May the cheating rat bastard rot in Hell. The man isn’t fit to wipe Henry Aaron’s ass. He’s this generation’s Ty Cobb.

And please no “but black people support him” crap — the insinuation being the loathing of Bonds is based on racism. Yeah, well black people make up most of remains of Michael Vick’s support. It’s simple tribalism and doesn’t mean they’re always right.

Besides, Barry Bonds is black in the same sense Alan Keyes is. Hank Aaron was the true victim of racism. And Bonds just shitcanned him out of the record book. But hey, this is Bud Selig’s cross to bear. He should have wiped every power hitting record set in the 90s-00s on grounds that they were achieved through cheating. But then some people would cheer Adolph Hitler so long as he had a high enough OPS. But then even Ty Cobb had fans — hey he was a great hitter! As does Michael Vick and Barry Bonds. Yeah, yeah. And at least Vick hasn’t taken a shit all over the record book. And at least Cobb wasn’t a cheater.

Bonds’ place in history will be short-lived.

Asterisk or not, A-Rod is a’comin’.

I did see Mays play in S.F. I’ve seen Bonds play, and grow and grow, since his rookie year, paid attention because I watched his dad play with Mays In Bobby’s rookie year on.

If everything was equal, I’d place Ruth ahead of Mays. My reasoning would be Ruth was also a very good major league pitcher, and won many championships in NY, and Mays did play on teams with Marichal, McCovey, Bobby Bonds and Perry yet still would finish behind Aaron’s Braves.

But everything isn’t equal: I have as much respect for Barry as I do for McGwire. Zero.

I don’t like to be deceived. Bonds does not deserve to be on MY list.

Besides, Barry Bonds is black in the same sense Alan Keyes is. Hank Aaron was the true victim of racism. And Bonds just shitcanned him out of the record book.

This is the argument that makes the least amount of sense to me. What Aaron went through in pursuit of Ruth’s record doesn’t go away or lose it’s meaning because Bonds will surpass him in home runs. As time goes by, what Aaron did by enduring the death threats and the very real fear he must have felt going out to play … just seems like a far more important thing than a sports record.

756 doesn’t take that away from him. He was a civil rights hero for what he did.

And obviously, Bonds isn’t. But it seems perverse to blame Bonds somehow for not having to endure the racism Aaron did … as if the part of the reason why Bonds doesn’t have to endure it isn’t because of what Aaron did.

That just makes no sense to me. Did Aaron or any of the other civil rights heroes want the next generation to go through what they had? Of course not. So why do you sneer at Bonds for not being a “true victim of racism”?

Are “true victims of racism” something we should have more of, or something? I know that’s not what you mean, but it bugs the hell out of me when people make this argument, because it’s really not very well thought out.

Homers are the worst. Especially Bonds homer loving homers!

Blech! Buh-lech. Yuck. Ack. I can’t wait for someone to invent the “Bonds curse” to explain the Giants now and future suffering.

Did Honus Wagner ever juice up like Barry “The Neck” Bonds?

The asterisk solution: One list for the non-cheaters like Hank, Willie, Roger, another list for Barry “The Neck”, “Big MacRoid”, Sammy Steroid Sosa…

How about the “Curse of the Moroni”, which would explain why the Utah Jazz have never won a championship?

The asterisk solution: One list for the non-cheaters like Hank, Willie, Roger, another list for Barry “The Neck”, “Big MacRoid”, Sammy Steroid Sosa…

Therefore the cheaters who are good at it prosper.

Touche. I was just about to jump in with “was that too harsh?”

A: Not nearly enough.

I’ll settle for the Jazz now and in the future ripping the Warriors hearts out.

How could you?

Did Honus ever play against black or Latin players? Did he ever play night games? Did he ever play against modern bullpens? Did he ever play against a talent base whose average member didn’t have tuburculosis?

perth amboy – how about we all have our own personal record books, where only the players and teams we like own the records and everybody else has an asterisk?

Here’s an entry from mine:

NBA Champions
1947-2007: San Francisco Warriors*

*In my record book, they were really the San Francisco Warriors even when they played in Philadelphia, and they never changed their name to ‘Golden State’

Shit, I just realized I gave my own team an asterisk. Doh!

I think the Utah Jazz’s problem is that the name “Utah Jazz” is so completely and totally Wrong on every level that just thinking about it makes baby Jesus cry, which means grown-up Jesus can’t sleep at night, so he’s cranky all day and takes his revenge by warping the odds against the hapless Jazzers. Seriously, if you were in charge of the universe, would you let a team called the “Utah Jazz” win a championship? They’re lucky they haven’t all been killed by meteor strikes or exploding basketballs.

The Pirates already have a Bonds curse. And the whole cheating thing makes no sense to me, as it wasn’t actually against the rules of baseball in the time the BALCO case covers.

That’s a lot of hate, HTML.

HTML Mencken is usually the SN poster I like the most, but his comment about Bonds is bullshit. He just regurgitated every tired sports radio cliche about the guy.

Of course the loathing has a huge amount of racism to it. Bonds was loathed long before he was ever accused of using steroids, even when he was a skinny and undeniably Hall of Fame-worthy hitter. Why? Because he was surly? Right. I’m sure all the great white baseball players were rays of sunshine. Mickey Mantle was a pure gentleman to every wide-eyed little kid who asked him for an autograph, and he drank a tall glass of milk before every at-bat.

Sorry, I don’t buy it. You really need to think more critically when the media starts up a wildfire of righteous indignation. Why is Barry Bonds the scapegoat here, as if he personally sullied the clean reputation of our national pastime? Lots of players took steroids in the 90s, because the owners did everything but hand them out personally. If anyone, the owners from that era are the ones we should be burning in effigy (including a certain guy with the initials GWB). But it’s easier to pin everything on one player — a convenient scapegoat because he’s a big surly black guy at the brink of a hallowed record.

There’s no steroid that teaches you to put bat on ball, to call a pitch as it leaves the pitcher’s hand. The main reason why Bonds has been so successful is because he is an absolute genius at the game.

Fine, if they ever prove that Bonds took steroids, then he cheated, and let’s go ahead and put an asterisk next to his record. (But only if we do the same for all the white players who never had to compete with Negro League players back in the day.) But when you spout the whole “burn in hell” line, honestly you’re just promoting some of the ugliest undercurrents in American sports culture. And when you claim that black people are only being “tribal” when they recognize this… well, you’re naive at best. I saw Chuck D speak recently, and he put it in perspective: People are openly fantasizing about HANGING Barry Bonds. Why don’t people have the same level of venom for the NBA ref who was literally fixing games?

Baseball is just another opportunity for Cubans to steal free medical care from the American taxpayer.

HTML did not regurgitate the tired sports cliches of the San Francisco talk stations.

Also Moroni plays a golden horn. Could be jazz. Deal with it chundernozzles!

*

Clifwagon in the hizzay!

I have to say what makes me mad is that Bonds lies of course when he says he didn’t take anything knowingly, yet he gets pissed when people don’t respect him? How stupid does he want people to think he is? Hmm, everyone Victor Conte associates with in track breaks world’s records in their disciplines, and Greg Anderson seemingly distribs steroids to brontosaurus heads that beef up in months on the Giants. But Bondzoes is taking wheat germ and sprulina.

God I hate him.

Oh wait, he plays for my hometown team. I will bear his children!

I forgot to add anything DA argues about previous eras is irrelevant to the current discussion.

Send Bonds, San Francisco institution, to another San Francisco institution and stop running the ferry. Maybe we can see in melon heads can act as flotation devices.

Also, two wrongs make a right.

Oh, they don’t?

I think everyone who supports Bonds should start their kids on The Clear and The Cream Flaxseed Oil from about age 6.

Bonds is, was, and always has been a self-serving jerk. That might or might not affect your view of his accomplishments (I agree with those who get a kick out of his treatment of the media).

But that’s entirely separate from his cheating, which began mid-career. Or perhaps I shouldn’t say “entirely,” because, if you believe Game of Shadows, Bonds’s decision to start using was entirely in keeping with his generally unappealing, self-centered, and infantile personality.

As for “steroids were just the 1990s ‘greenies'”….two points. First, the effect of steroids on the human body is a lot more profound the effect of amphetamines.

Secondly, until very recently (when the sport has tried to ban them) the legal status of greenies–in and out of baseball–was very different from the status of steroids. And here you gotta draw a distinction that people, for some reason, rarely draw. Until 1990, steroids were not a controlled substance in the US. Starting in 1990, however, they became a Schedule III drug, illegal to own or use without a prescription. In response to this change in legal status, the Commissioner Fay Vincent issued a memo formally banning steroids from the sport in 1991, but provided no enforcement mechanism. When Bud Selig took over–and steroids took off–in the mid-1990s, he intensified this policy of looking the other way at a substance both illegal (under US law) and against baseball’s own rules.

To me this is about cheating (i.e. breaking the law and the rules) not violating some unclear standard of purity. Of course athletes alter their bodies chemically. They always have. Baseball players drink coffee and beer, they chew tobacco, and, yes, they’ve taken greenies. But cheating is about violating the rules of the game (and, in the case of steroids after 1990, the law). The spitball was fine, IMO, until it became against the rules in 1920. Then it became a form of cheating (except for the pitchers whose use of it was grandfathered in, of course).

So what does this mean for steroids? Jose Canseco giving Mark McGwire a shot of steroids in a toilet stall in the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum in 1989 doesn’t bother me nearly as much as McGwire (or anyone else) giving himself a shot anytime after 1991. Rules are rules. Steroids weren’t illegal before 1990 or against baseball’s rules until 1991. After then, they were both. And cheating is cheating.

