Oh, For the Love Of...
Editor's note: TBL was not at all cranky prior to reading this article online. It is not "that time of the month", her cubicle is no more soul-sucking than usual, she did not bark her shin on the coffee table this morning. She just REALLY hates cheaters.
Barry Bonds Says 'My Life Is in Shambles':
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - Seven home runs shy of passing Babe Ruth, this should be a time of unbridled joy and excitement for Barry Bonds. Not so, he says. 'My life is in shambles. It is crazy,' Bonds said Monday in an interview with The Associated Press. 'It couldn't get any crazier. I'm just trying to stay sane.'
Then, clearly joking, he went for shock value: 'Go to the Empire State Building and jump off, commit suicide and people can say, 'Barry Bonds is finally dead.' Except for in San Francisco,' he said. 'I'll leave something for them.'
Despite those pronouncements, the 41-year-old Bonds has been upbeat and approachable - by his standards - this spring despite the recent release of 'Game of Shadows,' the book detailing his alleged longtime regimen for taking performance-enhancing drugs.
Hey, Barry. You see this thing occupying the minute space between my thumb and my forefinger? Yeah, that's the world's tiniest violin, and it's playing just for you.
See, I'm having a lot of difficulty drumming up any sympathy for you because it's all your own damn fault. You used all that crap, you said you didn't, and then you come over all more-arrogantly-prickish-than-thou for the last year. A little contrition early on might have helped, but NO. The Magnificent Barry takes a page from certain other public figures and plays the "if I repeat it often enough, it will magically become true" game.
News flash--that only works on unusually stupid people. And baseball is the "thinking man's game". You do the math.
So sit on your ill-gotted millions and cry me a river, Barry, you unutterable putz.
2 rejoinders:
Amazing, isn't it, how just the mention of certain names can make us cranky?
Bonds . . .
Selig . . .
Bush . . .
I don't know if I could say I sympathize with Barry, but I can feel empathy to the extent that 1) he was not breaking any MLB rules in place prior to 2003, even if it feels like he "cheated," and 2) the league, the media, and the fans not only looked the other way when steroids were suspected throughout the '90s and up to 2003, but some of the most likely users were hailed as heroes.
McGwire and Sosa "saved the game." The Maris family were onhand to give Big Mac their approval, the torch passed to the new HR Champ. 70! Fans ate it up, Selig and the owners were happy to count their profits, and players were glad to reap the skyrocketing payscale.
Even when players were busted by testing in the last couple years, the controversy blew over fairly easily as long as the players could still produce. Do Twins fans really care whether Juan Rincon took steroids or not? I think Palmeiro probably could have been forgiven as well, if he were 5 years younger and still capable of hitting 30+ homers.
But when Bonds is the subject of grand jury leaks and books, it's all different. He's a pariah, and I don't think that's right. The game itself had a steroids problem which few seriously wanted to address until the BALCO story forced the issue. The league, the media, and fans cast their lots when they celebrated the hulksters back in '98. I think it's hypocritical to make a scapegoat of Bonds now. Unless they can prove that he broke MLB rules since starting the drug testing in 2003, I'd rather the media just left the Bonds-steroids story alone.
Go On, Spit It Out