Baseball juices, Bonds wins the lottery, and here comes the lynch mob

Now the media nation can scapegoat one player for a common practice that without a doubt was condoned and covered for by the baseball teams themselves. Bonds has won the steroids lottery twice - first by getting the HR record (as opposed to cancer, as Jason Giambi did), and now by being the designated scapegoat for a whole culture of "performance enhancement."

I speak not about the details of a pending perjury case but of the circus around it, and the role it has already played in our society for more than a year.

We may see a period of further months or even two years in which Barry Bonds is pressed into the same function for racist America as was played in the 1990s by OJ Simpson. Except Bonds didn't commit murder, but was only one of dozens or hundreds involved in the ML baseball juicing complex, which is debatably a moral crime and not much of a legal one.

Is juicing by pros wrong? Yes, especially for its pernicious influence on the 99 percent of those who do steroids or the like - young athletes who are in high school and college, who will never make a major league, who have no chance of earning millions in exchange for the damage to their bodies.

Did everybody in the game juice? Absolutely not, and there is no moral justification.

Did many juice (and still do thanks to HGH), with cover from their teams and the league, without which it would have been impossible on this scale? And did the league knowingly profit from the performance bonanza?

You be the judge: white America's perfect image of a surly, powerful black man now burns at the stake, while Selig and the franchises feign innocence and continue cashing in, wringing their hands and trying to hide within the rest of the electronic lynch mob.

Did I just accuse all franchises? No. We'll never know just how heavy it was, but is there an elephant in the room?

:thumbsup:

Thanks for bumps and let's let him talk about the details of a pending perjury case:

http://counterpunch.org/zirin11162007.html

The fact is that Bonds is under attack from a collection of torture-loving, Habeas Corpus shredding, illegal wire tapping, political operatives. The idea that a Barry Bonds indictment becomes the first act of Mike Mukasey's Justice Department only exposes Sens. Diane Feinstein and Chuck Schumer, and the other Democratic pols who backed his confirmation. They called him "a man of character" as well as "a strong leader, committed to depoliticizing the agency's operations." There is no evidence of character and leadership in this indictment; only the tawdry political desire for headlines.

Mukasey and friends may have worked themselves into a lather over the thought of their "Capone" behind bars. But they shouldn't be picking out his orange jumpsuit just yet. The indictment comes on the heels of the resignation of San Francisco US Attorney Kevin Ryan. Ryan was by all counts a Bush loyalist but he had earned the ire of the DOJ for, among other things, not indicting Bonds. He apparently didn't relish the thought of prosecuting the local hero in a San Francisco courtroom. Prosecutors will have that same hurdle of convicting Bonds on his home turf with apparantly no fresh evidence.

Because it appears that the DOJ has nothing new to say, the plan will be to scorch the jury pool by raising the temperature on the story. Already in the wake of the indictment, the White House felt the need to weigh in saying, among other insipid platitudes, "learly this is a sad day for baseball." You would never know that there are wars and occupations going on that might require some attention. This is like FDR delivering a fireside chat on the death of Fatty Arbuckle. It's also yet another sign that the justice system has more holes than the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

Today I will be demonstrating in front of Mukasey's Department of Justice along with thousands of my closest friends. We will march because they refuse to indict people for hanging nooses, or see the rape and torture of Megan Williams as a hate crime, or do anything to change the perception that justice means "just-us." But my vocal chords might be a little more raw than usual at days end. The idea that they have no time for Megan Williams, but invest years in the prosecution of Barry Bonds should make any good person of conscience utterly enraged.

Think about it: Barry Bonds joining Marion Jones in prison. Feel any safer yet?

If that's any consolation for you. I think he'll be dead before the next president's term expires, following the same trail blazed by Lyle Alzado.

I grew up watching baseball. I was a huge fan. I can probably still tick off most of the starting line-ups for my favorite teams from the 1967-1980 era. But the game that's played now? Hardly to be recognized. Oh, there are still nine guys in the field and a batter, but it's just not the same. Free agency, which I support, has had a major impact. But the "win and win now" mentality has ruined the game, along with ESPN and their 24-hour yakfest. There are major league farm clubs like the Pirates and the Royals, that develop talent only to be raided every July and August by the wealthy teams looking for that one more guy to put them over the top.