Americans and their weird sports…
Well, at least baseball can be somewhat amusing,
unlike American football which is just dull.
Seriously, what kind of candyasses play American football?
Do it like the English, or, even better, the Australians!
No protective gear, just sheer brutality and pain!

All baseball statistics have to be viewed in proper context. Was Old Hoss Radbourn the greatest pitcher ever because he won 60 games in a season? No. The conditions were different then. Did the late 1990’s/early 2000’s produce the greatest crop of power hitters ever? Well, no. The conditions of the game just changed.

There is NO doubt that Bonds is a cheater. There is a very useful metric called OPS+ that measures hitters across eras, taking ballpark factors into account. The higher the number, the greater the season. The top three seasons of all time according to this metric:

1. Barry Bonds, age 37
2. Barry Bonds, age 36
3. Barry Bonds, age 39

Either we are to believe that Bonds reached a new level of greatness, at age 36, that was never attained by even the most brilliant players ever, or we are to believe that he cheated. It’s obvious and it’s staring everybody in the face. If you remove Bonds’ steroid years from the conversation, he’s still probably a top-ten all time player, but not top five.

As for me, I admire his skills as a player, with or without steroids, but I still think he’s an insufferable prick.

Ooooh, Bonds cheats! That’s why the anger at him is at such a high level. Like with Don Sutton, a man who probably cheated every game of his whole career. His punishment: a spot in the Hall of Fame and a broadcasting career. And Gaylord Perry–remember how he was cursed across the nation? Um, me neither. But I’m sure it was done.

And Bonds is undoubtedly a somewhat nasty guy. Why, remember that time when he…OK, I can’t actually think of anything he’s done except not talking to the press. But the press is certainly telling us the truth. They always do when it comes to character. Think of how they portray your favorite Democratic candidate.

I recommend the death penalty.

Bonds is an ass. But that misses the larger point. After the 94 strike/lockout and the owners’ mismanagement of baseball the owners needed something, anything to get fans back in the park. It is no accident baseball owners and management were more than complicit in steroid use that blossomed in the 90s. They liked the long ball that comes with steroid use, liked the fans it drew to the park and the money they put in their pockets, and did essentially nothing to discourage steroid use. Bond deserves all the scorn being heaped upon him but Selig and his cronies deserve even more.

Had he stayed with his 30/30 natural body, he’d be called the second coming of Willie Mays.

Now, he’s just the new Juice.

A-Rod is too small for an asterisk.

I mean, Jason Giambi’s neck was bigger than A-Rod 2 seasons ago.

What if a guy goes to the Dominican or Mexico to do his steroids, breaking no U.S. law? What if a guy does designer PEDs that are ahead of the curve of what the FDA has outlawed?

What if a guy did these things in an environment where at least half if not more of his peers were doing the same thing? What if the powers of baseball and the media turned a blind eye or even actively encouraged all of this up to the point where public backlash forced them to crack down on PED use?

What if a guy was the very best player in baseball, owner of three MVPs and a “clean” 40-40 season, when along come two juiced-up sluggers who thrill the nation with a record-chasing summer that ends with both demolishing the previous single-season HR record? What if a guy decided, after ’98 that, shit, I want some of that action?

What if a guy started doing PEDs, never getting caught, and began hitting home runs at a higher rate than he had previously (which was already pretty damn high)? What if that guy went on to break the career HR record of a beloved icon?

Answer: That guy would be the biggest scumbag ever, the man who single-handedly destroyed baseball’s integrity, the man who literally invented the concept of “cheating” (which had never existed until he thought it up, that diabolical devil of a demon), and worse than Hitler.

But it seems perverse to blame Bonds somehow for not having to endure the racism

That’s moving the goalposts.

The point is that Bonds and his fans *always* accuse in some fashion his non-fans of racism. And that shit won’t fly. Bonds is a victim about like Alan Keyes is. And the sad irony is that Aaron was a victim — but Bonds’s fans don’t give a shit about Hank Aaron.

IOW, Bonds and his fans are just cynically using racism as an argumentative device. But, hey, anything’s worth the defense of a horrible cheating bastard.

And IB is exactly right: I knew that was the reason why Bonds cheated before the book came out and before the S.I. story about it: anyone who understood Bonds’s personality and megalomania knew that’s why he did it.

Greenies do not add to HR totals; greenies do not alter record books unless, maybe, we’re talking consecutive games streaks (so if Ripken or Billy Williams took greenies, you might have a point of sorts; if not, sorry). Greenies were only PEDs for endurance purposes. Steroids are different, are taken precisely to boost power numbers. Bonds was a great hitter with a natural phyique of, shall we say, non robust proportions, the kind which wasn’t going to generate 70 HR a year power ever no matter how well it was maintained (and especially not at age 36). But he was so jealous of the ’98 HR race (between two players who were more natural HR hitters than Bonds, though we know they were cheaters, too) that he just had to break the record. So, heaps of steroids at a late age. And he got both records. And idiots cheer.

Umm, Don Sutton didn’t break an important record. Neither did Gaylord Perry. They did accumulate great counting stats while cheating, and I wouldn’t mind Perry being asterisked because of it (maybe Sutton, too), but they haven’t destroyed the record book, either.

Bonds has. But oooh he’s also told hacks like Skip Bayless to piss off! So, obviously he’s earned the right to be the Charles Manson of baseball! Insult the press and you get carte blanch for cheating! Goody goody!

Thanks to Bonds baseball has the credibility of professional wrestling. Good job, Bonds fans.

Either we are to believe that Bonds reached a new level of greatness, at age 36, that was never attained by even the most brilliant players ever

Oh, JK47, you obviously have not been arguing with Bonds lovers as long as I have! Don’t you know that Bonds is baseball’s Kwitsaz Hadderach? I’ve actually been told that there’s a *eugenic* reason why St. Barry, Lord of Baseball, was immune to natural aging processes. IT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH STEROIDS! Nothing!

When it really gets funny is when they use comps like *Lee Lacy* to show that HR power can come in a player’s late 30s. LEE LACY! Bwahahaha.

There’s no argumentative low they won’t stoop to (Bonds love is like religion — or idolatry, more accurate to say).

No historical or biological pattern heretofore observed among ballplyers applies to Bonds because he is simply that much better than all players past and present, evar! Heads cheaters win, tails you lose. It’s that simple. Nothing can stop the hagiographies from people so desperately “contrarian”. Bonds dead-enders are like Bush dead-enders (election 2000 being the political equivalent of Bonds’s cheating at baseball) and for the same psychological reasons. All that’s left is to make fun of their pathology and deplore their idol’s trashing of a game and record book everyone claims to love.

Like Bush, Bonds will soon be gone. We can help history spit in their faces, but there will always be fanboys and clueless deadenders out there.

Say Hey! I’m a Giants fan and I care that his record-to-be is a case of Better Living Through Chemistry. Especially when he credits Jesus for his success.

I’ll see your “Bonds dead-enders are like Bush dead-enders” and raise you a “Bonds-bashers are like Clinton-bashers”.

Go Barry Barry … Barry Barry Barry Barry Bonds!

Yes, because Clinton cheated. It’s a perfect analogy.

PS – How long’s it been since you losers got a ring? Make an effort to reply, now.

Is the whole point of baseball to have one thing that pisses everybody off each year.

Also want to get back to one of HTML’s original points:

And please no “but black people support him” crap — the insinuation being the loathing of Bonds is based on racism. Yeah, well black people make up most of remains of Michael Vick’s support. It’s simple tribalism and doesn’t mean they’re always right.

I’m assuming you’re referring to the ESPN/ABC poll that shows support for Bonds is a lot higher amongst blacks than whites? Which also shows that the belief that media treatment of Bonds has a racial element is higher amongst blacks than whites?

What I don’t get is why you think you get to dismiss the findings of this poll. What makes you the arbiter of whether one side of that polled group is right and the other wrong? Who are you to say that all those people are just wrong?

Do you really think that racial bias has absolutely no part of the predominantly white media’s coverage of the black Barry Bonds? Isn’t it at least somewhat important that there is such a gulf between whites and blacks on this issue?

Giants last ring was in 1954, they’ve never won a World Series in SF.

PPS — Matt Morris and Barry Zito worked out great for you guys!

PPPS — When you have no rings to count, defending cheaters becomes the only means of retaining any relevance. It becomes that force that gives meaning….

It is to funny forever!!!

Barry Bonds has never been the same ever since Mr. Burns gave him that nerve tonic.

1.) Babe Ruth
2.) Willie Mays
3.) Ted Williams
4.) Alex Rodriguez (assuming he’s not on ‘roids too)
5.) Lou Gehrig

So, err, Mr. Aaron doesn’t make the cut? Even though I’m not a baseball fanatic, this seems like a pretty glaring omission, given the subject of this post…

Do you really think that racial bias has absolutely no part of the predominantly white media’s coverage of the black Barry Bonds? I

Dude, of course not. Look at all the suspicion cast upon Randy Johnson and Roger Clemens when they won Cy Young awards at 39 and 42.

Frankly, I’m all for allowing enhancements of any kind in sports. Let ’em do whatever, if it makes them perform better then they should get to choose. After all, we the sports fans are what are driving athletes to seek enhancement. Millions of dollars ride on the difference between an highly performing athlete and someone who’s very good but not that great. How can you not, as a matter of economic survival, entertain the thought of using enhancements?

