http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/gamble200603100823.asp
Posted on 03/10/2006 6:20:02 AM PST by Fury
The Bill Clinton of Baseball
Barry Bonds and a sports injustice.
One of the saddest days for baseball purists will occur early in this upcoming season, to be followed by a second, even sadder, day later this year or early next season.
In the first, San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds, who has allegedly been cheating for years by taking massive amounts of performance-enhancing steroids, will hit his 715th home run to surpass the number achieved by Babe Ruth. And, in the second, he will cross home plate after his 756th round-tripper, beating out current home-run king Hank Aaron.
Bonds enters this season with 708 career home runs, including a single-season record 73 in 2001. Eclipsing Ruth is inevitable and will come quickly, and only a career-ending injury will prevent him from leaving Aaron in the dust.
Details of Bonds’s alleged steroid use are outlined in the soon-to-be-published book, Game of Shadows by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, excerpts of which have been printed in Sports Illustrated. The writers lay out a convincing case that Bonds turned himself into a home-run machine using a sophisticated doping regimen that involved taking drugs through pills, injections, drops under his tongue, and skin creams.
They maintain that Bonds was jealous of the attention showered on St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire when he hit a then-record 70 homers in 1998. Convinced that McGwire was using steroids while baseball turned a blind eye, Bonds is reported to have said, “They’re just letting him do it because he’s a white boy.”
Although the great national pastime has been short on heroes for years, save for Cal Ripken Jr. of the Baltimore Orioles and a few others, Bonds’s ascension to the home-run heights is particularly distasteful. He has long been one of the surliest, most obnoxious athletes in professional sports, foul-mouthed, childish, and arrogant. He’s also a poor winner, constantly rubbing opposing pitchers’ faces in it by standing still at home plate and admiring each home-run ball as it sails over the fence.
And he’s no prince off the field. Game of Shadows quotes his mistress, Kimberly Bell, as saying she began saving her voicemail messages from Bonds after he threatened her life. She says that on one occasion when she was late meeting him for a tryst at a hotel he put his hands around her throat, put her against a wall and said, “If you ever (expletive) pull some (expletive) like that again I’ll kill you. Do you understand me?”
Will he pay a price for the credible cheating charges that have been made against him? Probably not. Bonds has proven to be the Bill Clinton of baseball, portraying himself as the victim of those out to get him and refusing to take responsibility for his actions. And, at least up until now, the Teflon coating has held firm.
I predict that, when Bonds becomes the all-time home-run champion, there will be no asterisk beside his name in the record book because of probable cheating. He will not be prevented from entering the Baseball Hall of Fame. And, when the Giants make their first appearance before a home crowd this season, Bonds will be greeted by a standing ovation.
We no longer live in the “Say it ain’t so, Joe” era of “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and the Black Sox World Series scandal of 1919. We live in an era of, “So what? Everybody does it.”
Like Clinton, Bonds has had his enablers. Authors Fainaru-Wada and Williams report that Giants’s management ignored blatant signs of drug use, including Bonds’s association with a trainer known to be a dealer, so as not to upset their star player. Also ignored was Bonds’s working out at a gym known as a venue where steroids were readily available.
Former Giants manager Dusty Baker, long considered one of baseball’s good guys, says he noticed the physical changes in Bonds but didn’t pursue it. “I’m not a detective. What are you going to do as a manager?” Baker said. Hey, Dusty, when a guy with an average build suddenly starts looking like the Incredible Hulk, maybe you could ask, “Are you on steroids?”
Any observer would have had to be blind not to realize that Bonds was probably benefiting from something other than lifting weights at the gym. Apart from the obvious change in his physical appearance, he’s the only athlete I can think of whose performance actually improved as he got older, rather than tailing off.
If Bonds were just another cheater I wouldn’t be so exercised about the damning charges against him. But what is so galling is that this arrogant jerk, this latest disgrace to the great national pastime, is going into the record book as the greatest home-run hitter of all time. How sad.
— California-based Doug Gamble, a former writer for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, writes for various politicians and corporate executives.
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Bah, sportswriters are as stupid as regular reporters. Unless MLB bars him from the Hall of Fame, like they have with Rose, enough writers will vote him in.
Heck, until Rose released his book admitting his gambling, wasn't he getting a large number of write-in votes each year?
