Anyone else think that guilt is really wearing on Bonds, and he’s milking these injuries to protect the record?
All I can say to that is:
.
Nope, he is too much of an ego-maniac for that.
Nope not guilt, more like the roids have worked on his joints so that he’s in constant pain. Couldn’t think of a nicer guy for such a lovely thing to happen to.
Nope not guilt, more like the roids have worked on his joints so that he’s in constant pain. Couldn’t think of a nicer guy for such a lovely thing to happen to.
LOL, I totally agree!
No.
He’s an older player, and he’s not on PEDs to vastly enhance his recovery.
I believe the story that he overdid himself on All-Star weekend (had a party till 3AM, etc).
Shame, jeers, disdain, hatred, etc have never seemed to bother Barry … MOF, he seems to thrive on it.
It’s dissappointing to me that the record approaches and A LOT of fans just want him to break it, get it over with, and get out of baseball. The greatest record in American sports is being treated like an ugly girl the morning after. Thanks Barry.
Will it be the “Homerun of shame”?
He’s tired, he stunk it up in the series, and he did waaaaaaay too much during the all-star break.
He’ll go on the road, get boo’d, and start hitting the ball. The guy feeds off of negative emotion like I feed off of peanut butter (and beer).
It baffles me why people hate Bonds so much. Baseball and indeed all of professional sports is full of egomaniacal jerks who have been idolized. Ted Williams was a jerk who hated the fans. Joe DiMaggio was a jerk…there are stories in San Francisco about him that would make your hair curl. Willie Mays IS a jerk and taught Barry everything he knows about being an egomaniac. But they are all loved; Barry isn’t and never will be…and spare me the drug accusations… Lance Armstrong has had just as many fingers pointed at him and there’s perhaps more evidence against Lance than Barry, yet he is loved…and by all accounts he’s a egomaniac jerk too.
Mark McGwire broke the other hallowed record in baseball, Roger Maris’ 62 HRs in a season and he was caught with shit in his locker during that season, plus he was a skinny kid who transformed himself into a Paul Bunyanesque slugger much like Barry…yet he isn’t hated much at all, nor is Sammy Sosa who feigns an inability to speak English every time drugs are mentioned. And there’s always Pete Rose who despite his protestations almost certainly threw games to win bets, yet he is loved…and he’s a jerk too.
Why is Barry hated so much? he isn’t the only jerk in sports and he isn’t the only guy in sports to have used drugs or cheated, but there doesn’t seem to me anywhere near the kind of animosity directed at any of these guys as there is towards Barry Bonds.
And for the record I’m not defending Barry. I know he’s a jerk and I believe that he has used PEDs either knowingly or unwittingly as he claims, but I just don’t get the level of hatred directed towards him.
Mark McGwire broke the other hallowed record in baseball, Roger Maris’ 62 HRs in a season and he was caught with shit in his locker during that season, plus he was a skinny kid who transformed himself into a Paul Bunyanesque slugger much like Barry…yet he isn’t hated much at all, nor is Sammy Sosa who feigns an inability to speak English every time drugs are mentioned. And there’s always Pete Rose who despite his protestations almost certainly threw games to win bets, yet he is loved…and he’s a jerk too.
Matt - I disagree. McGwire will never step foot at a baseball event again, for he would be booed to death. He got out before this stuff was fully recognized by the public. Even me as a Cincinnati fan, people outside of Cincy don’t think highly of Rose.
There are 24 teammates, and there’s Barry Bonds.
There are 24 teammates who show up to pose for the team picture, and there’s Bonds, who has blown it off for the last two years.
There are 24 teammates who go out on the field before the game to stretch together, and there’s Bonds, who usually stretches indoors with his own flex guy.
There are 24 teammates who get on the players’ bus at the hotel to go to the park, and there’s Bonds, who gets on the bus with the broadcasters, the trainers and the manager who coddles him.
There are 24 teammates who eat the clubhouse spread, and there’s Bonds, whose nutritionist brings in special meals for him.
There are 24 teammates who deal with the Giants’ publicity man, and there’s Bonds, who has his own clubhouse-roving p.r. guy, a freelance artist named Steve Hoskins, who turned down George Will’s request for an interview with Bonds because Hoskins had never heard of him.
There are 24 teammates who hang out with one another, play cards and bond, and there’s Bonds, sequestered in the far corner of the clubhouse with his p.r. man, masseur, flex guy, weight trainer, three lockers, a reclining massage chair and a big-screen television that only he can see.