As for the argument of the greatest baseball player of all time, my vote goes to Babe Ruth. The guy drank, smoked cigars, partied to the wee hours, then hit dinger after dinger.

Oh, and all that was done by a pitcher.

I’m assuming you’re referring to the ESPN/ABC poll that shows support for Bonds is a lot higher amongst blacks than whites?

Yeah, I think that’s the one you cynically cited last time as Bonds’s catch-all defence.

Any argument along those lines goes for Vick and for OJ. I understand why some black people argue along those lines, but it doesn’t mean it’s right. And it’s precious that it’s bandied about as some sort of vindication.

But we both know that Bonds defenders aren’t exactly arguing in the spirit of MLK, here. It’s just that Bonds lovers have grabbed it thinking it’s a great piece of teflon. Proof that it’s a cynical grab is that it’s done in the wider service of destroying the accomplishments of a real victim of racism — but Bonds’s fans don’t care about that. Hank Aaron’s honestly-acquired records are just an obstruction to be kicked out of the way in the service of a cheating bastard.

Still, it’s deviously clever in a chutzpah kind of way for the Bonds brigade to keep falling back on this argument.

I look for Bonds to eventually write a book (from prison, perhaps) along the lines of “I didn’t cheat, but if I did, I would have done it like this”. You’ll be able to watch it on Fox News; I’m sure you’ll tape it for an addition to the shrine (sort of like Hindrocket cuts out Bush’s magazine photos and pastes them into a scrapbook). If you’re not out looking for “the real cheaters” then, that is.

Anyway, happy cheater-loving orgy. Even though the majority of the country’s baseball fans take the opposite view. It’s really too bad he didn’t break the record in NY where they would have pelted him with batteries and cups of beer…

Oh, for the days when he could be lynched…

Yeah, toasters, that’s why I’m obviously so protective of Hank Aaron — I hate all black people!!!

Anyway, if you don’t support Alan Keyes next time the Rethugs run him for office somewhere, I’m gonna make damn sure I call you a racist, too.

Here’s my greatest players list:

1. Joe Morgan
2. Pete Rose
3. Johnny Bench
4. Tony Perez
5. Davey Concepcion

An honorable mention for Ken Griffey Jr., though he didn’t play on the 1975 Reds (but his father did).

As far as Bonds, I haven’t seen him play enough to have an opinion. Whatever his legacy will be will be decided in the future.

HTMLM–
I would never accuse you of hating the good black people, like Rosa Parks or Hank Aaron.

I look for Bonds to eventually write a book (from prison, perhaps) along the lines of “I didn’t cheat, but if I did, I would have done it like this”.

You know, this is just a giveaway. Because it would never occur to me to link someone whose offense is murder and not cheating with someone whose offense is cheating and not murder.

Really? Then I look forward to your denunciation of D.A., since that linkage is exactly the right extrapolation to the shitty argument that Bonds is blameless because some black people still support him. The same was said for OJ. And while I’m glad the LAPD was exposed as racist, it doesn’t mean that OJ wasn’t a murderer and his supporters weren’t misguided.

I would never accuse you of hating the good black people, like Rosa Parks or Hank Aaron.

What does this even mean? That I can’t hate cheating assholes *if they are black*?

As for the remark about “Americans and their weird sports”….

This just won’t fly with baseball.

Baseball is a thoroughly international sport. It’s played enthusiastically throughout Asia and Latin America. But it’s not played (much) in Europe.

This somehow allows Europeans to act as if it’s not international. They’re the ones being provincial here.

How come Joe Schlobotnik’s not on anyone’s top 5 list? He’s on mine!

Really? Then I look forward to your denunciation of D.A.

The strongest way to refute an argument is to point at some other guy.

I look forward to your denunciation of D.A., since that linkage is exactly the right extrapolation to the shitty argument that Bonds is blameless because some black people still support him.

YOU raised that “point” in the first comment. YOU linked Bonds to OJ (and Michael Vick). YOU talked about Bonds writing “from prison.”

Now I have to denounce DA (whose posts I like) and support Alan Keyes (who is a right-wing joke)? Who, exactly, do you think you are, Bill O’Reilly?

Can’t we all just take satisfaction in the knowledge that all that steroid use has probably shrunk Bonds’s testicles to the size of a hydrogen nucleus?

Can’t we all just take satisfaction in the knowledge that all that steroid use has probably shrunk Bonds’s testicles to the size of a hydrogen nucleus?

Best idea of this thread, Dan.

Because D.A. used the “if you don’t love the cheater, you’re a racist” argument the last time he wrote a Bonds hagiography. I knew he’d do it again because it’s the trump card among Bonds worshipers. Sorry if you’re unaware of the history here.

And yes it is the same argument used by OJ’s more crazed defenders. But hey, keep up the good work. Obviously I’m a member of the KKK and want Bonds lynched. Which is why I compared him to such obviously black people as Ty Cobb and Charles Manson, as well as why I care so much for Hank Aaron’s place in history.

So I retract it all. OJ is innocent. Michael Vick was framed. Bonds is not a cheater and a horrible human being. Hank Aaron can suck it. It’s right, as Bonds said, to target Ruth “because he was white”. I’m going to vote for Alan Keyes and support Ward Connerly lest someone accuse me of hating black people. Can I be a Giants fan now? Do I pass the smell test?

I take satisfaction in the knowledge that Bonds still has one of the worst throwing arms in the league while wondering just how bad Neifi Perez would hit, if he wasn’t on performance-enhancing drugs.

I also have to wonder about New Yorkers who gripe about Bonds’ steroid usage while not throwing batteries at Giambi and Sheffield for the last three years.

Glad to see you’re not overreacting.

Sorry, let me be more emphatic in my retraction: Barry Bonds is a victim. He’s like MLK and Hank Aaron and Richard Wright and Rosa Parks *combined*. Any and all opposition to so-called “cheating in baseball” is a racist conspiracy designed to thwart the honestly-gained accomplishments of the greatest civil rights hero in American history. Anyone who disagrees is a white supremacist who masturbates to the Turner Diaries and enjoys full membership in the Klan — in fact, they’re all a bunch of Nazi child molesters.

PS — I hope all sports reporters die of facial syphillis. For it is they who are the real menace to sports integrity, and who are fanning the fires of racism in this country.

Sure, toasters, because I should be happy you’re calling me and everyone else who loathes Bonds a racist. I mean, who should be offended by that?

Penh said,

August 5, 2007 at 8:05

Nothing more true has ever been written. They should immediately change their name to the Utah Mission or Spirit Babies or Wonderbreads or some such for safety’s sake. WON’T THEY THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!!

Can’t we please just get along? It’s just baseball, everyone.

Because D.A. used the “if you don’t love the cheater, you’re a racist” argument the last time he wrote a Bonds hagiography. I knew he’d do it again because it’s the trump card among Bonds worshipers. Sorry if you’re unaware of the history here.

Wait a minute. When did I argue that? That doesn’t sound like anything I’ve ever argued or would ever argue. But let’s get down in the weeds about this a bit more, because you’re creating some pretty big strawmen, HTML.

But we both know that Bonds defenders aren’t exactly arguing in the spirit of MLK, here. It’s just that Bonds lovers have grabbed it thinking it’s a great piece of teflon. Proof that it’s a cynical grab is that it’s done in the wider service of destroying the accomplishments of a real victim of racism — but Bonds’s fans don’t care about that.

“Proof that it’s a cynical grab …” Look, you can talk about the ESPN/ABC poll and what it says about the perception of race in this country, as a wider inquiry that goes beyond just Bonds’ status as a ‘cheater’ or ‘hero’. Similarly, the gulf between blacks and whites on O.J. was of interest on a far wider level than just the actual reality of his guilt or innocence in the murder case.

Like it or not, we are drawn to celebrity. It’s unfortunate that it sometimes takes a celebrity at the center of a tawdry narrative to get us to widely discuss larger societal issues. It would be great if this wasn’t the case, but it is. For you to reduce these discussions, which so often crop up around otherwise silly figures like O.J. or Bonds (or, say, Paris Hilton vis-a-vis a discussion of wealth disparity in this country), down to pure, un-nuanced sectarianism for the personalities at the center of the storm, is just dishonest and unreasonable.

The O.J. case, since you bring it up, was about far more than his guilt or innocence in the murder of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman. It opened a giant, public window into the huge gulf between how whites and blacks perceive the justice system in this country. It exposed systemic problems with how majority-white law enforcement was treating minority populations. You don’t like that a fucker like O.J. was the ostensible center of this expose? Well, neither do I, neither does anybody with half a brain, black, white or whatever. But them was the cards we were dealt, and if they helped open up a wider dialogue on race and justice, which in turn could lead to some real world fixes to a fucked-up system … well, hold your fucking nose and be a goddamned grown-up about life not always going perfectly according to an idealized plan.

I don’t know who these Bonds fans are who are engaging in a “cynical grab” of a wider dialogue on race to engage in wilful acts of Bonds love or something. I’m not one them. I’d like to see your evidence that such a group exists.

Utah Saints? Wasn’t there a band by that name?

Baseball is dull stuff, but I enjoy the baseball threads because someone always flies off the handle. See if you can spot who it is!

Nice try. We both know why you bring it up in the context of someone correctly accusing Bonds of being a cheating fucking cheater is because you hope it will destroy the solid moral claims of such people. The race poll is an attempted moral counterweight used in spectacular bad faith by fanboys who just want to excuse Bonds’s cheating. Pretending the root discussion is about the larger issues of racism in society is a wonderfully cynical ploy — and abominable in the sense that there truly are such problems — but the point in the context of Bonds’s cheating is a diversion and you know it. Most vocal Bonds deadenders are white suburbanites, mindless Giants fans, and libertarian/stathead scumbags. I’m sure you’ll try to argue to the contrary that the entire Bonds fanbase consists of civil rights activists, but we both know that’s crap.

