I was going to join you in piling on Bonds, but I decided not to waste my time on any overpaid, overpampered pompous professional athletes. And my brother does not understand why I have no desire to go to Spring Training games and support these whiners.

I gave up on MLB many moons ago....Bonds is a prime example of whats wrong with the sport...Stick a Fork on that Whiner!

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Seeing him in deep torment, I said. " You can have my last GU , but its been down my pants for most of the run". - John Hirsch

Take care of your body, its by far the coolest thing you're going to ever own.- Can't remember who told me this, but I love it.

I'm officially over baseball and all pro sports (except cycling, running, and triathlon). these giant babies sicken me and are full of attitude, self righteousness and greed. like I said, it sickens me, and I could care less if I ever go to a pro baseball game again...especially the reds--i hate the new stadium, paying 7 bucks for a shitty beer, and 5 bucks for a crappy half cold hot dog. no thanks...the public has been snowed enough.

yes, you are all correct, but this just really bugged me. I grew up loving baseball, I wabted to be a baseball player, my dad played minor league, still keeps trying to convince me that I should be paying attention.

He also likes pro basketball.

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"He also likes pro basketball."

You know basketball has it share of whiners (Bryant, Vince Carter, Starbury, etc.)... However one diamond in the rough is Steve Nash. Here's a guy that makes a ton of money. But then goes out and tries his best to earn it. Apparently, he showed up to a week early to training camp and is regularly at the gym at 7. As one analyst put it: " He shames his teammates into giving their all"

I'm sure there are other examples... They just don't get noted because the whiners get all the attention.

".....full of attitude and self-righteousness...."

I first experienced this probably in '62, when I was 13 or so, early in Jim Bouton's career. My best friend (a Yankees) fan and I were at Fenway, and my friend wanted to try to get some autographs. A whole swack of kids were hovering nearby the Yankees dugout, and Bouton swaggered past, looked up at us all, and with a smirk on his face said "Piss off, you little shits". This really floored me, as it was the first time I had my balloon burst about professional athletes. I later kind of "made up" with Bouton, enjoying immensely "Ball Four" (was this the first true expose of the fallibility of pro athletes?).........but that moment and the image of his face is still very clear in my memory, and there is nothing cute or pleasant about it.

Similar to Tom Delay blaming democrats for his ethics problems and soon to be indictments. NO, its your fault for being a crook.

I think Bouton fessed up on this, admitted he was a prick early in his career. If you read "Ball Four", he mentions that he took his cue from Whitey Ford and Mickey Mantle. He is kind of a strange guy, though. Oth, I love that book, I think it says a lot about the interaction between people (such as office environments, etc.).

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A big juicer with playing the race card. Piece of garbage in my book. What a role model.

Smitty

I agree.

Unfortunately pro sports are dominated by people who are operating under the misconception that what they do is actually important.

What bothers me even more is the liberal use of the word "hero", or "role-model" with these people. I think there are probably some amazing people involved in pro sports and they probably realize how absurd the industry is... but I wish the whole thing could be put into perspective.

Lehmkuhler

Please, please, put anything re: Barry in the Lavender Room--I do not even want to see his name in the same thread as slowtwitchers. I visit this site for relief from the sordid news of the day re: narcissistic pro athletes. (Nina Kraft ban notwithstanding). This from a Nor Cal native and lifelong Giants fan:)

Interesting, open and honest discussion on my local radio show this morning about Bonds.

1. Professional athletes, of the profile of Bonds need to have an extraordinary patience. They likley get asked the same questions by the same media scrum of 50 - 100 reporters several times a week or even in the same day. This has to become tedious after a number of years even for the most patient and understanding of athletes. Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods come to mind as masters of this sort of mind numbing questioning that they always answered in a cool and diplomatic way - even it was the 10th time that week/day that they had been asked that same question. Bonds has lost it a few times with the media, but to a certain degree based on what a pain in the ass these reporters can be, it's almost excuseable.

2. Bonds grew up in the world of professional sports culture. His Father was an all-star player. The reality is, he knows no other world. He likley has no idea, of how the rest of the world lives. He's lived in the professional sports bubble his entire life.

Fleck

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

>>He's lived in the professional sports bubble his entire life.<<

Pretty much true. Barry played at Arizona State when I was a graduate assistant athletic trainer there and he thought he was God's gift to humanity then too. We had quite a few NFL, NBA, and Olympians come in while I was there and Barry took the cake on asshole-ishness. On the other side of the coin, Byron Scott who played for the Lakers and Harvey Glance (Olympian sprinter) were two of the nicest guys around.

clm

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

Bonds is the same guy he has always been. I have friends who went to high school (Serra) with him who said he was the biggest a**hole they had ever met. I have other friends who went to ASU and said the same thing. My company was a sponsor of the Giants when he came out and when we asked the Giants marketing people questions about Barry they rolled their eyes and changed the subject.

Go into the Giants locker room and you will see a metal folding chair in front of every locker but one. Barry has a $3,000 leather massage chair in front of his locker. A few years back he hat the whole team waiting for over 2 hours to take the annual team picture because he was out shopping. What a team player! I think he is an awesome ball player juiced or not, but just not a good person.

I go to a lot of giant’s games with my 7 year old son. I make sure he knows that Barry is NOT a hero or a roll model. No athlete is a hero, unless you count folks like the Hoyts. To look up to a ball player as anything more than a ball player is not a good idea for kids. I am the roll model for my kids and I try to live my life so that I can be a good one for my children. Not that I always succeed but unlike Barry, at least I try.

