Obstructed Seats pens a piece comparing Jose Canseco to Barry Bonds:
He is now on the verge of passing Babe Ruth on the all time home run list, and is a season and a half away from passing Hank Aaron as the all time leader. The most impressive record in baseball history could be held by someone who has been knowingly prejudice, a proven cheater (based on the latest allegations in the newest book about him), a selfish player, and quite possibly more hated than anyone in sports history.
His interviews cry out for attention and pity (my mind wanders back to when he was hobbling around on crutches last season and blamed the media for ruining his personal life), and he has no problem talking down to anyone. Think about this; He has knowingly cheated, yet would not have any problem holding the most prestigious record in baseball, one that will surely not be broken for a long time (this will be the only thing that will cause me to root for Alex Rodriguez).
Bonds still has support, however. Ferguson Vance writes:
In support of Barry Bonds – The best athletes will always do what they can to improve their bodies and skills. They constantly excercise and practice. They take advantage of every advancement in nutrition and medicine. The rules of the game and the laws of the nation do change and evolve over time. Baseball itself has a particularly history of pushing the envelope of it’s own rules. Pitchers “doctor” balls, managers steal signs, batters swing from outside the box after erasing the lines in plain sight of everyone and base runners are called out from phantom tags. Bats are corked and spikes are sharpened. All these could be considered forms of cheating that occur right on the field during play and have a direct impact on the game. Pitchers can throw 95 MPH fastballs with fake tendons and football players can shock their muscles with cattle prods, but Barry Bonds can’t take a medical suppliment to increase his strength or speed his healing? Does anyone see the hypocracy here? How many stolen bases would Ty Cobb have today with the modern Nike Baseball shoes, and training, diet, medical and nutrition of today instead of the 1920’s methods. How about we put an asteric next to Rickey Hendersons records…It would read “*civilization advanced rendering the achivements yesterday irrelavent.” Barry Bonds is only guilty of trying to succeed, just like you and I do at our jobs each day. He follows the example baseball sets, just like we follow the examples of our fellow drivers obeying the trafic laws.
Baseball Musings is conducting a pledge drive in March. Click here for details.
“a proven cheater (based on the latest allegations in the newest book about him)”
If any male thinks the word/uncross-examined testimony of an ex- with regards to event of 5 or more years ago is proof of anything, I suggest they have never been divorced or had a serious breakup.
Evidence from IRS agents/criminal leakers that Judge Illston basically dressed down as being incompetent probably constitute proof of much either.
He took “medical suppliments”? Since when was a steroid for making cattle larger a “medical suppliment”?
“Barry Bonds is only guilty of trying to succeed, just like you and I do at our jobs each day.”
Yeah Bill in shipping has been juicing for years, and Wally in marketing is always on female anti-estrogen drugs.
I’m amazed at the way some people can be this cynical and permissive.
Whatever your feelings on steroids and asterisks are, the simple fact remains that according to my understanding, nothing that Bonds has done was illegal within the sport at the time he did it.
Assuming that is true, and I grant that I might be wrong, how is that a greater sin than the actions of Gaylord Perry, who specifically did something made illegal by the rules of baseball at the time?
and why isn’t there the same screaming for blood over all the nobody nothing and fringe players who have TESTED POSITIVE???
i don’t hear no screaming against the other players named by balco – armando rios, benito santiago, randy velarde – where is the screeching that they should have all their stats erased and them sent to jail?
and i always tell men you can’t believe NOTHING said by a rejected alleged girlfriend about the man who don’t want her. why people would think a female would NEVER tell a single lie about a man who don’t want her i do NOT get. cmon guys – use your brains
because Sports is, above all, about talent. It is not about how hard you try, how scrappy you are, how much dedication you put in. It has always been, and always will be about talent. We root for the scrappy players (Willie Bloomquist) because we like to think they’re kind of like us. But we admire the great players, and we spend our money to watch them so they can get paid, because we couldn’t be them no matter how hard we tried, because they’re Superman and we’re Clark Kent.
When you get down to it, we, baseball fans, are the ones who pay for the players’ otherworldly salaries. We’re willing to do so because they have otherwordly talent. If I knew all it took was an injection, then i’d go out there and make all that money myself.
There are man among us who are intent on making us believe
that they are the worlds moralists and that they and they alone have the clue to what makea an athelete pure.
They make their daily bread by scaring the innocent among us that all chioldren are goiong to get despoiled by these Immoral?
atheletes.
They would like to see baseball go down so some sort of pure dull sport would take over. Thewy are also rjuoing the roost in all other sports ready to jump on any infrection they might find. the sports pages of America and the tv and cable mavens abound with these pure people What a joke!!
