Bonds Moment: I'll take a pass
Michigan
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Bonds' moment: I'll take a pass
When the Giants slugger breaks Hank Aaron’s home-run record, I won’t be watching. Baseball is about statistics and tradition. This bogus feat undermines both.
By Sandy Grady
One evening this summer, Barry Bonds will end his cheerless trudge to immortality. Bonds will smite home run No. 756 that eclipses Henry Aaron's lifetime record. Polls show Americans conflicted: Some will cheer; many will boo.
Me, I'm not going to watch. No thanks, I'll take a pass.
Surely there's a clause in the Constitution about my inalienable right to avoid a sports event I think to be fake.
Let the TV networks feature Bonds' record smash, with fireworks exploding while his godfather, Willie Mays, plus assorted politicians and glitterati greet him at home plate. Click, off. That's why the remote control was invented. Replays on ESPN? Click, click.
I doubt I'm alone in Bonds Apathy. There doesn't seem outrage or exultation over his impending feat, merely resigned indifference toward Bonds. To twist the Simon and Garfunkel lyrics in The Graduate movie: Our cynical nation turns its eyes from you.
Snubbing Bonds' record should have little to do with his sullen, bristling, boorish personality. The Hall of Fame is full of ball yard heroes who weren't Mr. Sunshine. And despite some black vs. white polls, anti-pathy toward Bonds definitely shouldn't be based on race. Last time I looked, Aaron was also an African-American. Unlike Bonds, Aaron came from a dirt-poor background. He was an earnest, working-man player with steel-band wrists. He set his record amid racist taunts and death threats that make Bonds' march look like a waltz.
No, there's only one reason to avert your eyes from Bonds' unsavory moment. That's the deeply held suspicion, based on mounting circumstantial evidence, that his burst of late-career homers was achieved by performance-enhancing drugs.
A bogus record?
If his record is bogus — and I suspect it is — then it should be greeted by silence and shrugs. Bonds is the Poster Muscleman for the Juice Era, when Major League Baseball counted its millions in the boom of drug-fueled home runs.
Never mind the mantra that Bonds never failed a drug test. There was no meaningful baseball test until 2005. The richly documented book, Game of Shadows, by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, is a convincing saga of Bonds' drug-propelled late career. Bonds reportedly told a grand jury that he took what he thought was flaxseed oil and an arthritis balm, substances experts say were BALCO (Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative) steroids.
This is the new Homer King, a man the government might yet indict for perjury before the grand jury. His trainer, Greg Anderson, is in prison for refusing to sing about Bonds and drug use.
But I know what I see. Bonds at 35 surged from a lean, pantherish player to a caricature of a WWE pro wrestler with a basketball-size head and a Michelin Man body. At an age when players decline, his homers cascaded from one every 16 at bats to 8.4 at-bats in 1999-2004. When he broke Mark McGwire's record with 73 homers in 2001, Bonds had found the Elixir of Sock, legal or not.
Not everyone can duck Bonds' sour moment. If Aaron says he'd rather be playing golf, and many of us refuse to watch, that doesn't mean MLB Commissioner Bud Selig and players' union boss Donald Fehr can play hooky from their mutual embarrassment.
Barry Bonds is a nightmare they can't escape. Selig and Fehr were enablers who ignored steroid use in the Juice Era when the McGwire-Sammy Sosa-Bonds blasts enriched owners. They began significant drug testing and penalties after angry Sens. John McCain and Joseph Biden hinted the feds might take charge. Even President Bush chimed in with his State of the Union attack on pro sports and steroids.
Selig should attend
In 2005 before Congress, Selig scoffed at the drug signals ("Do we have a major problem? No." ). He should have a front-row box with Fehr for Bonds' No. 756. If Bonds cheated his way into history, they were co-conspirators.
Admittedly, some fans don't care whether ball yard heroics are fueled by human growth hormone. They dig the long ball. So why does furor over Bonds and his generation of chemical sluggers matter?
Simple. Baseball, of all sports, sells tradition and statistics. If drug hypocrisy prevails, tradition is a lie. We merge into unreality when medical artifice creates sports heroics. What's next, titanium arms for pitchers? To see how drugs kill a sport, look at the Tour de France's crackup.
That's why to this skeptic, the record will still belong to Hank Aaron, who did it the natural way.
When Bonds delivers his inglorious No. 756, my advice is to avoid TV. Go watch your local minor-league club or Little League or twilight softball.