Dude! You brought it up! You pre-emptively played the race card in the very first comment on this thread!

And then when I and others respond to this throw-down by you, we’re the ones engaging in “cynical ploys” to define Bonds according to our agenda by any means necessary? C’mon, that’s horseshit.

Let me make it clear, even though it seems like I’m beating my head against a wall and you will never accept that I have no interest in creating a giant race issue around Bonds – “cynically” or otherwise:

– I don’t think Bonds is MLK or Hank Aaron or Jackie Robinson.
– I don’t think racism is the defining storyline on Bonds.
– I don’t think it’s a particularly important storyline. I don’t know where it would rank – sixth most-important storyline? 10th? 20th?
– But I do think it’s a part of the storyline worth discussing, especially given the results of the ESPN/ABC poll.
– I don’t think disliking Bonds makes somebody a racist.
– I do think there are probably people out there who are racists and who dislike Bonds.
– I have no idea how many people fit that bill. I would like to think the number is much smaller than it was in Hank Aaron’s day. In fact, I am positive that it is.
– I will not try to argue that the entire Bonds fan base consists of civil rights activists, despite my perverse desire to erect entire legions of strawmen for you to burn down.

No, you brought it up last time. The last two times. And it’s a rancid fart that lingers. Well, I’m sick of it, so this time I decided to spray the Lysol beforehand, as it were.

And yes, in my experience with Bonds deadenders you will absolutely defend him “by any means necessary.” (All deadenders tend to resemble each another, which is why your Barry worship is so redolent of Dan Reihl’s, say, Bush worship.)

And please: Pointing out that Bond deadenders play the “you’re a racist” bullshit game (like Bonds himself is wont to do) is not a fucking strawman. Truth is you’ll say *anything* to excuse his cheating, as will (and does) Bonds himself.

I really need some evidence that I personally ever said anything even barely resembling “you’re a racist” for bagging on Bonds. I can’t speak for all the other “Bonds deadenders” of course.

But let me just say that if you are able to produce such a quote, I apologize for it in advance. That’s not how I feel.

I don’t think you’ll be able to produce that quote, though, unless I was blackout drunk when I wrote it.

I’m Yanks fan, and I’ll defend Bonds.
How? With a simple question.
Who
the
fuck
cares
?

This is an entertainment industry we’re talking about. This whole purity of the game argument is plain childish, as it ignores the realities of the game throughout its existence. How many of the pitchers Bonds faced were/are also on something? Pitchers actually gain more from steroids, because they work by making the body repair itself faster. That’s why relief pitchers are the main group of culprits that have been caught, they want to recover faster and be able to pitch more back to back games.
Honestly, tho. I don’t care. It’s an entertainment industry, and Bonds is, to me, incredibly entertaining. Besides that, we’re talking about jocks. If some asshole jocks want to shorten their lifespan to amuse me, why should I pretend to be upset?

N HTML, this is not my place to say, but I’m gonna anyway. I can be a huge asshole sometimes, and push good people away from myself when other shit is bothering me. I’m not calling you an asshole, but I think maybe you’d benefit from stepping back for a moment and remembering who and what is making you upset. It ain’t DA or mikey, despite their disagreement on certain things. Be frustrated they’re, to your mind, so wrong, but don’t lose sight of what’s really what.

Oh, goody. Taking lessons from CY now? No, *you* did not say the exact words, “HTML, you are a racist for accusing my God of cheating” but you have brought up that poll several times — always in reponse to my calling Bonds the cheating cheater that he is — and enshrouding yourself and Bonds in racial teflon is exactly the purpose you hoped to serve in doing that.

Brad — you’re right (even though I’ve been subject to attack in “my” threads by the folks you mention). I’m out.

Somebody help me out here. I’ve looked all over the Internets and I can’t find the answer to the most burning question of the day:

How many home runs did Alan Keyes hit?

I like sports. I like music. I like books. These are the forms of entertainment I patronize. In sports, I am overwhelmingly a baseball fan. I like to watch baseball, in person, and on TV. Full disclosure – born in Marin, always a giants fan.

But it’s not a religion. It’s not national security. Hell, it’s not even banking. It’s a form of entertainment. If I go to a concert by a band I like and the lead guitar player is high, should I decide I hate that band? If the players on the field use chemicals to make the game a better game to watch, more entertaining for ME, why should I be against that? The only way that PEDs could lessen my enjoyment of sports as entertainment is if only a few guys somehow had access to them. That would make a two-tier kind of deal, and that would make it less interesting to watch.

But it’s competitive, and involves big money. Everybody is grabbing for that brass ring that comes with team championships and personal accomplishment.

So there it is. Why would I care? Hell, I hope as time goes on they come up with more and better drugs. I like a pitchers duel, but let’s face it – a high scoring game with power hitters is pretty damn fun to watch.

So I don’t participate in this argument. I just don’t care. I’m not invested in the “sanctity” of the game. But I will offer this. What steroids DO for the players is reduce the likelihood and seriousness of injury. In other words, they contribute to longevity. So while steroids wouldn’t likely DIRECTLY contribute to bonds record, he likely wouldn’t have been able to play enough games to get to where he is. But again, me? I don’t care.

One more point. To say greenies aren’t a performance enhancer is just crazy. When it’s a hot august day in the midwest and you’re dinged up pretty good and you played eleven innings yesterday and you have to go out there and perform again today? Without the greenies, son, you’re going oh for four with a couple strikeouts and you’ll probably clank a play in the field. So, in the context of a 162 game season, greenies don’t just enhance performance, they could be said to make performance POSSIBLE…

mikey

Don’t go away, HTML! This is just an argument, about something pretty trivial, not a jumping off point for our friendship or political solidarity.

And I really, really, really want to emphasize that I do not want to paint you or any other Bonds basher as a racist. I can only say that as plainly as I can and hope that you believe me. If that was what I was trying to do, then I agree with you – it would be about as lowdown a move as anybody could possible make.

I’m a Bonds partisan and a lifelong Giants fan. It’s childish, tribal and all that good bullshit. I have an agenda in defending Bonds, and I definitely have pushed the envelope in forwarding that agenda … but seriously, I draw the line at accusing people on the other side of being racists. That’s not what I would ever want to do, and if it seemed like I did it in the past, I’m sorry.

We’ve reconciled over this crap in the past, and I hope we can again.

Jeez diffb, we were typing the same thing at the same time. That’s kind of cool.

HTML. I am very sorry you feel I attacked you. I wish I could convince you otherwise. I respect you a great deal, not just because you are a powerful and passionate voice, but because you seem to be that rare thing, a good human being with a heart AND a conscience. I promise I didn’t attack you. I feel differently about one particular topic, possibly others for that matter. But hell, son, it ain’t personal. If I didn’t like or respect you, I wouldn’t bother to engage. Please consider the possibility that my disagreement was with a certain position of yours, not with you personally.

In fact, if it all goes to hell and america melts down, I was kinda hoping to come hide out on your farm…

mikey

DA- wasn’t your last Bonds post at Parrotline about racism?

Also, if murder were legal in the Dominican, would it be legal in baseball? If Vincent says steroids are banned in baseball, they could sell them to fans at the ballpark but that wouldn’t make it OK for players to take them.

PP – I just checked, and no it wasn’t. In the comments, teh l4m3 touches on race in kind of a vague way … but no, race wasn’t brought up by me in that post.

Murder and controlled substances are very different things. It’s not a good analogy.

Murder and controlled substances are very different things

True, but they go together like soup and sandwich….

mikey

5 Best hitters EVAR:

1. Derek Jeter
2. Zombie Jeter
3. The Ghost of Jeter
4. ?
5. Jerek Deter

Anyone else notice how the crotch bulge doesn’t differ in six between Bruce and the Hulk? How much does that suck for the Hulk? Ten feet tall, can throw tanks like they were made of Legos, hands that could palm a basketball stadium, but gotta use a specialize adaptive tool to go weewee.

What? Stop looking at me with that tone of voice.

No, we’re all cool. RE: Bonds, I’m from the South and live in a racist culture. I’m *of* it. I’ve fought it all my life, but yes, I’ve said racist things. Still, I fight it and it’s a very personal battle so I’m very sensitive to accusations and insinuations of racism. Because I could easily be very racist and get away with it. But it’s ugly and I hate it. I inspect my own motivations and arguments for racism all the time in a sort of paranoid self-criticism so I tend to go jihad when someone else glibly accuses me of not giving a shit about that stuff.

Mikey: It’s fine that we disagree. I admit I’m sensitive to that particular criticism, though, not because I’m unsure of myself but because I’m so damn sure I’m right for once, but no one seems to be with me on it. And I know why: Lefty bloggers are wretched beings, and since we have no wingnut welfare, we have to carefully cultivate powerful admirers who will sometimes throw a little traffic our way — or at least not blacklist us. Well, guess who has more than a little juice with the big folks on our side of the internets? Ahhh. So I feel pretty lonely over here: I’m trying to help build a better netroots by calling for the replacement of war-loving hacks with DFHs. But if I piss off war-loving hacks, they’ll take it out on DFHs even more. Truth is I’m very frustrated over the whole thing. But you’re always welcome at my shack.

