Posted on 08/08/2007 8:12:46 AM PDT by hardback
This is why he did it. This is, ironically, what he wanted: all eyes on him, urgent cut-ins, the undivided attention of the world. He saw all the love and adoration that was heaped upon Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa nine years ago, and he reacted in typical Barry Bonds fashion.
Like a petty, selfish, spoiled child.
In the end, there is no mystery to this crime story. We know what Bonds did - he admitted it to a grand jury, after placing his hand on the Bible - and we know why he did it. For the most juvenile, sophomoric and stupid of reasons: He was jealous. He had everything, he wanted more.
Bonds was the best all-around player in baseball back then, a certain first-ballot Hall of Famer who already had won six Gold Gloves and three MVPs. And who were they? McGwire and Sosa were good players, sure, but they were never in his class. They cheated their way onto the big stage, so he responded in typical Barry Bonds fashion, like a man without the slightest hint of conscience. He cheated, too.
And he cheated better. He wasn’t going to take a backseat to the white boy, as he called McGwire, according to girlfriend Kimberly Bell.
So he smashed McGwire’s ill-gotten record for homers in a season, and then he set his sights on the most hallowed milestone in sports. Last night in San Francisco he stole that record from the great Hank Aaron with a solo shot off Washington’s Mike Bacsik. In San Francisco, thousands of soulless toadies took great delight in Bonds’ tainted achievement, but beyond the bay, the moment was met with almost universal disgust. Perhaps the only legitimate record set last night was: most eyewitnesses to a crime in human history.
On one level, it is, of course, a sad day in sports. An asterisk is now seared into the baseball record book like a permanent needle mark. Fathers will forever be telling sons about the infamous Steroid Era, a time when the games were not played on the level and the numbers were as phony as a Clinton family photo op. That is too bad.
But you know what would have been much, much worse? Another 1998. Another scam, another sham, another celebration like the one that erupted around McGwire and Sosa, two frauds who mainlined their way into the hearts of American baseball fans. They saved baseball, remember? Sure they did. They saved baseball like Ben Johnson saved the 100 meters, like Rosie Ruiz saved the Boston Marathon.
We’ve probably all been scammed once in our lives. If you were a baseball fan, you got scammed in the summer of ’98, taken for a ride by Sosa and McGwire. Remember it? No one booed back then, but oh, how we wish we had. Oh, how we would like to go back in time and point a finger at these two juiced-up frauds and tell them they weren’t going to get away with it.
Hey, McGwire, you hit .201 before you discovered the joys of performance enhancers. You hit 22 homers in 483 at-bats in 1991. You’re about as much of an all-time great as Dave Kingman was.
And you, Sosa, we caught you corking bats. We know you have no qualms, no conscience about cheating the game. You expect us to believe you just kind of filled in?
Liars, cheaters, frauds, phonies. Together they spit on Maris and Mantle and Mays, and all the other 180-pound stars who did it for real. They chose the shortcut, better hitting through chemistry, and thought they were going to get away with it. They had the union zealots behind them, they had a linguini-spined commissioner and they had the starry-eyed sycophants from ESPN who wanted to believe that flaxseed could make a man’s head grow a size and a half. Oh, but along came tenacious federal agent Jeff Novitzky, the BALCO grand jury and“Game of Shadows,” the brilliant expose that split sports fans into two camps: You either flat-out know that Bonds is a lying, cheating, chemically enhanced creep, or you didn’t read the book.
It’s all there in this devastating, 300-page disinfectant. You digest the facts laid out by Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada, and you understand that what we saw last night would not have happened if Bonds hadn’t broken federal laws and, thus, violated the rules of Major League Baseball.
It is too bad he got this far, but in the end, there is great consolation in the reaction of the public. He might have gotten to 756, but does it feel like he got away with it? There is no one left who genuinely, honestly believes in his heart that Bonds did not cheat. There is no one who believes Bonds would have been rounding the bases last night, two weeks after his 43rd birthday, if he hadn’t taken a detour through the BALCO labs.
We got fooled once, in ’98, and the joke was on us. We got fooled twice, last night in San Francisco, and the joke was on Bonds. He stole Aaron’s record, but he did not get away with it. Hundreds of millions of people watched this historic moment, all of them eyewitnesses to a crime.
“Author does not acknowledge the function of professional sports in society.’
You mean as examples for kids? Although an anti-WOD’er like me prolly sees steroid use in a libertarian light, breaking the rules of the game to win it is a bad thing to teach yutes.
Other than that, I don’t see a function other than entertainment for pro sports in society at all. Criticizing the author for not acknowledging the contrary seems odd.
I hear Cal Ripken Jr did the same thing. Separate travel, accommodations, etc. A lot of ppl knock him, saying he hurt the team for the sake of the streak.
Bonds was always a great offensive player. And it appears he used enhancements in his workout. But he’s not the only one. He’s the focus because no one likes him, not the other way around. I’m not saying he didn’t cheat. Looks like he did. But he’s not the only one. I think Clemens cheats, just to pick a random example. Athletics is more big biz than ever. With this much money involved? Ppl cheat.