At least you can believe what you see.
When the Giants slugger breaks Hank Aaron’s home-run record, I won’t be watching. Baseball is about statistics and tradition. This bogus feat undermines both.
By Sandy Grady
One evening this summer, Barry Bonds will end his cheerless trudge to immortality. Bonds will smite home run No. 756 that eclipses Henry Aaron's lifetime record. Polls show Americans conflicted: Some will cheer; many will boo.
Me, I'm not going to watch. No thanks, I'll take a pass.
Surely there's a clause in the Constitution about my inalienable right to avoid a sports event I think to be fake.
Let the TV networks feature Bonds' record smash, with fireworks exploding while his godfather, Willie Mays, plus assorted politicians and glitterati greet him at home plate. Click, off. That's why the remote control was invented. Replays on ESPN? Click, click.
I doubt I'm alone in Bonds Apathy. There doesn't seem outrage or exultation over his impending feat, merely resigned indifference toward Bonds. To twist the Simon and Garfunkel lyrics in The Graduate movie: Our cynical nation turns its eyes from you.
Snubbing Bonds' record should have little to do with his sullen, bristling, boorish personality. The Hall of Fame is full of ball yard heroes who weren't Mr. Sunshine. And despite some black vs. white polls, anti-pathy toward Bonds definitely shouldn't be based on race. Last time I looked, Aaron was also an African-American. Unlike Bonds, Aaron came from a dirt-poor background. He was an earnest, working-man player with steel-band wrists. He set his record amid racist taunts and death threats that make Bonds' march look like a waltz.
No, there's only one reason to avert your eyes from Bonds' unsavory moment. That's the deeply held suspicion, based on mounting circumstantial evidence, that his burst of late-career homers was achieved by performance-enhancing drugs.
A bogus record?
If his record is bogus — and I suspect it is — then it should be greeted by silence and shrugs. Bonds is the Poster Muscleman for the Juice Era, when Major League Baseball counted its millions in the boom of drug-fueled home runs.
Never mind the mantra that Bonds never failed a drug test. There was no meaningful baseball test until 2005. The richly documented book, Game of Shadows, by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, is a convincing saga of Bonds' drug-propelled late career. Bonds reportedly told a grand jury that he took what he thought was flaxseed oil and an arthritis balm, substances experts say were BALCO (Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative) steroids.
This is the new Homer King, a man the government might yet indict for perjury before the grand jury. His trainer, Greg Anderson, is in prison for refusing to sing about Bonds and drug use.
But I know what I see. Bonds at 35 surged from a lean, pantherish player to a caricature of a WWE pro wrestler with a basketball-size head and a Michelin Man body. At an age when players decline, his homers cascaded from one every 16 at bats to 8.4 at-bats in 1999-2004. When he broke Mark McGwire's record with 73 homers in 2001, Bonds had found the Elixir of Sock, legal or not.
Not everyone can duck Bonds' sour moment. If Aaron says he'd rather be playing golf, and many of us refuse to watch, that doesn't mean MLB Commissioner Bud Selig and players' union boss Donald Fehr can play hooky from their mutual embarrassment.
Barry Bonds is a nightmare they can't escape. Selig and Fehr were enablers who ignored steroid use in the Juice Era when the McGwire-Sammy Sosa-Bonds blasts enriched owners. They began significant drug testing and penalties after angry Sens. John McCain and Joseph Biden hinted the feds might take charge. Even President Bush chimed in with his State of the Union attack on pro sports and steroids.
Selig should attend
In 2005 before Congress, Selig scoffed at the drug signals ("Do we have a major problem? No." ). He should have a front-row box with Fehr for Bonds' No. 756. If Bonds cheated his way into history, they were co-conspirators.
Admittedly, some fans don't care whether ball yard heroics are fueled by human growth hormone. They dig the long ball. So why does furor over Bonds and his generation of chemical sluggers matter?
Simple. Baseball, of all sports, sells tradition and statistics. If drug hypocrisy prevails, tradition is a lie. We merge into unreality when medical artifice creates sports heroics. What's next, titanium arms for pitchers? To see how drugs kill a sport, look at the Tour de France's crackup.
That's why to this skeptic, the record will still belong to Hank Aaron, who did it the natural way.
When Bonds delivers his inglorious No. 756, my advice is to avoid TV. Go watch your local minor-league club or Little League or twilight softball.