Everyone who used a performance-enhancing substance should clearly be thrown out of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Everyone who used a performance-enhancing substance should clearly be thrown out of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Would that get Pat Boone elected?

mikey

Juiced!

PS: Ty Cobb was a great hitter, and a great base-stealer. Perhaps the best offensive player in baseball history. An asshole? Certainly. Racist? No question. Great player? Absolutely.

Being a Michigander, I’m a bit partial. I recall a few stories that ran in the Detroit papers around the time the film Cobb came out. The first was about a young boy who wrote Cobb in the 1950’s, asking him for his autograph. It turns out that the kid didn’t put enough postage on it and Ty had to foot a penny or two for the letter. In return, he sent the kid a letter telling the boy how he’d wasted Cobb’s cash and that he refused to sign the letter as a result. So, the kid got a nasty screed but no autograph.

Another story came in the form of a letter to the editor from an old man who thought that Cobb received too much negative attention. He wrote about how Cobb would play baseball with local kids. But, yeah, he was still an asshole.

Perhaps the best offensive player in baseball history. – J. Smith

Nu? Ty Cobb was simply the best offensive player in baseball history — no matter which meaning of offensive we’re using 😉

Mikey: It’s fine that we disagree. I admit I’m sensitive to that particular criticism

Not to keep kicking the deceased equine, but I just want to emphasize that my disagreement with you is most definately NOT criticism. Hell, your opinion makes at least as much sense as mine, and I can’t find any way to determine which of us is “right”. If anything, my argument is not as logically defensible as yours, as mine mostly stems from emotional weakness. I have a tendency to equivocate, and I don’t seem to have the “uncompromising” gene. I just don’t seem to have a clarity of vision, and that’s not always a good thing.

I see nothing wrong with your approach toward those particular pundits. Hell, I’m not even trying to say you’re wrong or you should change your opinion. I’m just pointing out that I have a different opinion, y’know?

Peace, m’man…

mikey

THIS is why I’m so happy to be a life-long Dodgers fan! I can avoid the difficult moral quandries that come with being a Giants fan, like Barry Bonds … and Juan Marichal … and battery-chucking …

Fuck that, Mickey Mantle crushed the ball better than any of them. With a hangover.

Whether Bonds has an asterisk or whatever next to his name/plaque or stitched into his forehead, history will judge him appropriately. In 10 or so years (ESTIMATION!!!!!!!!!!!), we’ll know exactly what went on inside Bonds’ head (heh.).

Joe DiMaggio got to bang Marilyn Monroe.

Just sayin’. If you’re drawing up lists of the greatest and all.

…and finishing up the Bonds point, it’s just an unspeakably low blow against people who are concerned with racism qua racism as well as racism in sports, which is one reason why they’re (we’re) so protective of Henry Aaron (more than Aaron himself can be, considering his position [ though he has given subtle but steady signals of disapproval]). It is a *fact* that Bonds has used race as a means to deflect criticism for years now. Bonds himself tried to light the tribalist fires by saying the things he did about Ruth, while at the time heavily insinuating that he’d leave Aaron’s record alone. Some of us saw right through that, knew that Bonds’s megalomaniacal streak could never leave any record alone that he could cheat to break, knew that it was a pathetic political ploy from the start, to make it look like he was doing it to score a point at the white establishment’s expense, when really it’s always been just about Barry and nothing else. What’s obvious is that Bonds would just as soon spit on Aaron as Ruth or anyone else. What makes this whole thing more awful is that Bonds knows very well what Aaron went through because his own father played through roughly the same era. Bonds knows what legacy he’s spitting on, then, in cheating like he has to dethrone *who* he’s dethroned. But he’s doing it anyway because ego demands it.

THIS is why I’m so happy to be a life-long Dodgers fan! I can avoid the difficult moral quandries that come with being a Giants fan, like Barry Bonds … and Juan Marichal … and battery-chucking …

Plus you don’t have to sit through those booooring 7th, 8th and 9th innings! Yaaaay!

DA- my point being that steroids ARE illegal in baseball, so just because Rush Limbaugh can have an underaged rainbow buffet down in the DR doesn’t mean he can do it in baseball.

So before I work myself into another froth let me say: Hank Aaron *deserves* the record he earned. Barry Bonds *deserves* to be banned from baseball forever for CHEATING, banned from the HOF, and his records *erased* from the books. (I *don’t* want Bonds to go to jail because I’m against the drug war — he’s the worst sort of cheater there is, but he’s not a criminal for taking steroids.) And I sake this for the sake of baseball per se, as well as for the civil rights struggle within baseball.

Also, D.A., this probably has something to do with your cheap shot in the Identity Politics thread. I say this in the interest of full disclosure. We’re cool.

I understand, PP, but the question becomes when were steroids banned in baseball, what enforcement there was of the rule and finally, what’s a steroid?

And, actually, a fourth question: What’s the spirit of the rule and what’s the actual rule? Lest anyone accuse me of ignoring the existence of an unwritten code … I don’t.

Finally, you know what’s going to help us figure out this whole mess? Statistical analysis. Smart statistical analysis already corrects for league, park and era. We’ll be able to do the same with the Steroid Era. We’ll be able to judge, with pretty good accuracy, just what Bonds’ and McGwire’s and Sosa’s and Clemens’ and A-Rod’s and Manny’s performance really was in the context of their era. It may turn out that Bonds’ numbers don’t match up to Aaron’s when adjusted for era.

We put too much emphasis on the counting stats anyway, even when we know better. I mean, nobody in their right mind thinks Don Sutton was a better pitcher than Sandy Koufax, but we revere Sutton’s 300 wins, nevertheless.

HTML – was that where I made some assholish aside, I forget the nature of which?

Yeah, I remember that … and sorry for that comment. Seriously, that was a jackass move and uncalled for.

Re: the race question and Bonds–

Mark McGwire is an interesting case to look at. McGwire is whiter than the cast of a Woody Allen movie, yet his public image has completely crashed and burned. McGwire may have difficulty making the Hall of Fame, his whole career is completely tarnished, he is a non-factor in the endorsement world… This is what happens when you cheat. McGwire is a phony, a fraud. So is Barry Bonds. I think what HTML said originally was basically correct: using the race card to defend Bonds is bunk.

Nobody brought it up, but one other factor that has allowed Bonds to dominate is the ridiculous amount of body armor he wears at the plate. He’s like a hockey goalie out there. He juices himself to the gills, goes to the plate wearing all that padding and crowds the plate so much that he’s practically standing ON it.

I don’t know why more pitchers haven’t tried to stick fastballs in Barry’s ear. I’d rather hit him than waste 5-6 pitches and end up walking him, which is what happens every other Bonds AB anyway.

HTML M is the man on this thread and the only one, it seems who sees the big picture. Thank you for not being a celebrity jock-sniffer and understanding

Slightly contrary to the above statement sports, much more so than rock and roll or even frigging banking, defines to a much greater extent the highly visible character of a country and what it values. It’s more than entertainment.

Sports crosses all classes and can be enjoyed and a central unifying factor for a nation. You can disagree whether that should be the case, but the fact remains that such is true.

Therefore, to not be disgusted by Bonds cheating to get ahead is to be willfully and deliberately ignorant of the role of sports in this country. Go right ahead and be disgusted by owners AS WELL for looking the other way, but don’t absolve Bonds.

Related. Isn’t it obvious, Barry Bonds gets the attention because he’s got the farthest and he’s achieved the most while on steroids? That’s a duh moment in anyone’s brain, isn’t it? The question, why single out Barry comes from a simple mind. Or one in denial.

Barry Bonds is going to be the shining example of what it takes to achieve the top. And all enablers are right there with him morally lame, telling their children by tacit example or verbal support that it’s OK to cheat; it’s the American way and look, you’ll have wide support for that choice.

It’s too obvious to state – except perhaps it needs to be stated because it’s too obvious – when you lie this big, especially if it’s merely for your own personal gain and ego, you should be abhored.

– Temple

Is it racist to point out that Bond’s head doubling in size is pretty freakish?

Therefore, to not be disgusted by Bonds cheating to get ahead is to be willfully and deliberately ignorant of the role of sports in this country.

To whatever extent I give a fuck, this is exactly the kind of crap that pisses me off. If sports in general, or baseball in particular is your religion, then fine, in your world bonds is the ultimate sinner. But you sit there quite smug telling me this is the only worldview that matters, in fact it is the only ACCURATE worldview.

Sorry. Bullshit.

I don’t have a religion. Not gods and godlets, not sports. Well, maybe music, but…Nah.

So for you temple, or anyone, to tell me I’m simply morally deficient because I don’t care if million dollar athletes take drugs, I have a tendency to bristle.

You see the world your way. If it works for you, fine. Go with god, my son.

I see the world differently. You may see me as some kind of an apostate, but in order for your “morality” to have any validity in my world, I’d have to accept the object of your worship.

And I do not…

mikey

I’m happy to add since I forgot that D. Aristophanes’ apology / stepping back moment / whatever was touching in its sincerity. Truly.

– Temple

The question, why single out Barry comes from a simple mind. Or one in denial.

This is just dumb, Temple. It’s like saying O.J. is the murderingest murderer of all the murderers. If you’re going to apply morals, do it consistently. Whether it’s in the case of baseball cheaters or the bombing of innocents.

By the way, did you see that the pitcher who gave up 755 to Bonds had been suspended for flunking a ‘roids test in the minors?

Shorter mikey:

You are absolutely entitled to be disgusted by bonds and say so.

