Focusing on the Barry Bonds soap opera, the sports drama queens (SDQs) want to tell you every little thing Barry does. Barry went number two today at 2 pm, Barry brushed his teeth, Barry did this, Barry did that, Barry’s an angry guy, as if they all have degrees in psychology.
As for me, I’m all Barry’d out. Most of what they tell us is negative. Any time they feel Barry is being defiant, it’s time to take out the pencil and give Bonds’ media image a few more slashes. Most of them don’t even hide the fact that they honestly they don’t like the guy. They tell you he’s jerk, and most them say they don’t attack him because he’s black, that it’s not about race. It may not be about race too them, but what amazes me is that we’ve come to the point where people are telling black people what is and what isn’t racism. Wow!
Barry is portrayed as a jerk, I believe, because he doesn’t kiss the SDQs’ asses, and they won’t stand for certain great athletes refusing to do that. The SDQs want great athletes to be like Magic Johnson or Michael Jordan, smiling and cordial with the media, but that’s not Barry, and I can’t blame him. He grew watching the media mistreat his baseball-playing dad, Bobby Bonds, and all other black athletes like shit.
Look how they treated Muhammad Ali when he refused to join the military. Look how they treated Bill Russell for talking about the racism he experience in Boston. They tell different stories about these men today and about how great they were, comparing them to today’s athletes to make modern athletes look bad.
However certain professional athletes like Randy Johnson or Curt Shilling don’t kiss the SDQs’ asses, but their characters aren’t attacked, only their bad performances. They say Barry brought race into the equation when he made comments about Bath Ruth, the great baseball player from the Stone Age. All Barry said was Bath Ruth wasn’t black and black people are treated differently, which is the truth.
The SDQs masked their negative treatment of Bonds with the steroid issue, even before the Balco case had come to light and before the Jose Canseco book. When they had no proof, many SDQs made comments about the size of his head and body, a reference to how steroids make your body change and your head grow.
Roger “get a pass from the media” Clemens’ head and body has changed over the years, too. He’s big and in shape at an older age, too, when he should be slowing down, and if you think pro pitchers don’t take steroids, you’re out of your mind. There are pitchers who went from throwing 91 mph fast balls to 99-100 mph, but there are also some who slowed down after the congressional steroid hearings, such as Curt Shilling, Randy Johnson, and Greg Gagne.
When Bonds was going for the single season home run record in 2001, the SDQs didn’t support him, even before the circumstantial evidence began to come out. At that time, I was interviewed by graduate journalism students from Columbia University about why the media was ignoring Bonds’ accomplishments.
I believe the media has known about steroid use in professional and amateur sports for years—gymnasts, swimmers, track and field athletes, weight lifters, football players, the list is endless. There are steroids that don’t change your body style, but make you faster or stronger.
The biggest reason the SDQs say they pick on Bonds, yet gave St. Louis slugger Mark McGuire a pass is that they didn’t know steroids where around when McGuire was chasing Roger Maris’ single season home run record. Amazing! Some SDQs wrote about steroids back in the late eighties, specifically about Oakland A’s Jose Canseco. I guess they didn’t hear the Boston Red Sox fans in 1988 when the whole stadium chanted “steroids” whenever Conseco came to the plate.
When the late Ken Caminiti won the 1996 NL MVP award while with the San Diego Padres later admitted using steroids, the SDQs didn’t tear him apart. They didn’t talk about taking his MVP award away or putting asterisk next to it. The SDQs want us to believe they had no idea that steroids were in baseball. Get real.
It’s funny to me how all of sudden it’s a big issue when players like Barry Bonds and Gary Sheffield may have been taking steroids. I guess some people get to cheat and some don’t. It’s as if some people can steal land and the people to work that land and then can outlaw the crime and never be considered criminals themselves. It’s also okay for the good ol’ boys to cheat to get an edge to compete, such as Lyle Alzado or John Matuzak in the 1980s. You never hear any talk about stripping away the Raiders’ championships.
Besides the grand jury leak, the other evidence the SDQs show pictures of Bonds when he first came into the majors, trying to make a point about how slender he used to be and how’s he’s so muscular now, but everybody puts on a few pounds as they age. Why they didn’t do that with Mark McGuire? The best evidence the SDQs have against Bonds is that his head size is has gotten bigger. I mean, Steve Nash won two MVP’s and during that time, his forehead has gotten bigger. Look at pictures of his head when he first enter the NBA. His head is so big now he try’s to keep his hair long to cover it up. I’m not saying Steve Nash took anything. I’m saying that if you’re going to question someone because of their head size, question everybody with a big head!