No doubt Bonds must be stopped. And he must be stopped now. But not for the integrity of baseball. He must be stopped for the safety of the world. See link: http://barrybondsapocalypse.blogspot.com/
"Any observer would have had to be blind not to realize that Bonds was probably benefiting from something other than lifting weights at the gym. Apart from the obvious change in his physical appearance, he’s the only athlete I can think of whose performance actually improved as he got older, rather than tailing off."
Roger Clemens
Another guy who I think is guilty. How does a pitcher keep putting up his kind of numbers in his late thirties, now forties? Something's not right.
Resurrected his career in Toronto after Boston gave up on him. Coincidentally, Jose Canseco was a teammate on the Blue Jays.
At an exhibition game, there were a few cheers and one man, probably representing the steroid crowd, shouted, "We love you, Barry!" There also were reportedly lots of boos.
So all those fly balls that used to be caught on the warning track that after 98 were "juiced" over the wall don't count?
I agree. Don't hit him. Humiliate him with 4 pitches in the dirt. Bonds should not have the opportunity to hit a ML baseball again.
"What more can you say?"
PLENTY!
Check this out!
"Shortly before the contents of the Bonds book were revealed, baseball made the unsettling announcement that teams would begin selling approved supplements to players to help them avoid positive drug tests."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1592376/posts
Bob Gibson's take on Babe Ruth pointing toward the field where he would hit a home run. Bob said they would have buried Babe at home plate if he had been pitching.
There's nothing like sitting up real close to the field in a small stadium so that you can the details of the game. Many people don't realize how good minor league players are in terms of athleticism. For people who were intermediate-good ahtletes, it's a real joy to watch/observe the fluid ability of players who are in their element.
Tell me about it. I go up to Atlanta 2-3 times a year and watch the Braves. It is always a fun trip for me and the kids, but Turner Field doesn't even come close to Riverwalk Stadium for atmosphere and sheer enjoyment of the game.
THere is something magical about hearing the bat tap the plate, hearing the players cleats scrap the ground as he digs in, hearing the catcher tap his glove, and then actually seeing the rotation of the ball as it leaves the pitchers hand allowing you to guess the pitch along with the batter. Everything is magnified in a small park, the sounds , the smells, everything. It is a little bit of heaven.
I read the excerpt on SI.com - an interesting tidbit is that Bond's steriod dealer was getting some of the drugs he gave Bonds (HGH is one mentioned, I believe) from AIDS patients who were selling what they were getting for free (or highly subsidized).
I want to add my voice to yours in endorsing minor league ball. I took my family to a Sacramento Rivercats game last summer and was amazed to see a completely different game. Instead of watching juicers hit the long ball, one sees a lot of bunting, hitting behind the runner, and all the tactical plays missing in the big league style of play.
I guess we need to distinguish between the local SF Media, which turned the proverbial "blind eye", and the fawning national Media -- which wasn't exposed (as much) to Bond's anti-social clubhouse tirades. It's the SF Media that is most culpable, IMHO.
OTOH, it is the national baseball writers who are the gatekeepers to the HOF. Any you're right, they were softening on Rose -- some saying that the MLB lifetime ban should be lifted.
After giving this some more thought I think you may be right -- Bonds probably will get into the HOF.
Either that or bean the sucker. That's what is supposed to happen to hitters who stand at the plate to gaze admiringly at their work.
Gotta love that Gibby!
give me back Yount, Puckett, Brett, Mattingly, Yastremski,
Molitor. Real players with a real love and desire to play the game.
The Sports Illustrated article talks about how Bonds credited the steroids with actually improving his eyesight.
Yep...faster bat speed and better eyesight is a definite advantage!
" He also felt that because he refused to "bulk up" he could never compete consistently with all those who do..."
There in lies the rub, the message being sent to our kids is you have to cheat to compete. Two days ago I argued with a couple of people here about this and they just didn't get it. They were spouting the Libratarian mantra "If don't hurt anyone else, who cares what I do." That is unaceptable to me.
Bonds has stained the game beyond repair in my eyes, and it's not only him, it's the Giants organization, and the MLB leadership that looked the other way for so long. I am done with MLB. I will still watch Minor Leage ball, but the boys in the "Show" have lost me for good.
LOL good one, if only they could do that every single time.
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