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.
And I am not even a Bonds fan and I see it for what it is.
And I see him for what he is. A ball player who, in the course of his career, decided that he needed to cheat to accomplish his goals.
If I had a vote, I couldn't vote for him on the 1st ballot. But overall his numbers will equate to a HOF slot at some point, assuming he isn't suspended for life. But that is highly unlikely because, as much of an embarrassment that Bonds may or may not be, Selig trumps him by leaps and bounds.
the answer is NO, no one has stepped forward with a bigtime deal for the ball....
I dearly hope Bonds doesn't make it in. Cheaters and Gamblers not welcome.
Brad and Angelina plop a kid. When can we get past these idiot stories and get back to the real world?
Bonds is a blankety racist wearing baseball socks.
JUICE has done wonders for little better than average players like Bonds.
Griffey was better then and he would be better now... JUICED IS JUICED and Bonds is the poster boy for Cheating with "juice"... His so called personal "Records" are purely for next century trivia buffs.
One thing I've always given Bonds credit for was the he has always been in the NL.
DH'ing would only lower his esteem in my eyes.
Bonds makes more in a year than most people do in 30 lifetimes.Do you think he really cares what you think ?
Baseball is the only sport that is truly newsworthy outisde the athletic realm.
That's what I think too.
Also, did you notice the lack of an official celebration of this moment? No one from MLB to meet him or anything?
Damned sure that if ARod or Pujols or Andruw Jones hit this homer, Selig would be there to kiss their arse. Not with Barry though.
MLB is hoping he will go away.
No. So what?
"little better than average player"? Look, you can hate the guy all you want, but that statement is absurd. Bonds and Griffey were the two premier players throughout the 1990s prior to Bonds' use of steroids.
"I dearly hope Bonds doesn't make it in. Cheaters and Gamblers not welcome." If so, then begin a movement to take Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Whitey Ford and Gaylord Perry (to name a few) out of the Hall.
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