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.
You cannot base Bonds’ character on an interview. He is one of the most despised guys in the game by players, coaches and writers.
Despite what one thinks about Bonds alleged steroid use there is one inescapable fact. He hit 756 home runs. I can’t hit an outside fastball thrown by a batting machine let alone Randy Johnson. Bonds can and did. No amount of juice can give you the hand eye coordination to do that. just like Pete Rose somebody got all those hits and his betting had nothing to do with ability as a baseball player. If Bonds broke the law let the courts deal with that. He deserves the accolades for this achievement.
Cal Ripken Jr’s streak ‘saved baseball’ not Sosa or Big Mac, IMO.
That is correct. But everything is a business in the USA, so professional sports are in fact something else.
MLB has had five years...at least, to have started & ended the investigation of ‘roids in baseball. And the grand jury should have either indicted Bonds or not.
If MLB and/or the justice system had been more efficient, this whole issue of Bonds/steroids would have & should have been addressed & “put to bed” before last night!
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.
Semper Fi,
Kelly
I agree. This writer acts like Bonds had someone else hit those home runs for him. Or the pitchers helped him with soft pitches. Now those would be crimes.
As a lifelong Reds fan since the days of the Big Red Machine, I do not think Bond’s home run record is tainted. If he took drugs to get stronger it means nothing if you cannot take a round bat and hit a round ball coming at you at 90 mph or faster.
It’s a valid record. Get over it. If he stays healthy, A-Rod will break it.
No amount of juice can give you the hand eye coordination to do that.
His used his skill to hit the ball...
He used the roids to get them over the fence.
I'm not. I'm basing my judgment on how he reacted to achieving the record, which is what the writer cited. He may be a jerk, but from what I heard last night he didn't act like "a petty, selfish, spoiled child."
You're kiddin right? You forgot the /sarc line, right?
Bonds* has pissed on the importance every legit record from Cy Young to Maris to Henry Aaron.
Its a dark day for Baseball fans.
I’m betting that Bonds holds the record for a lot shorter period than Aaron did, and that Rodriguez is the one who shatters it in about 7 years.
Did I miss the trial and conviction of Barry Bonds by a court of law?
(and if that is what you're contending, care to fill us in on why exactly Bonds, Sosa, McGuire, et al were using the damn things?!?!?)
This guy Callahan really knows how to turn a phrase...
Barry juiced himself to continue his career and at a much higher rate of production than he would have been able to normally. He was a legit 500 steal, 500 plus homer guy without the stuff and that’s pretty damn good in itself.
Baseball is in jeopardy of becoming about as real as the WWF. But heck lots of people watch “professional” wrestling. It’s just entertainment not an allegory for real life struggles. Of course in real life, nobody cheats.
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