You may not tell me I need to be disgusted by bonds…

mikey

Shit, now I feel like a jerk for calling you out, Temple. Kind of my role to play on this post, I guess 😉

Am I the only one that is uncomfortable with explaining away possibly dangerous “choices” as being athletes own, and having nothing to do with the economics of sport? I find the NFL very problematic in the fact that the game has evolved to be very damaging to the players physically, yet it is always someone’s “choice” to entertain us in these ways- is there any societal responsibility in any of this? If everything and anything were legal, you’d see everyone doing it down to junior high kids. Of course the magical invisible hand would then offer us the possibility for drug free recreational soccer, at a premium, natch.

Let’s all get drunk!

DA can toast Bonds, then I can hit him in the head with a harmless buffalo wing.

PP – we also need to remember that baseball’s got the anti-trust exemption and that makes its standards different than the other sports’. I’m not sure how that fits into the Bonds thing. Let’s ask DeLong.

I would also add that I don’t think a lot of people wanted the media to give Mac and Sosa et al a free pass- there was always the false assumption that maybe the media would do some sort of a job and let us know about these things. Obviously that is not true, but the media are the ultimate enablers for the public on these issues, but deep down I don’t think anyone but the home fans want that. I mean I think we have learned the hard way that the entire journalism establishment treats reality like Mac and Sosa. I mean WTF can we do. I think a lot of people being pissed at Bonds comes from this frustration of being sick of being lied to about EVERYTHING.

Obviously that is not true, but the media are the ultimate enablers for the public on these issues …

I don’t know. The public’s pretty smart a lot of the time. Boston fans were chanting ‘Ste-roids’ at Canseco way back in the ’80s. We all knew what was going on.

Funny thing about that hulk, bruce banner photo is that the bruce banner in that image would actually be a pretty big guy in real life. Certainly not a man who spent his life in the lab. That guy is about 210 pundls of muscle. Comparable to the way Bonds looks now.

I agree with HTML – Bonds is a cheating fucking cheater. Screw him and those who defend his cheating.

And I think the game itself is a rancid fart. Spend yourself on something vastly more interesting, like bowling. Or trick shot pool. Yes, they’re boring as hell, but they’re more watchable than baseball.

PP — structural coercion. See the early threads at BBTF; I was one of the first to make the argument that stars’ cheating would have the effect of *forcing* average players to cheat, too, just to keep parity. In effect the horrible cheaters not only wrecked their own bodies, but they indirectly coerced other players to juice, some of whom no doubt would not have in a normal situation.

If I were Joe Blow AAAA-league type player who took roids in the late 90s-00s period and came down with health issues from roiding, I’d think about suing major league baseball and name Bonds and Mac and Sosa and Canseco and Palmeiro, et al, as co-defendants.

I have no doubt that some people juiced because they were afraid of losing their jobs. And of course this is different morally from those like a certain bastard who juiced just because he is a petulant sociopathic egomaniac.

Wait a minute, HTML. This makes no sense.

The ‘Game of Shadows’ timeline has Bonds first juicing in ’99. McGwire and Canseco are juicing in the ’80s. Canseco goes to the Rangers and introduces the likes of Pudge, Palmeiro and Juan-Gone to the joy of ‘roids. Caminiti juices his way to the MVP in ’96. Sosa, we’re not sure about, but he’s definitely on the juice in ’98.

So all these guys you name (and some others whom we strongly suspect, like Bagwell) are juicing waaay before Bonds.

I just don’t get why you lump Bonds in with that crowd. Especially the Canseco family juice tree. I mean, those were the guys who really brought PEDs to popularity, not Bonds. Is he an asshole for tagging along? Yeah, if that’s what you want to believe, fine. But c’mon, nobody thinks he was an instigator of this stuff.

Am I the only one that is uncomfortable with explaining away possibly dangerous “choices” as being athletes own, and having nothing to do with the economics of sport?

No. Quite frankly it’s almost stupid for some players not to do steroids. If you live in the Dominican Republic or Cuba and your choices are become a million dollar superstar or work on a farm your whole life it really isn’t a difficult decision when the money you could make would set up your entire extended family for life.

I’m sympathetic to PP’s media crit and here’s why. Canseco was always huge, as was McGwire. There was no morphing body there that was just obvious, especially at so late an age. Sosa was always built in a more linebackery sort of way — I could see where he could have the power to do what he did naturally, especially with a good year of weather in that park. These people could conceievably be huge and hit many HRs naturally. So I wasn’t as suspicious then.

It was Bonds’s pathetically obvious transformation that gave the game away — double entendre intended. Bonds always had thin wrists and ankles — he was built more like a cornerback. The barrel chest and huge pecs and traps were not gonna come naturally, no matter what the workout, especially at that age. And then there’s his head size. It was just glaring what he had done, because he’d been in the public eye for so long before the morph-job.

So it kicked in the door and then Mac was shown to be a liar and Canseco spilled the beans. Raffy’s a laughingstock and Sosa’s an obvious fraud in so many other ways, and a bat-corker to boot.

I wish someone had been there in the press in the late 80s and 90s, but no one was, and the abuse of roids just wasn’t as obvious to the layman then.

PP — dunno if i’ve mentioned it before, but there’s a vid somewhere online of pre-game workouts in the.. hmmm.. 89? AS game. (anyway Bonds was still a Pirate at the time.) Canseco and McGwire are play wrestling with Bonds and they are just throwing him around like a rag doll. Bonds laughed, but there was also a particular look on his face… I think that’s when the seed was planted now, in retrospect.

No, D.A., I don’t think that at all. I think Bonds was too smart to take steroids early in his career. He “saved it”, so to speak, and by calculation. By the time his ego was fired by the ’98 race, he was old enough to go full throttle into cheating. So that’s what he did so no meany would ever ever say that anyone was better than him. I absolutely believe he’s that devious. I think he made the decision way back to do them *at some time*, but the question was when. Too soon and he might cut his career short (as did, it turns out, McGwire). Too late might be too late. He did it at just the right time, in just the right way. He’s the Cheney of baseball — but with Karl Rove’s brain.

I should probably keep staying out of this, but I just don’t understand why this is so personal against Bonds for you, HTML. What about Sheff, who’s also clinically insane?
What about all the pitchers who you’d never suspect because they didn’t bulk up?
Do you hate Rickey Henderson for also being a narcissist? He was a greenie fiend.
What about allegations that Ty Cobb threw games, or paid for hits?

Well, I think you’re giving Bonds too much credit for brains. The idea that he planned this all out like a horsehide Machiavelli … I just don’t think so.

I’ll say this, though. In addition to the ’98 home run race pissing him off, I wouldn’t be surprised if BALCO’s promise of ‘undetectability’ was a big motivator for him to start juicing. If that’s true, it would make him pretty devious, I’ll admit.

I wouldn’t be surprised if, like many people, he was scared of steroids. I’ll bet Lyle Alzado’s death scared him, maybe scared him straight for a period. But again, BALCO was about three things – performance, undetectability and supervised, ‘healthy’ doping. So maybe that was another factor in getting him to start juicing.

Finally, the ‘flaxseed oil’ thing. Now I don’t for a second believe Bonds thought he was doing flaxseed oil. But I could see where Conte and Anderson convinced him (and he conveniently convinced himself) that the BALCO stuff wasn’t technically a ‘banned substance’. It was ‘ahead of the curve’, ahead of the FDA list.

But your scenario seems pretty far-fetched and goes way over-the-top. You’re making him into this Blofeld-esque archvillain when there’s absolutely no evidence of him having this cunning, long-term plan. I mean, none.

I don’t think Bond’s is a super evil super genius- Bonds came out of left field because he just happened to fall in with Balco who were pushing the limit in sports even where there was heavy testing, i.e. track. Mac definitely got bigger on the juice, but started big, and maybe Canseco was juicing all the time. Giambi went from being kind of a pudge to rock solid. Bonds is the worst because Bonds destroyed the record book, and he’s a prick. I think that’s it. I think people are also kind of having a morning after feeling- they are kind of waking up after ignoring some stuff and they are pissed, hence the biggest and most obvious target- Bonds- gets it. Canseco, who is a scumbag, is not respected for his baseball prowess or anything else really- he was a laughing stock so nobody feels like they will feel better by taking him down a notch. McGuire? He humiliated himself in front of Congress and has disappeared off the face of the earth, what are we supposed to do, tear down his compound and pelt him with vegetables? Bonds is the most obvious offender. And it looks like he’s still doing it, right in front of everyone. This is why he draws the fire. He walks around pissed off that he’s the target and that it is so unfair that these other guys didn’t get treated this way. Suck on it, Bonds- seriously.

The Balco guys hid stuff so well that the media could then turn around every four years and sell us the next class of amazing American track athlete- look they are so clean! People are just so damn sick of it. They want this shit to be real and it is not. The disillusionment is gonna sting. You can’t talk about people “knowing better”, DA- people start to like sports when they are kids, like they like their country and feel patriotic. It is vastly disillusioning when they real like its just a business for some evil fucks to make a dollar somehow, somewhere and most likely on the backs of everyday chumps like you and me. I think the steroids thing is kind of a microcosm for everything else that is going on.

I think the steroids thing is kind of a microcosm for everything else that is going on.

Probably some truth in this. But it’s kind of my point. My government tortures people, holds them indefinitely without process, invades and occupies sovreign nations, spies on it’s citizens and lies, lies lies. Outrage? Hell yes. I have outrage burnout.

