Barry Bonds is a Hall-of-Famer. He’s been playing ball for over 20 years, been an asset to both teams he’s played for and he has hit over 756 home runs, giving him the League career home run record. This, for obvious reasons, is controversial.
Those reasons have to do with the BALCO scandal. Although Bonds has never failed a steroid test, he’s one of the league’s (cream and) clearest examples of athletic steroid abuse. Ideally, of course, steroids would be no problem at all, scoffed at by willful competitors who pride themselves on being as great as they can by their own dint of ability. The sad reality is that monetary pressures and widespread availability make them a common fix for paranoid jocks, particularly in baseball.
Due to a combination of attitude and accomplishment, Bonds is especially hated by quixotic purists. His record-breaking ball was auctioned and purchased by a fashion designer named Marc Ecko, who will brand it with the Roger Maris asterisk-baseball’s scarlet symbol-before giving it to the Hall of Fame to be displayed. This is dumb. Records, they say, are made to be broken, asterisks be damned. At this point, shouldn't those who damn Bonds be hating the game, not the player.
The thing that bugs me about all this is that when Mark McGwire won the season home run record chase in 1998, when the steroid scandal was developing, the achievement was far less controversial. Is this because McGwire is a nicer guy-or a nicer white guy?
That said, I can’t muster a damn about baseball. I’m a Bonds sympathizer-if everybody’s doing it, why can’t he-but only if I don’t have to watch. Regular season NHL starts in a week and things are already heating up in the pre-season with a goalie fight and a controversial hit to the head against IWBYB fave Dean McAmmond.
Those reasons have to do with the BALCO scandal. Although Bonds has never failed a steroid test, he’s one of the league’s (cream and) clearest examples of athletic steroid abuse. Ideally, of course, steroids would be no problem at all, scoffed at by willful competitors who pride themselves on being as great as they can by their own dint of ability. The sad reality is that monetary pressures and widespread availability make them a common fix for paranoid jocks, particularly in baseball.
Due to a combination of attitude and accomplishment, Bonds is especially hated by quixotic purists. His record-breaking ball was auctioned and purchased by a fashion designer named Marc Ecko, who will brand it with the Roger Maris asterisk-baseball’s scarlet symbol-before giving it to the Hall of Fame to be displayed. This is dumb. Records, they say, are made to be broken, asterisks be damned. At this point, shouldn't those who damn Bonds be hating the game, not the player.
The thing that bugs me about all this is that when Mark McGwire won the season home run record chase in 1998, when the steroid scandal was developing, the achievement was far less controversial. Is this because McGwire is a nicer guy-or a nicer white guy?
That said, I can’t muster a damn about baseball. I’m a Bonds sympathizer-if everybody’s doing it, why can’t he-but only if I don’t have to watch. Regular season NHL starts in a week and things are already heating up in the pre-season with a goalie fight and a controversial hit to the head against IWBYB fave Dean McAmmond.
1 comment:
Not to take away from what you wrote but I found this interesting from the si.com article:
"Matt Murphy, a 21-year-old student and construction supervisor from New York, emerged from a scuffle holding the ball. He said he decided to sell it because he couldn't afford to pay the taxes required to keep it."
Since when do people get taxed on catching and keeping a baseball?
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