To me, the people most guilty in the baseball steroids issue are the owners and commissioner Bud Selig. They had to know players were on steroids. Nobody is that blind, but it made them money, because home runs are popular with fans. Why didn’t the commissioner call for an investigation before it became an issue? That’s like a police chief who know he has officers taking money out of the drug pot, but says nothing because he’s getting his cut, but only calls for an investigation once the gig is up.
Having the SDQs go after Barry Bonds the way they do is like going after a small-time street corner drug dealer and letting the rich, powerful drug dealer who runs and controls everything go free. The small-timer is guilty, but so is his boss.
I’m not saying Bonds is innocent. I’m saying is journalistically wrong to constantly print negative stuff about a person just because you don’t like him and he’s a jerk to the media. You’re letting personal feelings and biases affect your job and lessening your credibility.
Steroids have been around since the late 80s, and even high school kids could see the pimples the size of baseballs on local athletes and the anger that athletes exhibited every day in the hallways. And if it was in the high schools, you know it was in the professional sports, because they get paid to be the best.
A message to Bud Selig: Make sure your investigation includes yourself and the owners. That’s the only way anybody is going to think it’s not a witch hunt to bring down Barry Bonds just because he is about to pass Babe “freaking” Ruth. (“Freaking” meaning he was so good that words couldn’t describe his greatness on the field.)
The SDQs still talk about Bath Ruth as if he was some kind of god. I don’t know if he was or if he wasn’t the greatest ballplayer in history, and I really don’t care either way. However, if home runs made him a god, today he’s no longer the home run leader for a single season or a career. Forget about the so-call steroids era. His records were broken back when steroids supposedly weren’t around. There are still SDQs who won’t give Roger Maris the single season home run king record because he played more games than the Babe.
That’s like saying the Rolling Stones are the greatest band ever. Whoever has the power to write the stuff has the power to tell you what, why, and who they want to be the greatest. The point is that they’re all impertinent answers for impertinent questions, because you can’t prove who is the best or the greatest.
When Bath Ruth played the game, baseball was still segregated, so he never really played against the best, which means that calling him the greatest is meaningless. What if the NBA had never allowed black players in the league? Larry Bird would probably have averaged 50 points per game and would have racked up NBA 10 titles. He might even still be playing!
The bottom line is that the SDQs want to tie a negative issue to Barry Bonds, but ask yourself honestly, even if you believe Bonds took steroids: Do you think he was the only professional athlete to take steroids? You know he wasn’t, but Barry Bonds is the only one taking a pencil-whipping from the SDQs over the issue. It’s perfect example of how much influence the media has, because, in reality, Bonds has never tested positive for steroids, yet the SDQs treat him as if he was guilty.
They say they have information from a grand jury leak about the Balco lab, but whoever leaked that information should be put in jail, because that tears at the fabric of our legal system. Forget baseball. You’re talking about people breaking laws that will have a greater effect on society than a few athletes trying to make themselves better. Are you going to investigate an actress who wins an award after she’s had a facelift or a beauty queen who had a boob job? Oh that type of cheated is legal.
New York Yankee Jason Giambi was also caught in the Balco scandal, but he got a pass from the SDQs because he’s nice guy and admitted to the grand jury that he took steroids. (Which should also never have come to light, since grand jury information is supposed to be private.)
But I know why Jason Giambi got a pass. It’s the same reason Mark McGuire got a pass. It’s because 95 percent of the SDQs look like Giambi and McGuire—and I’m not talking about skin color. I’m talking about lying. By attacking Bonds, the SDQs are admitting that they’re biased, and by saying they knew nothing about steroid use before the Balco case, they’re making themselves look as foolish lairs as Mark McGuire did when he told congressmen over and over, “I’m not hear to talk about the past.”
It seems as if everybody is getting amnesia when it comes to the past, except when you ask them how they feel about Barry “freaking” Bonds. (This time, freaking is a synonym for “greatest,” because of all the supposed steroid users, Bonds is the only one to hit 73 home runs in a single season.) Jose Canseco admitted using steroids for years, and never broke any home run single season record, and Giambi never hit 60 home runs in season.
The bottom line is that none of the alleged cheaters have done what Barry Bonds has done. I’m not saying it’s right, but neither is pulling out a pencil and putting a bunch of negative marks on Bond’s image just because you don’t like the guy.
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