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.
#23 (Plano, TX Yankees)
A-Rod hit only .133 in the post-season last year, and yet his on-base percentage was among the highest on the team -- higher even than leadoff hitter Derek Jeter. He walked six times, and I believe he was hit by two pitches as well.
That's just ignorant, to be totally blunt.
Career postseason stats:
ARod .305 .393 .534 -> .927 OPS
Jeter .307 .379 .463 -> .842 OPS
Jeter was on lots of good teams in the 90's and got credit for 'leading' them to WS titles. In recent years he's failed to 'lead' $200 million teams to WS titles but doesn't get any blame. Or to put it another way: Jeter has stayed the same, and the Yankees have gone from winning to losing. Apparently he wasn't the difference-maker.
I hope they use a rubber.
I just don't see McGuire, Bonds, or Sosa making the Hall of Fame. And if McGuire does...who should be coming in the next grouping...then I'll give up watching major league baseball. Its still a good sport...but MLB has become too much of a soap opera.
ping
"Without the juice, Bonds would have had a nice carreer--about 450 homers, good hits, walks, rbi numbers. Hall of fame consideration-maybe-down the line-maybe."
LOL. I'm still grinwincing at "I have a bomp!".
Leni
Which won't happen especially if MLB goes on strike after this season over a new players contract. I see this as a real possibility. Baseball is out of control with salaries and stadiums are not bringing in the fans. It could get ugly.
IMO BBonds will finish hit 756 as a AL DH.
How many Hall of Famers took amphetamines to get "up" to play every day?
Mickey Mantle, for one?
MLB just started testing for amphetamines within the last year or two. They've been part of the game ("greenies") for decades.
"Bonds was the greatest player of his generation before he juiced, and the greatest of his generation after he juiced. He is a sign of the times in baseball. "
How's the crack, tonight...?
The Players Union doesn't care. They always go for broke. Doesn't hurt their income. They are the ones who call the shots. If they don't go on strike I will be shocked.
BostonCreamPie: I'm normally content to be a lurker but I had to sign up just to reply to this. Barry Bonds was the greatest player of the 1990s and it's not even close. If the reports are true, that he started juicing after 1998 because he was jealous of the attention McGwire and Sosa were getting...well, you could cut off his career at the end of the 1998 season and he'd be a first ballot, shoe-in, lock for the hall of fame. Look at this career OBP! This is a man who was so feared before he ever started juicing that he was walked intentionally with the bases loaded.
Welcome to FR, thanks for being a smart baseball fan, and thanks for not buying into the Bash Barry party. I get so sick of baseball ignoramii misstating facts about Bonds' stats. It's not all their fault, though -- they are following the lead of the sports media majority that has hated Bonds for years. Knowing that Tom Verducci and Gene Wojciechowski were grinding their teeth as Bonds touched home plate gave me a chuckle.
There was no official celebration when Hank Aaron passed Willie Mays to become second on the career homer list. There was no official celebration when Pete Rose passed Hank Aaron for second on the career hit list. And there were no celebrations when Sammy Sosa hit his 62nd homer to pass Roger Maris for second on the single-season homer list or when Bonds hit his 67th homer to become second, passing Sosa.
There are no celebrations when someone becomes second of all-time. So why did you expect there would be game-stopping hullabaloo about Bonds becoming second in career homers?
Bonds bashers wanted people to read more into MLB not planning a celebration for 715, and I guess it worked on some people...and you know who you are.
Agree totally...IMO Barry Bonds is very much a racist.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.