The pressure to perform and hit the dingers is tremendous. Some teams and players can withstand that pressure. Some can't. Some of those that cheat are black. Some of them are white. Bonds, however, hasn't done himself any public relations favors with his conduct, for which he is the sole author and solely responsible.

Verdict on the rant? Strayed too far off base. Picked off. Back to the dugout.

I think we'd agree a lot on the impact of the changes arising most of all from the workings of money (capitalism).

But Bonds is going to be presented quasi as the media circus villain of the year - and I think it has a lot to do with him being black (and not being nice like Mike, either).

First of all, Bonds isn't on trial for juicing. He is on trial for lying before a grand jury, when his testimony had been granted immunity. He should have come clean then, but instead he put his own selfish pursuit of records ahead of the law, and ahead of the well being of a person who went to the mat for him, Anderson, a childhood friend. Juicing aside, that makes the man pretty much an unethical, immoral, criminal creep.

Second, you're trying to play the race card when it shouldn't be played. Most people don't give a rat's ass that Bonds is black, what they care about is the fact that he cheated to get where he is, and broke the law along the way. This isn't racism, this is Americans' innate sense of fair play, especially in "America's Game." McGwire, a white man, was excortiated for his doping up with andro, which was legal at the time he took it, and it probably cost him the Hall of Fame also. Playing the race card is simply an attempt to muddy the waters and allow Bonds to get away with his crimes.

The reason that Bonds is the poster boy for juicing isn't because he's black, it's because he is the one who has benefited most by it, earning millions of dollars and setting two of the sport's most sacred records along the way. If he had juiced and remained simply a mid level player, he wouldn't be in this harsh spotlight(witness the dozens of players, both white and black who are in that very position now).

Is juicing a problem in baseball, no doubt. But where does one start to correct the problem? As in most problems of this nature, the solution starts at the top and works its way down. Bonds happens to be the one at the top, and that is no fault but his own. If he hadn't juiced up, if he hadn't lied and obstructed justice, then he wouldn't be in the position that he is now. Sorry, but trying to blame Bonds' problems on anything and everybody else is just wrong. All you're doing is excusing criminal behavior and cheapening the concept of racism for all of those who actually do suffer from it.

:applause:

Please.

Who else holds both the single season and career home run records? The last one who held the single season, McGwire, was ripped to shred for doing andro, when andro wasn't a banned substance. It has cost him his shot at the Hall of Fame, and he is persona not grata in St. Louis and elsewhere in the baseball world. Bonds not only set the two big records, but the substance he used was illegal, and he broke the law to preserve his precious run at the records while simultaneously allowing his "best friend" to rot in jail.

Like I said, Bonds made himself a target, nobody else. You cheat and lie your way to the top, you've gotta expect that you're going to be a big target, and be in for a big fall whether you're white or black.

In addition, I'm actually afraid to research what happened to my all time fav, Matt Williams.

I don't know what to tell you. But here in SF, there has always been a double standard.

That you think was a victim of racism, OJ, who if I remember right, walked away scot free. But since this isn't a court of law but the court of public public opinion, you, I and everybody else has the right to form and propagate their own opinion. Mine is that the man was lying to the grand jury, and juiced to the max. I base this on his unnatural record(to say the least) in which he hits more HRs in the second half of his career than the first half. This not only defies age, but the biology of the human body. Second, I also come to that conclusion by looking at his body. I've seen a lot of steroid users, and besides the bulked up appearance, Bonds exhibits a critical, telltale sign that he's been juicing, a massive increase in the size of his jaw muscles. When somebody juices, it builds up the muscles that are used the most, including the jaw muscles. Bonds has the heavy chipmunk cheeks, which he didn't have when he was younger, of a juicer.

There may be a double standard in San Fran, but you shouldn't extrapolate that to the rest of the country. Also, I'm not familiar with who Matt Williams is:shrug:

Hugo Chavez may have faults and may be an asshole -- but the reporting we consume doesn't approximate what may be really wrong with the way he governs.

Barry Bonds may also be an @sshole but the news we consume is so riddled with cr@P that we never get to drill down to what is really happening.