Last week, after Bonds hit his 51st home run in a 13-7 win over the Florida Marlins, most of the players stayed to celebrate the victory, and at least one was gone before the press arrived in the clubhouse: Bonds.
“That’s Barry,” says San Francisco second baseman Jeff Kent. “He doesn’t answer questions. He palms everybody off on us, so we have to do his talking for him. But you get used to it. Barry does a lot of questionable things. But you get used to it. Sometimes it rubs the younger guys the wrong way, and sometimes it rubs the veterans the wrong way. You just hope he shows up for the game and performs. I’ve learned not to worry about it or think about it or analyze it. I was raised to be a team guy, and I am, but Barry’s Barry. It took me two years to learn to live with it, but I learned.”
If you get the feeling that Kent, who’s in his fifth season with San Francisco, wouldn’t spit on Bonds if Bonds were on fire, you might be right. Maybe it has something to do with last year, when Kent and Bonds were running neck and neck for the National League MVP award. The week before the award was to be announced, Bonds had a member of his entourage call the commissioner’s office to try to find out who had won. We’ve got to know, said the stooge, because if he’s not going to win, he can get out of town.
Perfect! No staying around to congratulate Kent. Or going to the press conference to shake his hand. Just, “If it ain’t me, I’m outta here.” The commissioner’s office didn’t know the results of the voting. Kent won.
Someday they’ll be able to hold Bonds’s funeral in a fitting room. When Bonds hit his 500th home run, in April, only one person came out of the dugout to greet him at the plate: the Giants’ batgirl. Sitting in the stands, you could’ve caught a cold from the freeze he got. Teammates 24, Bonds 1.
Bonds isn’t beloved by his teammates. He’s not even beliked. He often doesn’t run out grounders, doesn’t run out flies. If a Giants pitcher gives up a monster home run over Bonds in leftfield, Bonds keeps his hands on his knees and merely swivels his head to watch the ball sail over the fence. He’s an MTV diva, only with bigger earrings.
“On the field, we’re fine,” says Kent, “but off the field, I don’t care about Barry and Barry doesn’t care about me. Or anybody else.”
Bonds will be a free agent after this season, and if he decides to sign elsewhere, will the Giants be devastated? Kent grimaces. “See: Seattle Mariners,” he says, walking away.
Bonds is brilliant. He was the best player of the 1990s, and at 37 he’s having his most magnificent season, on pace at week’s end to break the single-season home run record of 70 and nearly lapping the league in slugging percentage, on-base percentage and walks. He should be the MVP.
But that doesn’t mean you have to root for him.
From SI; Rick Reilly;2001
It’s not that big a mystery. Bonds alienates fans, fans need villians, the rest is the only logical conclusion. They can have poor character, questionable morals and be of no other value to society whatsoever, but when an entertainer endears himself to the masses, all is forgiven and legends are written.
I have never understood why people form their opinion about a guy based on things that have nothing to do with why they even give a damn about him in the first place. No one would care who Barry Bonds is if he didn’t play baseball, so why does it matter what he does besides play baseball? Don’t like him? Don’t buy a ticket when he plays.
Surely not every single person who rips him for being a jerk is a saint…I guess glass houses no longer apply at $3.5 million.
AL I love the irony of that Reilly article and the comments made by Jeff Kent. If there was ever a bigger asshole or a bigger ego in the Giants locker room it was Jeff Kent. When Milton Bradley accused him of being a racist, his teammate Lance Bergman defended him thus, “Jeff Kent is not a racist, he doesn’t discriminate at all, he’s an asshole to everyone.”
Kent has broken most if not all of Rogers Hornsbys records for a 2nd baseman. He was an integral part of that Balco Giants team; Bonds, Marvin Benard, Benito Santiago, Armando Rios, and others and yet he isn’t hated.
…and spare me the drug accusations… Lance Armstrong has had just as many fingers pointed at him and there’s perhaps more evidence against Lance than Barry, yet he is loved…
Except the part about Barry admitting to using the clear and the cream but not knowing what was in it. Yet his feet and head along with the rest of his body were growing at age 40. Please!
I’m not so naive to believe that Lance wasn’t on the juice just like everyone else in pro cycling. Maybe that era of cycling should be put into the books with the same label as the steroid era of baseball. Lance will be remembered for winning 7 Tours in the cycling world. He will be remembered and loved by the entire world for raising hundreds of millions of dollars to cure cancer. What, other than feed his own weird obsession with gaining this fake title of home run king, has Barry Bonds done for the world except make it a little nastier place to live in?
