players? Gotta love that. And what's to follow after all that culture? College (*CLINK*) baseball.
The 70's? When was the last time you saw an outfield so deadly that they could throw out ANYONE at the plate? My guess - the 70's. These days, you'll be lucky to find players who know and understand the rules of baseball let alone someone who can hit the cut-off man.
Football is king. It always will be. Baseball may have come first but football reigns in every category. Open a baseball stadium and you better have a pretty good beer special. Open a football stadium and you better worry about printing enough tickets...
I'ved asked you to take it too FReepmail.
But I think I'd rather ignore you as well.
Baseball has had much more of an influence on American culture than football has, bottom line and original point.
It's in his biceps...in his face...Give it a rest. The man is a 'roid head. Anyone who doesn't see that, simply doesn't want to.
He shouldn't have even reached the point to break those records with his steroid inflated statistics. If Pete Rose can get thrown out of the game for gambling, Bonds should have been thrown out easily. His records mean nothing to me, and they should mean nothing to anyone else.
Then baseball deserves to go bankrupt.
Fact don't play games...players do. Jeter is probably the best team leader in baseball. Makes all the clutch plays. You Red Sox fans are still bitter. Even after winning a championship? Amazing. (probably because Nomar wasn't better--was he!) You'd think that winnig a championship would wash away the cold New England chill from 84 years of wincing faces!
Derek Jeter is a special athlete...most knowlegdable baseball people recognize that (but stats-driven techno dweebs won't see that--'cause it's not written down in any book!)
or
A fish rots from the head down.
Hank Aaron will be the home-run champion even if Bonds passes him.
Not a chance. The list -
Football
Auto racing
Olympics
Baseball & boxing
He says he hasn't done them and to my knowledge nobody has done a test where he's come up positive, so he deserves his respect.
Prove your point somewhere outside of the rumor mill and I won't argue.
So far this is mostly like jealousy over him doing well when nobody likes him.
One more beef on Bonds. He stands right on top of the plate wearing all of that armor on his arm and then mouths off or charges the mound when he gets hit by a pitch, or even if someone dares to pitch too close to his majesty. If more pitchers had any guts they would knock him down anyway, especially now that his age is showing. Send in the spot starter/long releiver for the express purpose of throwing chin music.
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