Saddam was writing an opera when we invaded Iraq, not developing WMD. I guess my point is, we have to be critical consumers. :shrug:

And Matt Williams is one of the best players in the Universe, lately manager of the DBacks and also lately implicated in juicing.

This is how I know Matt Williams: I took my youngest out to the SF Giants Spring training in Phoenix one year. All the rock stars told the kids, "Let me through, I'll be back to sign an autograph". And, they disappeared. Matt didn't do that. He put his golf clubs down and just was with the kids for about an hour -- ahead of his game.

:shrug:

You are uncritically asserting the position, your opinion, that Bonds isn't guilty. That's just as bad as what you're accusing me of. But you see, I don't base my opinions on what the newspapers say, I base them on my own perceptions, on my own conclusions. As I mentioned downthread, I've been around a fair number of juicers, and I know what they look like, and Bonds has the build of a man who's been juicing. In addition, if you look at his record, the man's not only defied age, he's defied the biological reality that as you get older your strength, quickness and other such things goes down. Bonds on the other hand is a proud owner of a record that sees him improving with age. Explain to me this medical miracle. Point out to me one other player, who didn't juice, that has this sort of record.

This is what I base my opinions on, not the press.

"You are uncritically asserting the position, your opinion, that Bonds isn't guilty."

Do you think that he should be tried for perjury and obstructing justice, and if not, why not?

I don't know if that refers to me, but I don't think O.J. is innocent or a victim of racism. He was however used by the media and by our culture as the magnet for racism, as the face of the black man that so many white people see. That O.J. Simpson was the biggest story in the world for two years should tell you everything about this aspect of our culture.

Mike Krukow says, "Aaaaaaaannnnnnd... OUTA HERE!!!"

:applause:

He didn't do himself any favors with the press. He was a brat and for that, he deserves the dings he got.

But to single him out for an industry wide problem is, in itself, disingenuous. And to pretend for a single second that black players don't have to work twice as hard is just, I don't know how put it except, BULLSH!T.

Just because of perceived racism? We should let a black player cheat and lie, to a grand jury even, just because of perceived racism? Gee, what a travesty of justice that would be.

I agree there is an industry wide problem, but trying to get Bonds off by saying everybody's doing it isn't a defense, it's a cop out. Did your Mom let you get away with that excuse when you were a kid? No, and neither should the law let Bonds off with this excuse. In fact Bonds should have been smart enough that he was elevating himself to such a height that scrutiny would be focused on him, much like it was with McGwire. Instead, he simply thought he'd get away with it. In addition, who brought this shit on Bonds? Did somebody stick a gun to his head and force him to juice up? Did somebody have a gun to his head when he lied to the grand jury? No, he did this all on his own, and blaming everybody and everything else is simply a desperation tactic.

Oh, holy moly, this uppity guy just thought he'd get away with his as yet unproven "crime".

He should have known that with his attitude and with his melanin level, he'd be a natural target.

The stalking of this player just proves my point. Let's make this black guy an example. Let's take him down a peg. :sarcasm:

Race card, my @ss.

Can you honestly say that we should let Bonds off just because he experienced racism? That we should let him get away with a felony because "everybody's doing it"? And can you honestly look at Bonds age defying record, at his body structure today as opposed to ten years ago and say that Bonds wasn't juicing?

You keep trying to play the race card to excuse a man who cheated, lied and committed multiple felonies. In the process you are trying to subtly imply that all people who dare to criticize Bonds are racist. This is a strawman argument pat, and you're being intellectually dishonest when you imply that Bond's critics are racist. I wonder if you'll change your tune when Bonds is convicted and in jail. Or will you still think that poor Barry is another victim?

I'm not subtle, lol, as you know and no, I'm not better than this.

I've watched the press take every op to go after him -- long before this juicing thing came up. And long before I could even stand the guy. He was such a jerk when he first came here. Believe me, I was no fan of his.

But the deal is, no, he shouldn't be let off for whatever he did. But, he should be in the company of all those other guys that did exactly the same thing and who are getting no attention whatsoever.

Imho, what we're seeing is a witch hunt that overlaps a genuine issue. And while I can't possibly speak to the whole sports world, I know San Francisco. This isn't the first or the last time a person of color is being made a scapegoat in the local sports world.