I watched the game last night were Barry increased his slump to 0 - 21. He looks tired, old, and fat now that he’s off the juice, and I hope he doesn’t break the record and just goes away.
and there’s perhaps more evidence against Lance than Barry, yet he is loved
How can this be true? Barry admitted to using steroids. The evidence against Lance’s doping is based upon other people’s accusations. Barry said he “unknowingly” took them.
**Mark McGwire broke the other hallowed record in baseball, Roger Maris’ 62 HRs in a season and he was caught with shit in his locker during that season, plus he was a skinny kid who transformed himself into a Paul Bunyanesque slugger much like Barry…yet he isn’t hated much at all, nor is Sammy Sosa who feigns an inability to speak English every time drugs are mentioned. **
That’s because they are no longer in the spotlight.
I have never understood why people form their opinion about a guy based on things that have nothing to do with why they even give a damn about him in the first place. No one would care who Barry Bonds is if he didn’t play baseball, so why does it matter what he does besides play baseball? Don’t like him? Don’t buy a ticket when he plays.
Are you serious?
There’s a B-I-G difference from realizing that someone is ultra-talented and rooting for them, liking them, having them as your favorite player, or thinking they’re a good guy. We’re talking about perception of the fans, not the HoF committee.
I’m sure everything you think of Alan Trammel (or Willie McGee for me) isn’t limited to “on the field” stuff. As for forming an opinion on a guy, can that be something that people “limit” anyway? Doesn’t an opinion form itself. If my favorite player is always being busted for cocaine, arrestted for beating his wife, flipping off the camera and saying F— you … am I to ignore that, or keep it from factoring into my opinion of him?
Bonds/McGwire cheated on his/their way to dismantling two of the most sacred records in baseball. They are both viewed as leppers. The only thing I can come up with for why Soosa doesn’t get boo’d all over the play is b/c he’s got that “Slammin Sammy” charicature thing going ro people just don’t give a crap about Sammy and have essentially written him out of their memory. Just like most baseball fans STILL see the HR records at 61/755.
It’s a shame … we could be celebrating the chase to 600 of Bonds/Griffey right now. Gee, I wonder which one most fans would be cheering for?
No one would care who Barry Bonds is if he didn’t play baseball, so why does it matter what he does besides play baseball?
Seriously? So if Trammell beat his wife and kids, was arressted for using GHB to have to sex with teenage girls, and was widely suspicioned in distributing cocaine … that wouldn’t factor into your opinion of him? Most of my favorite players (Hernandez, Wingate, Gooden, Ozzie, etc) have let me down “off the field”. I say favorite players and not “heroes” for obvious reasons.
Me thinks you’re not being honest. I say that because our opinion of someone isn’t soley a “conscious decision”. Right now I command you not to picture a zebra in your mind. C’mon you weakling, get control of your thoughts. grin
and there’s perhaps more evidence against Lance than Barry, yet he is loved
How can this be true? Barry admitted to using steroids. The evidence against Lance’s doping is based upon other people’s accusations. Barry said he “unknowingly” took them.
**Mark McGwire broke the other hallowed record in baseball, Roger Maris’ 62 HRs in a season and he was caught with shit in his locker during that season, plus he was a skinny kid who transformed himself into a Paul Bunyanesque slugger much like Barry…yet he isn’t hated much at all, nor is Sammy Sosa who feigns an inability to speak English every time drugs are mentioned. **
That’s because they are no longer in the spotlight.
Barry Bonds did not admit to using steroids…lets clear that up first. Nothing he said to the grand jury is admissable in a court of law or the court of public opinion. And what he did day is that he was given a cream by his trainer that may have contained banned substances…he doesn’t know.
Bonds has never tested positive and none of his team mates have ever gone public with accusations against him despite the fact that he is a royal jerk to them all. Armstrong has had several team mates and support staff accuse him of drug use…plus there is disputed evidence that samples he gave several years ago did test positive. Armstrong’s athletic acomplishments are every bit as other worldish as Bonds’ especially in a sport where drug use is much more rampant than it is in baseball.
As for the spotlight, Sammy Sosa just became the 5th ever player to hit 600 home runs and ESPN were fawning all over him for his achievement. Smiling Sammy has a unique ability to forget how to speak English every time a reporter mentions drugs and he gets away with it.
The evidence against Bonds is circumstantial as is the evidence against Armstrong…plus a couple of eye witness accusations. Lance gets a pass, Barry does not. In France the asterisk that we are putting next to Bonds’ records has been placed next to Armstrong’s achievements. We choose to turn our heads when some athletes are concerned
Jason Giambi admitted he knowingly took steroids and he isn’t booed around the country.