While Bonds holds the record, he has also severely damaged the sport. He has undone all the healing spirit resulting from Cal Ripkin’s streak.
While the "legal system" excuse seems ready made, it doesn't fly. The public isn't the courts, and doesn't have to play by the same rules. He's free to go about his business from a legal standpoint, until such time as he's found guilty. We, the general public, are free to believe he's a doping, cheating asswipe without having to obtain a legal conviction, and are under absolutely no obligation to suport him or this "record", legally or otherwise. And baseball, not being a legal entity, can apply the asterisk wherever and whenever they see fit. The court of public opinion will rule on that one, too.
Clemens comes to mind. The famous meltdown vs. Piazza in 2000 WS? Looks like Roid Rage to me.
They don’t make ‘em like Thurman Munson anymore. Rest his soul. Those were the days.
Barry Bonds uses steroids so he deserves nothing....
Hank Aaron STILL deserves the Title :)
>>Try this. <<
There’s nothing on that page that supports your argument.
>>Sounds like you have a lot to learn about steroids<<
Yeah. I guess you’re right </grin>
Just FYI: I’ve known a dozen people that admittedly took steroids for one reason or another. I’ve spoken to many at length about what it does and doesn’t do. So please detail your experience with them, and more importantly, back up your original assertion with more than just a generic warning label.
YADA-YADA-yada-yada...WHATEVER! SOUR GRAPES!
8-to-5 if Bonds had been wearing a Red sox uniform, this story would have a wholly different tone.
Look, this guy’s asking me — who rejected the phony MSM account of GWB’s National Guard service, who disbelieved the MSM account of Kerry’s Purple Hearts, who yawns at the MSM accounts of anthropogenic global warming — to look at that same MSM and buy, wholesale, into their version of the story when it comes to Bonds and steroid use?
Get a freakin’ LIFE!!
The man said he “never knowingly” used the stuff, and while there have been some people who — with probable cause, mind you — have said otherwise, at the day’s end, all there is is a big tangle of “he said, she said, they said”. There’s NO ACTIONABLE PROOF that Barry Bonds’ own testimony isn’t true.
Believe it. Doubt it. Debate it. Discuss it. Whatever.
Until there is stone-cold evidence to the contrary, Bonds’ IS the record holder, sans “asterisk”.
I don’t discount the public opinion toward Bonds. I live here. I know. I am not a fan of the Giants OR Bonds, btw! What I do discount, is the basis on which Baseball will apply an asterisk, absent a legal conviction of some sort. I’m not saying they can’t! I’m not saying Bonds didn’t do what he’s accused of. I’m just saying, how do you support the asterisk without such a finding?
*Barry Bonds took steroids? (libel, absent a conviction)
get it?
Would you respect Tiger Woods if he used illegal clubs and hit off the women's tee? Would you respect Nolan Ryan if you learned that he was actually throwing from six feet closer to the plate? Steroids do not just increase strength, but speed as well. Do not discount the assist the added hand speed gave Bonds in reacting to fast balls. You also need to look at the contributions in stabilizing his swing that the massive piece of body armor on his right elbow gave him.
I guarantee this, there is no way I would have given up the record to him if I were an opposing pitcher or manager. I would have ear-holed him every time he stepped into the box.
Most pitchers don’t have the over pumped roid look either, but word around the league is that’s where the major roid use was. Really I don’t know one way or the other on A-Rod, what I do know is that the PA and Selig decided not to make roids against the rules, and subsequently we can’t truly trust the stats of any players in that era. This is the bed the PA and Selig made and all the players whose careers touch on the steroid era have to sleep in it, it was their PA that stood so firmly against banning steroids now the piper has to get paid.
Yep, I thought the exact same thing but only after writing "Juiced" on the ball.....
Like a petty, selfish, spoiled child.
B*onds cheated. He's a jerk. But would I have acted differently than him? I would like to think that I would have stayed honest, but would I have been able to resist the temptation?
Here he was, a much better all-around player than McGuire and Sosa, and yet they are getting all of the headlines. He knows that they are cheating, and that they are getting away with it. It would be awfully hard to resist the temptation to do the same, just to make things even, and to re-capture the glory that you think that you deserve. Again, B*nds is a cheat and a jerk, and I regard Aaron as still being the real home-run champ, but I wonder if I would have been able to resist the temptation to cheat if I had been in his position?
I’m really trying to give a crap about Bonds. Well,not really. YAWN and Double YAWN!
I am not going to judge. If Bonds did wrong then he will have to answer to God.
He should think if he wants to be Ty Cobb’s teammate in hell.
One thing I learned when I lived in Boston - DO NOT MESS WITH A BOSTONAIN WHEN IT COMES TO BASEBALL. That said, this article was hilarious and damning.
The night Hank Aaron hit 715 was one I will remember forever. It was so fun to root for him. What a great player and gentleman.
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