And the country at large.

For the most part most of the country thought of Bonds as the mouthy jerk ass power hitter for the Pirates. Even after he went to the Giants, he was no more thought of, one way or the other, than any other mouthy ballplayer. Some people liked his attitude, some didn't, most were indifferent.

What changed all of that is the fact that Bonds began to swell, in a big, big way. And along with his swelling, he started defying age, hitting better as an old man in the sport than he did as a kid. What really set people off though was not just his denials in the face of the obvious, it was the attitude that he copped when making those denials. He went beyond being a mouthy clown, but was downright vicious.

He could have finished out his career even so without nary a peep except for the fact that he started getting close to two of the most sacred of sports records. People saw this, knew that he was cheating, and were rightfully pissed. It isn't racism to be pissed at a cheater, again, let me point out McGwire. It isn't racism to get your digs in at a man who not only denies he's cheating, but does so in a vicious and vindictive manner. It isn't racist to call for something to be done, which is what the grand jury was in response to.

I agree that there should be others taking a fall besides Bonds. We've already seen some of that with Marion Jones, McGwire, and Giambi. I suspect that we'll see more as this whole nasty BALCO mess unravels. But I think that why Bonds is getting the serious heat right now is that many people thought that he spit on the game by cheating to get his records. He set himself up as a large target and people are taking aim. Again, this isn't racism, at least not in most of the country. I believe that if Bonds was a white man, with the same attitude and same background, he would still be getting slammed. It is a natural response of a population that values fair play and honesty in their sports. Hell, look at Pete Rose! He was villified also, not for juicing, but for an equally heinous crime in the eyes of the sports world, gambling on the game you're playing.

I will grant you that there could very well be a racist element in some limited cases. I don't read SF papers or know the pulse of the people there. But I think that judging from what I've read, and who I've talked to around the country on this, racism is overall playing a minor role in Bonds problems.

it's hard to figure out the ratios of the reasons they enjoy it. Bonds asked for it, that's for sure.

and how he was ripped by the SF press when the Giants moved west.

Mays himself — and his biographer and friend, the late, great sportswriter Charlie Einstein — wrote that the problems there weren't as much racial as that San Francisco refused to embrace the "import" Mays as its hero, preferring to bestow laurels on "home-grown" players such as McCovey and Cepeda. (Oddly enough, perhaps, both were resoundly booed later at Candlestick when they weren't hitting.)

Mays did experience some apparent racial indignities — someone threw a brick through the window of a home he bought in an upper-class SF neighborhood, for example — but more behind the city's early rejection of him was the rift between San Francisco and New York, the West Coast and the East Coast. San Franciscans were simply jealous of the fact that New Yorkers had had Mays first.

at the reporting before and after that event. :shrug:

BALCO was raided, Bonds accepted a deal in which he would get immunity from any prosecution for anything they might find in the raid if he were to tell the truth, and he chose to lie his ass off. This is why the government is unhappy.

And then he broke the most hallowed record in sports, while clearly cheating and lying to us. That is why the fans are unhappy.

largely because he continually denies that any has taken place while setting records for it. That's just the way things are: Whoever's on the highest horse is the one we want to knock down. If you get the Big Guy, the perception is it'll be easier to get his underlings.

Before Bonds, we were starting after McGwire — but then he 'fessed up to andro, and, before that, pulled that emotional "I touched it" about the bat Maris used for no. 61. We found that rather endearing. But then McGwire blew his winnings before Congress with "I'm not here to talk about the past," and now he's persona non Halla.

Bonds has done nothing to endear himself to people; quite the opposite, in fact. That hardly makes him guilty of anything, except perhaps being a jerk, but it certainly does him no good in the court of public opinion. Maybe he doesn't care about that, but there's a lesson in the old Hollywood saying, "Be nice to the people you meet on the way up, because you'll meet the same people on the way down."

You're doin' a heckuva job, Barry.

Good post.

Most likely that's MLB. At the very least, franchise management condoning and most likely facilitating. This is what the media witch hunt is in effect covering. (And this witch hunt preceded the perjury charges, which have yet to be tried.) It's a witch hunt because it's focusing on a prominent scapegoat. But Bond is not "the top," only in the HR numbers.

