Barry Bonds has been indicted by a federal grand jury for lying about his use of steroids. This is big, folks. If you were one of those people who vaguely heard your baseball fan friends complaining about Bonds’ oversize head but never paid much attention, this is the time to perk up. Now it’s real.
Let me put this in context. Baseball has always been a peculiar sport, in that its records are far more revered than other sports. Part of it may just be because the numbers are so small and elegant: 56, 755, 511, 61*. But also because many of them were set in a time when baseball had the attention and cachet of NASCAR, the NFL, the NBA, the NHL, and MLB all in one. The personalities are larger than life–Ty Cobb, Jackie Robinson, Ruth, Mantle, Williams. So it only makes sense that when so modern ball-masher starts chasing our bygone heroes we get upset about it. Hank Aaron, a great man, was vilified by many for his pursuit of Ruth’s record. But Aaron’s class won over even the small-minded folks in time, and he became a modern, living Ruth.
So when Barry Bonds started chasing Aaron, we were against him from the start. Bonds tried to make it about race, but it wasn’t. He would have been a villain no matter what he did. But here’s today’s revelation: Bonds really is a villain! The grand jury says so!
It’s hard to find a parallel for this. When has the nation illogically been against someone, only to have that illogical hatred justified? Seems like history always gives us the opposite examples with oppression of women, blacks, gays, etc. Sure you could say we knew about Barry. We saw his head and arms and home run totals expand and didn’t need a positive test to tell us. Nobody knew for sure, but we sure acted like we knew. Anybody think of a parallel for this?
And another question: what do people in San Francisco think about all this? While we were vilifying Bonds without proof, they were glorifying him in the face of the same knowledge everyone else had. Whaddya say now, Northern California?
This entry was posted on Thursday, November 15th, 2007 at 8:30 pm and is filed under In The News, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
There are currently 10 responses
Ben Johnson and Florence Griffith-Joyner? They weren’t villains, but the doubts were always there, as soon as they had big success.
I was shocked about Marion Jones, incidently, utterly shocked, and it’s her involvement that has me seeing BALCO as a much greater villain than bad-mannered Barry Bonds. He’s nobody’s pawn, but BALCO made it way too easy.
Yeah, I was surprised about Marion Jones. I do wonder how much of the impetus for the use of performance-enhancers comes from the athlete, and how much comes from the trainers/handlers. Did Barry wake up one day and say, “Hey, I think I need steroids”? Or did someone like his trainer, Greg Anderson, notice some things slowing down with Bonds and suggest it? I’d be more inclined to think the latter, if only because the athletes know they have so much to lose with the drugs.
Ben Johnson was a bit of a villain, in that he beat a popular American in Carl Lewis. But the drug test results came back pretty quickly, didn’t they?
I guess more what I’m asking is, can anyone think of a time that a witch-hunt was actually justified? Not just sports?
And interestingly the system is self-correcting. Simultaneous with the Bonds stuff, George Steinbrenner and A-Rod are writing up a contract specifically designed to break the Bonds home run record. Putting aside the obvious conflict of interest problems that arise from a baseball player being financially incentivized to hit home runs (which for many reasons is probably not a good team strategy), it’s seem like these two are taking baseball historical justice into their own hands.
I don’t get baseball.
Illogical hatred justified? Bill Clinton.
Hmmm. Clinton is an interesting parallel. In that the “justification” of the hatred came from the witch-hunt itself, in which the object of the witch-hunt lied to protect personal secrets. I think the comparison works, to an extent. Half the nation hated Clinton, half loved him. With Bonds, the apologist camp is limited to San Francisco.
And now that I think about it, what about Martha Stewart? SHe went to jail for obstruction of justice, even though the investigation she obstructed never led to charges (let alone a conviction), and yet we were all pleased at her imprisonment.
Josh,
Hitting homeruns in the modern era of baseball is a predominant, if not good strategy. Teams used to depend on timely hitting, sacrifices and baserunning to “manufacture” runs, but as the players have bulked up, the game has gotten more offensive. Thus the offensive focus of the game has shifted to the long ball.
Nowadays, many teams steal only a handful of bases during a season and basically sit around waiting for a 3-run homerun. There is still some “small ball” being played, but with homeruns putting fans in the seats and generating massive revenue, it’s a dying style of baseball.
I say let everyone take steroids. How crazy and exciting would sports be. I’d have a reason to watch these overpaid folks run around.
Great idea Nicole. Can’t wait to see your sixteen year old son playing High School baseball with a head like a football helmet and balls like snowpeas. How about when he beats his girlfriend cuz he cant get it up then jumps off a building when he cycles off? That’ll be really exciting.
Jared,
The Red Sox had the 18th highest total in Home Runs. They won the World Series. Colorado, who got swept by the Sox, was 15th. Arizona: 16th. Angels: 27th. The biggest home run hitter: the Brewers.
I think it’s a stretch to say that hitting a lot of home runs means better team performance in the modern era.