I think its about time some body do some investigating about these pure ones.
I remember the old saying ” Phycisian heal thyself ”
jerry – 4 PM – 3/11/06
No, I don’t see the “hypocracy” here. There is now overwhelming proof that Bonds took multiple drugs on a daily basis for many years, with the specific intent of improving his performance at an age when his skills would normally be eroding. This is cheating on a scale that goes way beyond Gaylord Perry. And while it may not have broken the (inexcusably inadequate) rules of baseball at the time, it was against the LAW to take prescription drugs for which he had no prescription — and to take at least one drug (the Clear) which had never been approved for use by humans. Bonds broke the law, over and over and over again. By taking performance-enhancing drugs that are dangerous to human health, he distorted the game — implicity forcing other players to consider the same devil’s bargain.
As for the reliability of the book: it was exhaustively researched, with hundreds of interviews and reams of documents. The book cannot be dismissed with gratuitous slams against ex-girlfriends. I only hope the Bonds case forces a broader examination of the drug issue, so that he’s not the only cheater who has to face the music.
John W. You are deluding your self.
Jerry R
John W.,
Hundreds of interviews don’t matter if you take information from only one source (the ex- we slam) as it appears they did for the pre-2000 speculations regarding Bonds’ behavior.
Most of the interviewees, like recentl newspaper interviewees JT Snow and Dusty Baker, probably said they had no knowledge other than Bonds got bigger.
Like the “15 pounds in 100 days” is impossible canard, these guys appear to be very prone to embellishment. Think about it. Even if he gained 15 pounds in an off-season at age 34 – is it that remarkable? He started out in shape and strong, used to weight lifting, with top-flight genetics, and having not lifted for bulk before. But the main obvious exagerration that fails under critical thinking is the “100 days”. In my world, and I’m sure in yours, there are 50% more than 100 days in the baseball off-season of October, November, December, January, and February.
Jerry R. With a refutation like that, how can any of us continue to argue the point?
Jeff B
The bottom line is, nothing has been proven.
He has passed every steroid test given to him in the last 2-3 years and most of the people writing these hate-filled rants – including just about every journalist – don’t know the 1st thing about steroids.
But somewhere along the line they’ve convinced themselves – with anecdotes and allegations – that he must have undoubtedly taken them (“My god, look at the size of his head!”). And once you’ve developed what you think is an unassailable opinion, no proof, no convincing, no real-world evidence, will ever change your mind.
John W: As to the importance of Perry’s cheating, wasn’t the pitch that hit Chapman a spitter? I would say that proves the issues of steroids is not way more of a problem than the spitball in baseball.
The hypocrisy I see is the acceptance of players in the Hall of Fame who either specifically broke the rules of the game (Perry), or whose off the field issues were either illegal or inacceptable by today’s standards (Cobb, for example).
The hypocrisy is this self-satisfied myth that the numbers in baseball are pure until steroids came into play. Whatever the effect of steroids on the game, it’s nowhere near the effect of excluding black players. It’s nowhere near the effect of using one ball per game. It’s nowhere near the effect of decreasing the playing field (both foul and fair) in ballparks.
I’m all good with eliminating steroids. I’m all good with punishing people who have broken either the law or the rules of baseball. What I’m not all good with is blithely following the long-term negative impression of Bonds that a media that hates him constantly gives us.
Bonds may very well have done steroids and may very well deserve to be castigated, but there is no way he deserves to now not be voted into the Hall of Fame. This is not a case of Pete Rose, who specifically broke the rules of the game. You can’t change the rules and punish someone’s actions retroactively.
At least we can be certain this guy (Ferguson) wrote his article without the aid of performance enhancers (dictionaries/spell check). If he wants to be taken seriously he need to spell better than a third grader. We all make mistakes, but he exceeded the acceptable limit.
By the by, steroids were banned by Faye Vincent in 1991. However, they weren’t tested for. Here is a link : http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/format/memos20051109?memo=1991&num=1. So, yes, he did break the rules of baseball repeatedly.
Notice the part that states “The possession, sale or use of any drug or CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE by Major League players … is strictly prohibited.” Steroids have been a Schedule III substance under the Controlled Substances Act since 1990. Also, players “risk permanent expulsion from the game”. Any other proven violators should face appropriate punishment as well.
Just a comment on Carl Mays, the pitcher who killed Ray Chapman with a pitch. Mays, I believe, had an odd delivery, low sidearm or submariner. The ball was dirty because the ball was kept in play; I don’t know that Mays loaded the ball. So there was a combination of a dirty ball, and an unusual delivery that made the ball tough to pick up that day.