No, he in Twist.
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.
That and Griffey's injuries....
You either throw a ball or hit a ball. Any physical contact (other than an open-handed smack on someone's butt) produces fines or ejections.
Time for you to check out the NFL, bubbaloo...
True, Junior had a rash of injuries that took him out of elite status. He's a lock Hall of Famer also, as far as I'm concerned.
Baseball has a much richer history in this country than football, and far greater significance.
Baseball marks the time, football does not.
500 homers will do that for you....
Yep, and he has always played a mean center field as well.
What is a Bonds? He in baseball?
I didn't notice. I'm still working on the Germans invading Pearl Harbor.
he was probably the best defensive outfielder until Andruw Jones came along in 1996....
Andruw Jones might end up as the best defensive outfielder EVER. He might already be there.
As a matter of fact, I think he cares. I think he cares very much. I think it kills him that he isn't loved like Ruth was or revered like Aaron or Mays.
He seems to be very bitter that he doesn't get any respect.
Joe Jackson had the best batting average in the Series and there has never been any proof that he was part of throwing it, he should be let in the Hall of Fame and his expulsion should be posthumously revoked.
Rose should be allowed an "up or down" vote.
Bonds should be stripped of his records from 1998 on and banned from the game.
Selig should resign as Commissioner because it is his indifference that allowed this.
That's what started it.
The love fest that McGwire and Sosa received in 1998 absolutely KILLED Barry, who was in the middle of a career year himself.
you have to respect how he sh-ts on the media though
Ultimately, it seems that the rush to acquire gaudy individual numbers, whether it is in football, basketball, baseball, broomball or whatever, is motivated by the desire to make it to the Hall of Fame. Obviously we can't eliminate steroids from sport. We can't eliminate gambling. We can't eliminate cheating, or at least the attempts at cheating. There's only one solution left: Eliminate the Hall of Fame. What's it mean, anyway? If a player is truly great, (s)he'll know it, as will the contemporary fans, and future ones by word of mouth. What else is there?
Ewwwww, bubbaloo. I disagree. The frozen Tundra? The Steeler's juggernaut? The Cowboy's domination? The 49er's Super Bowl wins? (And that's the SHORT list.)
What you got? A few good playoff games and someone that can hit a ball real far? It doesn't really compare...
No, he in Twist.
Wasnt there a guy ahead of both of them?? Sadahura Oh or something....thinks its 855 IIRC....
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