So I turn on the ballgame. For a couple hours I watch the game I grew up loving, played well and elegantly. Know what I don’t want to do? I don’t want to be outraged at everything. I don’t want to get outraged that that cute Lohan kid is fucked up. I don’t want to get outraged that hollywood made a crappy homo-erotic cartoon out of the Battle of Thermopylae. I need a break from outrage.

I get to choose. I like Robert Crais novels, good rocknroll, baseball and cooking. I tinker with computers and guns. I write when I can. Some things you can accept into your life as they are, and enjoy them for what they deliver to you. Maybe everything is a little different, a little cheapened, a little corrupt. But you don’t HAVE to be outraged by everything. In fact, I’d recommend against it…

mikey

I don’t want to get outraged that hollywood made a crappy homo-erotic cartoon out of the Battle of Thermopylae.

A good portion of the people on my LiveJournal friends list are gay men. You have no idea what it my friends page was like when that movie was new. It was all ‘300’ all the time.

adb: Sheff is an ass, someone I respect and believe says he tanked plays in Milwaukee so he’d be traded, but he hasn’t wiped his ass with Hank Aaron’s record.

Henderson: He’s outwardly a jerk but I think it’s he and not Bonds (as one hears so much) who has the complicated personality. It’s interesting about the greenie thing in the context of Henderson, though. I haven’t thought about it until now because I’d never heard the accusation until now, but greenies wrt Rickey’s skill-set would be an instance of cheating very similar to steroids wrt Bonds’s. In other words, greenies would be PEDs for a base-stealer.

Ty Cobb is a total asshole. I have no respect for him as a human being. There’s a reason why my first comparison for Bonds in the thread was to Cobb: they are equally vile according to their circumstances. But I never saw Cobb play. I don’t have to hear the wingnut-esque apologias from legions of Cobb fans when I read a baseball thread. I don’t have to hear how Cobb is a product of superior eugenics, how Cobb is a victim, how it’s vile to even think of criticizing Cobb. So, not much venom from me RE: Cobb. (Also, his legacy as an asshole and hideous human being is now lapidary. Bonds’s legacy, OTOH, is far from settled and I’ve tried to do my small part in making sure history says the right things about the bastard.

Moreover, in general, what PP just said. I grew up loving baseball and it’s Bonds who is the face of the movement that has made it an absolutely travesty. I understand that it’s just a game, but parodoxically, its triviality is why people feel that they can invest it with strong emotions. So, yes I take it seriously, and that’s why I’m angry that what is to me an obvious sociopath has shit all over the game and the record book.

Just one more note about greenies (excluding, for now, adb’s Rickey point): greenies, as mikey says, were used to keep one going. They were a tool to preserve parity and ensure endurance. The point is that they could never change your *indentity* as a player. They wouldn’t make a natural punch-and-judy hitter into a steady HR threat. Nor would they tranform a guy with good to very good power (a la Bonds) into a record-shredding monster. Steroids, otoh, have just that sort of potential. In short, greenies were at best about preservation; steroids are about transformation. Steroids in re: baseball are the pharmacological equivalent of robotic limbs. That’s why the steroids freaks are cheaters in a way the average dork in the 60s-70s who was eating amphetamines to overcome red-eye flights and general fatigue (and hangovers) never were.

PP — I did you ever like the Crime Dog? Cuz I think when the cheaters’ hagiographers are beaten back and consensus is established that most of the cheaters deserve their face flecked with the spittle of history, guys who didn’t juice, like McGriff, will get their due. (Unless there are rumors about him now, too, that I haven’t heard?)

There’s a reason why my first comparison for Bonds in the thread was to Cobb: they are equally vile according to their circumstances.

Uh, can you cite some examples please? I’m sorry, I don’t really follow Bonds. But Cobb was known for deliberately spiking (as in, digging his spikes into flesh) opponents, and beating up black people he felt didn’t show him proper respect, and was even rumored to have killed someone by pistol-whipping him. He wasn’t just a verbal racist, he was a violent one.

Bonds may be cold to reporters, but I don’t know of any examples where he physically assaulted people like elevator operators, heckling fans, and hotel managers.

Can you elaborate, please?

g — I mean that Bonds is exactly as vile as he can get away with in this culture and still be able to play ball so as to effectively steal the records he doesn’t deserve. Each utterly lacks any sort of intergrity whatsoever. Both are incredible megalomaniacs and sociopaths who only care for themselves. No, they aren’t Jeffrey Dahmer-level psychos — I’m really not strawmaning here (for instance, I’m sure Bonds loved his father sincerely, just as Cobb probably loved his own mother) — but the point is that Bonds would do *anything* he thought he could get away with in order to serve his desires of being seen as “the best ever”. If he had to microwave puppies or step over his own grandmother to do it, I’m certain that he would have. But he didn’t have to. All he had to do was go to BALCO at the right time.

I’m not saying people must agree with my psych profile of Bonds. All I care about is that he’s correctly seen as a cheater and illegitimate record holder. Because it’s the truth.

If greenies were about preservation, and steroids about transformation … where does Lasix eye surgery fall?

Yeah, man. And if steroids are like robotic limbs, why is tommy john surgery not cheating?

mikey

mikey – TJ surgery is different in intent. It’s meant to be restorative, not transformative. There’s a moral difference in a pitcher trying to get his arm back to what it was and a immoral freak trying to change his otherwise perfectly healthy body into something Frankensteinian so he can acquire what nature didn’t design him to have. Same for LASIK surgery.

Of course there are instances where TJ and LASIK are done when the athlete is in just fine condition. This is where it can shade into steroids territory, when there is nothing to restore. But these instances are relatively rare so far as we know.

An analogy wrt to qualitative difference would be facelifts or skin grafts to repair a burn as compared to a nose job. The former restores what age or injury has taken away, the latter replaces something that is normal and perfectly functional by design for the sake of vanity and, in a way, deceit.

You can’t talk about people “knowing better”, DA- people start to like sports when they are kids, like they like their country and feel patriotic. It is vastly disillusioning when they real like its just a business for some evil fucks to make a dollar somehow, somewhere and most likely on the backs of everyday chumps like you and me.

See, this is kind of what pisses me off about all this, and my explanation is going to be kind of long-winded, so apologies.

Right now, there’s a hagiography to Mickey Mantle showing on HBO called ‘Mantle’. In it, guys like Bob Costas and Billy Crystal get all weepy and maudlin talking about their boyhood idol. Towards the end of the hour-long jock-umentary, the filmmakers have to talk about the facts, which are that Mantle was a philandering drunk who essentially abandoned his wife and kids in their adolescence. But it’s all very reverent – Mick was all broke up because injuries shortened his career, he was quite the tragic figure, in the end he ‘came home’ to his kids, etc. etc.

Now in my opinion, Mickey Mantle was one of the greatest ballplayers ever. Neither an angel or a murderer, but a pretty average guy who trended towards douchebaggery. Okay, fine.

What gets me is a Bob Costas, who shines on all the ugly facts about the Mick – and he absolutely must know them – instead preferring to gloat in his ‘Ozzie and Harriet’-esque nostalgia for the ’50s, for his boyhood and for his hero. Which again, fine.

But when it comes to Bonds, Costas loses the ‘Yes, Virginia, there is a Mickey Mantle’ bullshit in a hurry and jumps all over the big, fat cheating asshole Bonds. And this pisses me off, because you can’t have it both ways. Either grow up and admit that Mickey Mantle was a human-friggin’-being, or if you want to hold on to your cherished childhood memories, then stop shitting all over mine.

Seriously, it’s my opinion that many of the Boomers who were raised on those ludicrous Chip Hilton novels, where the star athlete was pure as the driven snow and always hit the game-winning home run, and who lapped up the media of the time, which glossed over their favorite ballplayers’ feet of clay, still don’t get that the athletes they worshiped as kids were human beings like the rest of us. And when they find out that hitting a baseball a long way doesn’t mean you’re a prince among men, they go apeshit. When their cherished myths are no longer tenable in their own fantasy worlds, they lash out.

But never against the liars who perpetrated those myths in the first place. The fucked up thing is that when they discover that ‘No, Virginia’ is the really operative deal … they go and beat up the first ratty department store Santa they can find, instead of Francis Church.

I guess I just don’t think the game ever had any purity to be tainted. And Cobb was a physically violent active racist who helped the game stay segregated, paid for hits, probably threw games, and yet was celebrated by the good ole boy writers of the time. Bonds is the best player of his generation, has helped his team almost always be in contention, and has only ever tried to be the best at what he does. Maybe he’s a jerk, but he’s not, say, Schilling, and actively promoting ideas which are harmful to humanity in general. He’s not Sheff, who, yes indeed, has admitted to making throwing errors to induce Milwaukee to trade him and tries to stir shit on the team he just left. (Not just the Yanks, literally every team, every time.) Yeah, some teammates don’t like him, but Jeff Kent has fought with his own teammates besides Barry, and they both won MVPs while playing together. He’s selfish and a primadonna. So’s Ken Griffey Jr, but he smiles more and kisses the press’s ass.

I actually find this thread very illuminating politically, precisely because of a conflict over a “trivial” issue. You see real emotion and dissent among allies, with honest resolution and substantive acknowledgement. This happens virtually nowhere. It speaks well to the instincts and dispositions of folks involved. Seriously.

Sorry to get David-Attenborough-with the-ants on you there, but you know what I mean.

great gosh a’mighty!

Brad – all I care about is that Manny needs only 11 more (if I’m wrong about this number, plz contact me) to get his 500 club membership. Am I so weak? (Can it happen? This year? Or yet another?)

