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.
I agree. And a look behind the numbers backs it up as well. Bonds hit 755 in far fewer at bats than did the overrated Hank Aaron. And Ruth would have hit over 1,600 in the same span as Aaron. Atlanta "adjusted" their fences several times to accomodate Aaron. Had Bonds hit in Atlanta all these years, he would have had 900 by now. Enough with the Aaron-worship already.
On ESPN Racist Radio, some stupid black host this morning said Ruth should not even be in the top ten because he never faced black pitchers. The same racist schmuck didn't even know who Lou Gehrig was!
To: 1L
So I ask you the same question, why the freak are/were he and the other clowns using them (steroids)?!?!?!
Yea, I thought so. Kid.
After roids
Barry Bonds
16 25 24 19 33 25 34 46 37 33 42 40 37 34 49 73 46 45 45 5 26 22
Funny Bonds get way more production way later then two of the best in the modern era.
All his homeruns still haven’t brought the Giants a trophy~I thought baseball was a team sport...Of course, atleast he’s playing for a team I can’t stand, a town that makes Sodom and Gomorrah look good, and a US Representative that gives new meaning to BOTOX with her ugliy puss! I hope it won’t be the record for that many years until A-ROd or someone else breaks it.
You do realize that all the extra muscle mass allowed him to swing faster and hit harder, right? Which had a direct impact on his ability to hit homeruns. And comparing what you can or cannot do is a straw man. The fact is, he did not legitimately hit those homers as Aaron did.
Uh, again, he could get around those balls because the extra mass allowed him to swing faster which has a direct impact on catching those fastballs and sending them over the fence...
If that is case, why do ball players take them?
It's fitting that a fraud should capture the most coveted record in "America's game". It's entirely symbolic. Americans no longer love the truth and don't care for the truth. About God, themselves, their country, or anything. They've fallen for the lie and it's now appropriate that they fall down and hail yet another in the long list of liars who have and continue to dominate the political, cultural and religious theater in this country.
Piss and moan, piss and moan. Sports writers are such women.
Milwaukee County stadium had similar deimensions but no elevation. Aaron played more than half his career there.
The guy was a great all around ball player, period. He wasn't Babe Ruth and he sure the hell isn't Bobby Bonds since his cranium did not increase in size by 4 hat sizes later in his career. But he hit every dinger fair and square and it ain't his fault that Babe was a physical wreck and Hank was a guy who took care of himself.
>>>>>Bonds was an excellent baseball player before he apparently started using ‘roids so you can’t take that away from him.
Spoken by a dyed-in-the-wool-Dodger-blue fan.<<<<<<
And agreed with by a dyed-in-the-wool Yankee fan.
I have never been a fan of Bonds but I am a baseball fan and don’t bail out on the sport like many knee jerk reactionaries seem to be proud of doing.
The man hit the ball over the fence 756 times. Unless the statisticians are going to take some of them away from Bonds, the record is his and his alone. If I had to choose between defending Barry Bonds or Bud Seelig and the sportswriters of America, I will choose Bonds every time.
To double cranium thickness thus protecting against beanballs.
Can you not read either? What part of “I don’t know” (post 71) do you not understand?
Its YOUR argument (that steroids affects his HR output); PROVE IT. It isn’t my burden to disprove it.
But, for the sake of discussion, I’ll play along here. In my experience with those I know who have juiced, people take them for all sorts of reasons. One guy took them because he needed to be a college defensive end (I think for playing time purposes) and at 6’2”, 230, he wasn’t one. But at 270 (this is in the mid-80s) he was. It didn’t make him a better football player, really, he admitted. Another one took light doses of steroids because she was afraid she would fall behind other competitors who were juicing. She quickly quit after she didn’t like what they were doing to her physically and emotionally. Finally, another guy I knew that played college basketball was relatively lean and wanted shoulders like a body builder. He knew it wouldn’t help his game — likely it would hurt his offense — but he wanted to be a real intimidating presence in the lane. This guy was busted by the cops for possession and is (or was) playing in a low level European pro league last I heard.
There are all sorts of reasons, and yes, often it is a performance enhancer — especially in football. Having played a lot of baseball, including at the college level, I just don’t think it does — at least not in hitting. I got stronger the more I played, but I hit more home runs in high school than I did in college. The pitchers weren’t that much, if at all, better — at least not where I played. Weight training improved my strength and to some extent my speed, so I was a much better outfielder and third baseman, and a slightly better hitter (line drives went to the wall instead of being cut off). But I used better bats in college as well, so there are all sorts of variables to be considered.
I will cheer even louder each time he hits a home run from now on - unless it is against my beloved Angels of course!
Bonds was also walked 2540 times compared to Aaron’s 1402 bases on balls. That is nearly two years worth of at bats. He was intentionally walked well over 600 times. If Bonds would have been surrounded by other good hitters, the opposing pitchers would have had to pitch to him instead of around him. The big cheat is buying a ticket to a ballgame and watching Barry Bonds walk to first base.
“Did I miss the trial and conviction of Barry Bonds by a court of law?”
You’re right, I think I’ll hire Michael Jackson to babysit now.
Go for it!
I have no burden of proof, here; I don't have to prove they're liars, YOU have to prove that they're NOT. While you're at it, get a Prosecutor to help you; I'm sure there's no shortage of them who'd be interested in the career benefits of taking down a big name like Bonds.
[crickets]
Or just sit down and shut up.
Oh, pardon me as I bow before your manifest intellect.
LOL!!! Could make the same argument if he lifted weights.
If their allegations were false, wouldn't Bonds be suing them for libel? So, where is the lawsuit?
(crickets)
I thought so.
Thanks so much for playing. Next!
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