**Barry Bonds did not admit to using steroids…lets clear that up first. **
We must have different defintions for “admit”. When you say you use something, “knowingly or unknowingly”, you’re still admitting your use. Now, that doesn’t mean that he testified to using it, but he did admit. Are we really going to have this discussion?
Nothing he said to the grand jury is admissable in a court of law or the court of public opinion. And what he did day is that he was given a cream by his trainer that may have contained banned substances…he doesn’t know.
He admitted to unknowingly using the cream and the clear. That’s admission. That’s all I stated.
Bonds has never tested positive and none of his team mates have ever gone public with accusations against him despite the fact that he is a royal jerk to them all.
I don’t get where you’re going with this? Have you heard of Gary Sheffield?
Armstrong has had several team mates and support staff accuse him of drug use…plus there is disputed evidence that samples he gave several years ago did test positive. Armstrong’s athletic acomplishments are every bit as other worldish as Bonds’ especially in a sport where drug use is much more rampant than it is in baseball.
You speak as if I’m one of those that thinks Armstrong is clean. IMO< if Armstrong was not an American, we’d all consider him the biggest drug cheat of all time.
As for the spotlight, Sammy Sosa just became the 5th ever player to hit 600 home runs and ESPN were fawning all over him for his achievement. Smiling Sammy has a unique ability to forget how to speak English every time a reporter mentions drugs and he gets away with it.
Sammy can go crap his pants while locked in his car during a 110-degree Texas afternoon. Please don’t base any of my thoughts on what the media thinks. There may not be a group of peopple I regard less than sport’s media.
The evidence against Bonds is circumstantial as is the evidence against Armstrong…plus a couple of eye witness accusations.
Lance has never admitted to unknowingly taking the cream and the clear. Personally, I think the evidence versus Armstrong is pretty damn strong … as is the evidence against Bonds. I am open to the idea that Bonds really thought he was injecting faxseed oil or that he was the only high profile name at BALCO that wasn’t using, but I don’t find it very probable at all.
Lance gets a pass, Barry does not.
Not by me. If you want someone to stand alongside you in the “Lance is a cheater” group, I’m there. Lance’s “aw shucks” attitude wins him over for a lot of people. I don’t think there’s many cycling fans that realistically believe he never took anything.
Jason Giambi admitted he knowingly took steroids and he isn’t booed around the country.
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Giambi isn’t breaking Babe Ruth’s record.
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America loves a second chance. Really. Sports fans love it when a hero falls, admits guilt, and comes back. Heck, Lawrence Taylor did it all the time. grin
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Let’s not forget Giambi was a bum when he was hitting .211 and close to being sent to AAA. He started hitting and the forgiving took place (fans are funny like that).
My point is fans are willing to FORGIVE when guilt is admitted. There’s a lot of former Pete Rose supporters that want nothing to do with him after his 10-year denial of guilt, only to admit it in a book (for profit, of course).
What American fans don’t like is a hero that lies and dodges guilt while everyone else knows the truth (or what can reasonably be inferred as the truth). Fans REALLY don’t like it when a 6’5 270-pound Superman acts like a p---- by not wanting to “talk about the past” … they also don’t like it when a member of the 3000hit-500homer club points his finger at Congress and states “I never used steroids”, and then in a following year tests positive for it.<BR
Barry Bonds did not admit to using steroids…lets clear that up first
He admitted to using the Cream and the Clear. He said he did not know that they contained steroids which is why I said he “unknowingly” took them.
Why do you keep bringing up Lance as a defense for Bonds? They’re two separate people using different drugs.
The evidence against Bonds is circumstantial as is the evidence against Armstrong
I guess you could say that in a trial they are both circumstantial, but in a federal grand jury Bonds admitted using the clear and the cream given to him by his trainer. These were a method of administering steroids.
So, the amount of evidence against Bonds is MUCH higher than Armstrong (not that that means he is clean either).
Whether guilty or not, comparing public perception of Lance to Bonds is just not a good idea. I hate to break to you, but 99% of the general public could give a rat’s ass about cycling and who’se guilty of drug use, and what it did for their career. Baseball is a different story. Although it may not be our national past-time anymore, it still much more popular with the casual sports fan than cycling. People just aren’t going to get bent of shape over some drugging up in cycling. Now, there would be some backlash against Lance because he’s been such a marketing magnet, but people would not feel betrayed like they do with McGwire and Bonds in baseball.