At least you can believe what you see.
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Comments
<< <i>Baseball is about statistics and tradition. This bogus feat undermines both. >>
Amen.
The "but he cheated better then anyone else cheated" line of reasoning is almost as disturbing as Bonds himself, and ultimately may be more harmful to the game.
Last I remember he ADMITTED that he took steroids. He is an A$$ but he admitted that he took the stuff. Does that make it any better???? I dont know. Everyone is accusing him of cheating and breaking this record when he has already admitted that he did take the cream and the clear. Just ANOTHER example of writers spinning their own articles to their point of view.
It's ok to use PED's to get to the pros. It's ok to use PED's to get a big fat contract. It's ok to use PEDs to break records that better men could not. It's ok to use PED's to get into the HOF as long as you keep one step ahead of the testing. Anybody who votes for any of these guys is in favor of all of the above.
Bosox1976
wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're
going to feel all day. "
~Frank Sinatra
Palmiero failed a drug test - he's out. But until someone else fails a drug test, put them all in. Bonds, Sosa, McGwire, everyone. Speculation and rumor should not be reason enough to keep a worthy HoF member out.
<< <i>To assume this is the only generation of players who have used anything to enhance their performance is naive at best, ignorant at worst. >>
Let me get this straight - is it your contention that beer is a performance-enhancing substance? And rather than toss around words like "ignorant" with respect to statements that have not been made, perhaps it would be better if you addressed what people are actually saying. I can not speak for you, but my own opinion is that whether an action is right or wrong is entirely unrelated to how many other people are doing it. What did previous generations do? My answer: who cares? Bonds cheated and everyone knows that he cheated; there are either consequences for that or there are not. Baseball, and you, are sending the clear signal that it does not matter, that there have not been and will never be consequences - in short, that cheating is as much a part of baseball as the curve ball and the double play. And more importantly, that players who play by the rules and obey the law are fools and it is the players who cheat who will be honored.
<< <i>Let's also not forget the pitchers these players were facing also used steroids, HGH, and whatever else they could get their hands around. It was a level (albeit elevated) playing field they were on. >>
Wow. For someone supposedly cautioning us to be careful about acting on rumor, it seems mighty strange to hear you stating that 100% of baseball players have been cheating for the past 20 years. I'm very interested to see the evidence that has convinced you of that. You can e-mail it to me directly if that's easier than posting it here. If not, maybe you should stop spreading this obviously false rumor.
<< <i>Palmiero failed a drug test - he's out. But until someone else fails a drug test, put them all in. Bonds, Sosa, McGwire, everyone. Speculation and rumor should not be reason enough to keep a worthy HoF member out. >>
I agree that speculation and rumor should never be enough - that's why your preceding sentence has me so confused. But in the case of Bonds it isn't just speculation and rumor; all it takes is a functioning brain and the sense God gave a chicken to know to an absolute metaphysical certainty that Bonds used steroids to an enormous extent for a very long time. I realize political correctness requires a lot of things, but surely it can't require the sheer stupidity it takes to believe that Bonds was any less involved with steroids than Palmeiro. If we know something - if we ALL know something - by what therory of justice are we required to pretend that we do not?
I'll say it again: the "but he cheated better then anyone else cheated" line of reasoning put forth in the last two posts is as destructive to baseball as the steroids themselves. God help baseball if very many people believe it.
As far as Bonds' physical appearance, sure, it's likely he used whatever substance for whatever amount of time, but again, how can you convict someone of it without a failed drug test? It's a slippery slope you start down when you begin those types of accusations.
Where does it stop? Does Clemens get a pass because he's such a 'fiery' competitor, even though it's as likely he used as anyone? But because he's perceived as such a good teammate he gets away from any suspicion?
It's going to be impossible to sort out who did and didn't before steroids officially became a banned substance. There needs to be an amnesty period granted to all players prior to the testing, and then anyone who tests positive afterwards automatically loses HoF eligibility.
<< <i>
man cans
<< <i>Let's also not forget the pitchers these players were facing also used steroids, HGH, and whatever else they could get their hands around. It was a level (albeit elevated) playing field they were on. >>
This is a good point that everyone seems to forget. Hank Aaron was not facing pitchers that were all pumped up on HGH throwing 98 mph fastballs after 7 innings of pitching. Neither was Babe Ruth. I think the hitters in the steroid era were keeping the playing field level.