Dave

The sad part about this whole charade is that even with all its faults baseball is probably a cleaner sport than either triathlon, cycling, swimming or track and field.

And before you all pile on let me explain......baseball's governing body has de facto ignored the presence of drugs and allowed players to use whatever they want. For years players have used amphetamines more recently steroids and HgH. Nobody cared and they playing field was level. Everybody did something, and if they didn't the option was always there no harm no foul...personal choice, each to their own.

In sports like ours the drugs of choice have a much greater impact on performance. Barry Bonds is still going to hit a lot of home runs with or without drugs, the impact of the drugs on his performance does not give him as big an advantage over his peers as say EPO would give a distance runner over his. The cheats in endurance sports get a lot more bang for their drug buck since our sports are all about the engine and not so much about technique, imagination, tactics or inherent skill. Bonds for example has a genius baseball brain...he knows he's only going to get one or two pitches to hit per game and he has a knack of reading pitchers and the ability to work count so that they have to throw his pitch when he wants to swing...drugs don't help develop this skill.

Everyone whines about modern baseball records being tainted....has anyone looked at the astronomical decline in distance running records since a guy at Amgen first discovered EPO? The governing bodies of triathlon, T&F and swimming make efforts to weed out cheats but its my belief that they catch very very few. USATF for example has an utterly shameful record of defending drug cheats and doing little if anything to try and catch people who are so clearly cheating it isn't funny.

Everyone and their dog knew for years that Regina Jacobs was dirty but she was allowed to compete year after year and take money and medals away from clean runners. She was one of USATF's "untouchables".

I'm still going to watch baseball and enjoy it for what it is today and what it has always been....a sport where guys will use every advantage available to them to win. Corked bats, spit balls, stolen signs, amphetamines, steroids, mickey fins.

I'm getting less and less enthused about the sports that I participate in because drugs have changed them beyond recognition.

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"A society is defined not only by what it creates, but by what it refuses to destroy."
John Sawhill

Why is it important to bring up race? Sure he's an overpaid complaining, wining pro-athlete agreed, but the color of his skin isn't a factor so keep it out of the conversation. I didn't see him play the "race card" that so many people wait for to sensationalize and jump all over it. I think the whole thing is bullshit!!! What would your tone be if he wasn't "balck"? Keep the focus on the fact that many pro athletes daily salaries are more than the general populous' annual wages and along with the high dollars these atheletes command, they should accept the abundance of media attention and the loss of privacy that comes along with being a high profile athlete/public figure, and off of RACE. There is more substance to that argument vs. perpetuating stereotypes. I can truly say that I have never seen Barry Bonds "balck", I mean balk in his life! Use spell-check.

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"In the blocks you're a prisoner, the gun releases you."

I love the part where he talks about how the media has caused his family pain ... hey pal I'm just guessing but it was probably pretty painful for your wife to find out that you bought your girlfriend a condo 2 weeks after your honeymoon. What a jackass.

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"Knowledge is good" - Emil Faber

well...the evidence would strongly suggest that Barry's numbers were greatly impacted by the use of steroids. He went from being a 40 HR guy to 70+. Don't forget that that HGH and (correct me if I'm wrong) steroids also improve eye site...which would be a big part of pitch recognition. Aside from that I see your point. At least baseball didn't pretend their athlete's were clean (it's hard to make that claim if there's no drug enforcement policy)...unlike other sports.

"I didn't see him play the "race card" that so many people wait for to sensationalize and jump all over it."

Bonds plays the race card nearly every time he opens his mouth. Just because he didn't in the most recent 5 sec clip doesn't excuse the fact that he uses that crappy excuse all the time.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

They likley get asked the same questions by the same media scrum of 50 - 100 reporters several times a week or even in the same day. This has to become tedious after a number of years even for the most patient and understanding of athletes.

Boo hoo hoo. Someone pass me the kleenex, already.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

He has brought out the race card in numerous interviews...but probably not the "balck" card. If you didn't know any better you'd swear he grew up fighting for his life in the hood. I'm sure it was very tough for him growing up as the son of a rich and famous athlete. Thankfully most of us will never have to know what it's like growing up so impoverished.

Another slowtwitcher's interaction with Barry:

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...lapsed;guest=3139767

There are a lot of guys who came in second or third in MVP voting who said they were totally clean of roids and HGH that want the money that Bonds has claimed for the past seven or eight years. Try using your argument on them.

Barry Bonds has been a victim his whole career. From the time he could not find a college that wanted him to the time he stood still in left field, thinking his pitcher had just allowed a homer and let it hit off the wall, to the time he stole 2nd base while being up 9-2 v. Philly while chasing the 500-500 club, to the time he used drugs, and was persecuted by the media, and was a victim when he cussed out Jim Leyland, to the time ... well, this goes on forever.

whenever you act like a jackass, and then get the same treatment in return ... you are a victim. Incidently, that behavior is not relegated to guys like Bonds.

Bonds should just say, "You know what ... yeah, I'm selfish. I'm a stats whore. I use steroids. I'm an ass. But ya know what, all of that aside, I'm still the best player this game has ever seen." ... there would be very few that could mount a coherant argument against what he said.

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Edit: Coincidently ... if you take the "I use steroids" comment out of my last paragraph ... that might actually be a Ted "Ol TSW" Williams quote. =)

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-- Every morning brings opportunity;
Each evening offers judgement. --