An issue mentioned above, the pressures of money on the game - that's why if the full story is told (and we'll see how much of it is in the Mitchell report) it will most likely implicate teams, not just players.

eom

And, for all its lib rep, this town has always been horrible to black ball players. They were ready to lynch Willie Mays for marrying a white woman. It is our shame and it needs to be told.

That's a great big huge ugly hateful elephant. Good for you, JackRiddler.

is not the fact that he is a fuckin cheat, or his race, its the fact that he was a asshole to players and the media and the fans, from what I have heard, if he was a nice guy, he would of probably got more support.

But, he's matured quite a bit during his tenure. As far as I can tell, people are still reacting to the young Bonds with that big old chip on his shoulder, not to the man as he is now.

Lying to a federal grand jury is mature? Whining about a "witch hunt" is mature? Saying he won't participate in a Hall of Fame induction ceremony with That Ball is mature?

Then there was this, in Arizona during spring 2006:



"Giants Idol," a singing competition staged soon after players reported that spring, was designed as a sort of hazing ritual for the rookies in camp, cooked up by newcomer Mark Sweeney to give the club's morale a boost.

You can decide for yourself whether Bonds was trying to be one of the guys or upstage them when he showed up as Paula Abdul, but I do know this: By most accounts that I read or heard, even the Giants' veterans shied away from teasing Bonds about it — at least to his face. To me, that denotes immaturity on someone's part. Maybe it wasn't Bonds', but it would seem that if ballplayers don't feel they can joke around with a club leader, something's amiss somewhere.

That picture is hilarious and awful at the same time. lol

He did seem to me, anyway, to get a little less assholish after his kids were born.

What a train wreck his career with the Giants has been. A shame, really, to waste that kind of talent on so much bs.

San Franciscoans are still in denial.

my take

I find it hilarious that they say he broke Babe Ruth's record. It's as though Hank Aaron never existed.

That's why it's upset that this man lost the record.

Or before you use the case of Aaron as your fig leaf.

Zirin said it well in two earlier articles, so I'll quote again:

http://www.counterpunch.org/zirin06192007.html



Also
http://www.counterpunch.org/zirin04012006.html

I'm also sure racist fuckwads hate David Ortiz, Torii Hunter, Derek Jeter, Ichiro Suzuki, and Ken Griffey Jr, who are the five most beloved current baseball players I could think of.

The overwhelming majority of people today like Hank Aaron. The overwhelming majority of people, even in '74, wanted Hank Aaron to break the record (I can dig up the old polling data if you disbelieve me). Trying to draw a line between the odd letter from a fuckhead and public opinion is stupid.

White people want Hank Aaron, a black man, to hold the record. White people were very excited when it looked like Junior, a black man, was going to break Aaron's record. Claiming they don't like Barry because they're racist is also stupid.

I wonder why?

the JD under AG Mukasey, who was the devil on this board last week.

thus, not technically cancer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Giambi#New_York_Yankees_.282001-current.29

On July 30, 2004, test results confirmed that Giambi had a benign tumor, which placed him on the disabled list. He was treated for the tumor, and returned to the team and played in a game on September 14.

This, however, is mere nitpicking. The juice does plenty of bad things to you; it's just that not all of them are cancer.

It's really not that complicated.

To the best of my knowledge, THAT is what Bonds is being indicted for - perjury and obstruction. Whites don't generally get away with that either.

Isn't it possible that this really isn't a racial issue?

please separate out the case from its reception in the media nation. Two different things.

I don't think the case is racist; it's clearly opportunistic.

Whereas the role of Bonds in the media nation is more mixed. In part he's unpopular for being a genuinely unfriendly person, and otherwise he is the current black-man-bugaboo, a role that has been filled by others in the past going to Jack Johnson and far further back. Otherwise we wouldn't be talking about this issue, it would be a perjury case without the same hulabaloo, whether in the scope or in the quality of the demonization.

is Bonds is a total fucking asshole, has been from the get go and has attracted this attention. If the guy wasn't a total prick, consistently poking his thumb into everyone's eye, this would be a non issue.

Stop seeing racism in a situation where the attention is justified...the guy is a fucking tool.