Manny – how I love ya, how I love ya. I’d walk a million miles for one of those smiles.

p.s. If I loves me some Manny, and I couldn’t give a toss about BB, am I a racist? Or other?

good call, both of you, on ted williams and willie mays.

as an old school giants fan, i’d add willie mccovey and roberto clemente.

H makes a point I wanted to raise- with all the roid offense guys in the deadish ball era of the late 70s early 80s and then the clean guys of this era even more so- they just look like shit. What about someone like Piazza? Any rumors on him? I mean what he did as a catcher doesn’t look so great with the roid guys, but geez all the clean guys- it’s just not cool.

It’s things like Bonds breaking the great Hank Aaron’s all-time homerun record that make me glad I walked away from the sport with the ’94 lockout. Baseball is irrevocably damaged a little more every time a player like Bonds is allowed to take the field.

Performance enhancing drugs. Piffle. Babe Ruth took performance DETRACTING drugs! Imagine if he’d had HGH with his breakfast cereal instead of his usual fare of bourbon, hookers, and bacon. They’d be trying to beat his record for most homeruns hit into a different time zone.

If Bonds, McGuire, Sosa, and their ilk make it into the Hall of Fame before Pete Rose, you can join me in Cooperstown for a good old fashioned torches-and-pitchforks riot.

Umm, Don Sutton didn’t break an important record. Neither did Gaylord Perry.

Umm, I hate to put things into context here, but no baseball record is really important. Not even career home runs. In fact, nothing about baseball or any other sport is important, and I say that as a big fan of baseball, hockey, and soccer.

It’s entertainment, for chrissake. Let’s try not to forget that.

IMHO, any conversation about a list of greatest baseball players has to include Stan Musial. He might not actually make the list, but he ought to be part of the conversation.

And Babe Ruth never played black players, in a league with only 8 teams, 2-3 of which quite literally weren’t trying.
Pete Rose fucking bet on games. If you’re going to try and call steroids worse than that, then you’re an idiot.

Ugh, baseball blows. You’re looking at this all wrong. If you want this game to evolve and remain the so-called National Pastime, you need to stop braying about Bonds and his horse ‘roids…and put everyone on the fucking gaz. Every single player on every single team, from mascot to manager should be juiced outta their fuckin’ minds. Also, we need the hitters to stop dropping the bat when they round the bases, and start clubbing the shit outta anyone who gets in their way…the only real sport is blood sport.

Then we start seeing the advent of the 300 mph fast ball, the 2 mile grand slam, and vicious bat-related dismemberments. When things start getting stale again, we start adding bionic limbs and splicing in the recombinant DNA of former hall-of-famers and various apex predators, until we get to watch a contest between two teams of mutant atomic supermen. Now THAT would be a game worth watching.

Penh: I hope it’s not too late in this thread to clarify this, but Utah was not the Jazz’s first home. When it was started in 1974 the franchise was named after its home town as the New Orleans Jazz, which at least makes sense. But after five losing seasons the owner got fed up with New Orleans and moved the team to Utah, oddly not bothering to change the name.

According to Wiki, this led one fan to remark: “This is interesting. Utah has the Jazz and New Orleans has the Saints.”

About the comment that McGuire has been huge his whole career…that ain’t so. Take a look at a photo of the guy in his rookie year and compare it to a photo from the year he and Sosa battled for the record. The guy’s forearms tripled in size, and maybe quadrupled.

And as for me. . .I love the game of baseball, but pretty much hate the Major Leagues. The game has been lost in a tangle of records, statistics, and dopey nostalgia for so long, it’s impossible for me to enjoy a season as a whole. I’ll still go down to SafeCo when the Twins are in town (next week! Yay!) to cheer on the latest bunch of future Yankees and Red Sox playing in Minneapolis, and I’ll still go down to an odd game here and there to cheer on Ichiro when he beats out an infield single or slaps a Texas-leaguer into shallow right. But care about the pennant race or the World Series? Not unless the Twins are in it.

Slugging ruined baseball. The real game is in the infield.

here is a very useful metric called OPS+ that measures hitters across eras, taking ballpark factors into account. The higher the number, the greater the season.

Hank Aaron’s career best OPS+? It came when he was 37. Clearly he was juicing to have such a great season that late in his career.

I’m not going to get into racism because I think it’s beside the point. But the fact is that the media has pretty much hated Barry for the vast majority of his career. And that’s fine, because he’s been a dick to them for pretty much his whole career.

But here’s the thing no one ever talks about when Barry’s reputation with the media is discussed: He grew up with it. His dad was shit on by the press for his entire career. Maybe it’s just me, but if I grew up seeing a certain group of people relentlessly treating my dad like shit all the time, I’d probably distrust reporters and hate their guts, too.

And quite frankly, I don’t give a shit whether he juiced or not. Look at the guys who have been caught. I’d say there’s still a lot of room for argument about their affect. But most importantly, the argument that we should eliminate all or some of anyones home runs from the record book is so moronic that it shouldn’t even have to be addressed. Add up all of the runs scored in baseball history and you’ll find something very interesting. They match, to the run, the number of runs allowed. Do we also eliminate the runs scored on those home runs? Do we lower the ERAs of pitchers who gave them up? Like or not, while playing in legal baseball games, Barry Bonds has hit the ball over the fence 755 times (less however many ITPers he may have). Those all count, and they aren’t going anywhere.

As for comparisons across eras, again, who give a shit? As has been mentioned, Babe Ruth never played against black players. Ruth and Aaron didn’t have to deal with the travel schedules today’s players have. They never pitched against modern bullpen usage. Conversely, they didn’t have luxurious clubhouses and private jets. They didn’t have twig handled bats. This isn’t to say that one era was better than the other, or tougher than the other. It’s just to say that they’re different. Much different. So different that the idea of comparing today’s players against players 80 years ago is a fool’s errand. A ridiculous waste of time and energy. Honestly, I’m amazed that baselines are still 90 feet and the mound is still 60’6″ away. It’s a testament to the game’s original design. But the facts are that counting stats today just aren’t particularly comparable to counting stats of yesteryear for a multitude of reasons.

What Seitz said.

Except the pitching mound (then the ‘box’) moved back from about 45 feet from home in the 1870s, incrementally to the 60’6″ of today’s mound, in 1893.

(Actually, that’s not as dramatic as it seems, according to Wikipedia: “Many sources tend to say that the pitching distance evolved from 45 to 50 to 60 1/2 feet. However, the first two were the “release point” and the third is the “pushoff point”, so the 1893 increase was not quite as dramatic as is often implied; that is, the 1893 rule change added only 5 feet to the release point, not 10 1/2 feet.”)

One last thing:

BASEBALL NERDZ RULE! SCI-FI DORKZ SUXXORS!

Nobody should do anything to the record book. Bonds should just be rightfully vilified, along with everyone else that should be rightfully vilified. Just to get around the High School Debate Team special of “Rachel Carson was just as bad as Ty Cobb!” non-argument.

so this is where you have been, Pinko!!!!

I have a hard time taking anyone seriously who can’t spell “McGwire” right.

I can rule out the gamma-ray thesis.

Barry Bonds has not been reported to have a fondness for torn purple pants.

Q.E.D.

BASEBALL NERDZ RULE! SCI-FI DORKZ SUXXORS!

Don’t come to me begging for diodes when I poop out baseball stats faster than you could ever dream. YES, POOP! For I will CHOOSE MY OWN EXCREMENTAL ALGORITHM, meatbag!

I’m not a big baseball fan, but I have been curious about the intensity of the animosity towards Bonds.

Here’s one thing I don’t quite understand (not that there’s just the one – there umpteen billion things I don’t understand) and maybe you guys do: it sounds like people are saying that Bonds is taking steroids right now. But he can’t be, can he? At least he can’t be taking anything that they are currently testing for, right? So the cheating claims are for the HRs that accumulated while he was enjoying the artificial substance benefits. But he’s still big. Do you stay big forever? How long before the benefits disappear? How many tainted HRs would you have to delete from his record to make it okay? Are he and other players taking things that haven’t been banned yet? And how about that Tour de France, huh? Now there’s a sport.

Who knows if Bonds is taking steroids right now. If he is, the league is probably complicit.

Plus, something people forget to mention about steroids is that they aren’t like a power-up in Pac-Man in that you don’t take one before an at bat and suddenly get awesome home run hitting powers. What they do is allow your body to recover from intense physical activity faster than it would otherwise.

In other words, Major League Baseball can ban the substance, but test for it during convenient times for ballplayers. And don’t tell me Selig and his buddies don’t know that.

For what it’s worth to all the slugger-fetishists around here, I present my top five:

1. Ty Cobb (yeah, he was a racist and all around fucking jerk, but he apretty much invented the modern game by himself, so fuck off.)
2. Ozzie Smith (best shortstop ever)
3. Brooks Robinson (best infielder who wasn’t a shortstop ever.)
4. Sandy Koufax (best lefty ever)
5. Kirby Puckett (best smile ever)

Remember, everybody, that baseball is the only major sport (cricket does not count) where the Defense is in control of the ball.

Baseball is Defense at its core. Offense is secondary, and the home run an unfortunate development in the history of the greatest game ever played.

To wit, there is absolutely no reason to be discussing Barry Bonds at this time.

Go Twins.

What I also meant is that you can bulk up for half the year while taking steroids, and play half the year while not. Or vise versa, however it’s most beneficial to juiced up ballplayers.

Bud Selig and his cronies are very familiar with that, I’d wager.

and i know that won’t hold up in a court of law, but i hate them all nonetheless.