Category: San Francisco Giants

Tainted

It didn’t take long for all the sportswriters out there to pile on and denounce Barry Bonds. It’s as if they hate Barry so much they already had these stories filed away and just were waiting to update and unleash them.

Here are some reactions from around the web:

[SFGate]: Ray Ratto: Oh, it’s superficially entertaining to demand that he quit, for the good of the game, for the good of society, for the good of goodness, but it’s posturing because Bonds isn’t going to quit merely because some pundit with a cable-ready stalking horse says he should. Peter Magowan isn’t going to ask him to quit because his financial soul long ago was sold to Bonds. Commissioner Bud Selig no more wants a piece of this story than he wants to find a piece of anthrax in his shoe.

[SI]: Phil Taylor: Even Bonds, who we knew was no angel, disappoints us further now that the nature of his dishonesty has been laid out in such detail. Anyone who defended him in the past has to feel betrayed today.

[MSNBC]: Mike Celizic: To even imagine Bonds surpassing Hank Aaron is enough to make any decent person vomit. And if Bonds insists on playing and does break the most sacred record in sports, there won’t be a thing baseball can do.

[ESPN]: Gene Wojciechowski: Bonds is finished. He might play again, but there is only a chalk outline left around his integrity and home run totals. And the only way he gets into Cooperstown is if he spends the $14.50 for a Hall of Fame admission ticket.

[Thetafarm.blogspot]: I believed him so much that I would argue with my friends and family for hours about it. All of that is over. These kinds of things happen to just about every avid sports fan. If you’ve never been let down or dissapointed in an athlete, you aren’t a true fan.

The two reporters who covered the BALCO scandal for the San Francisco chronicle have alleged in a book that Bonds began using steroids in 1998.

According to the book, Bonds was using two designer steroids, known as the cream and the clear, plus insulin, human growth hormone and other performance enhancers by 2001, when he hit 73 home runs to break Mark McGwire’s single-season record.

You mean when he hit 73 home runs*? I’ve always thought that Bonds was on the juice. Just look at the size of his melon. It looks like the device Mr. Burns used to block the sun from Springfield. No one wanted him to break Hank Aaron’s home run record and as far as I’m concerned, he might not even have broken Roger Maris’ record.

Is there anyone in the world still naive enough to think that Bonds didn’t use steroids?

[Yahoo]:
Report: Bonds began using steroids, vast array of other drugs, in 1998

Maybe Corey Clark hit it

You won’t hear us say this often, but, kudos to Barry Bonds. After a cantankerous and alienating off-season, Barry decided to be one of the boys and participate in a rookie hazing event dressed as Paula Abdul.

That’s gotta be the ugliest woman I’ve ever seen. There are drag queens in San Francisco that couldn’t look this bad if they tried. And trust me, they try.

Now the cynical among you may say that Bonds is only doing it to promote his new reality show on ESPN. You might be right but “Giants Idol” might go a long way towards building chemistry. We’ll be on alert to whether there is indeed a “new Bonds”. Remember, TO convinced us he wasn’t a nutcase, and you know how that turned out.

[SFGate]:
“Idolic” Day at Giants camp: Bonds IS Paula Abdul

Barry Bonds skipped the first day of training camp for position players because he had to get some “personal stuff straightened out.” Sure Barry, just do whatever you want. You’ve done it all your career. I wondered if there were a lot of people sick of Barry and it turns out there is.

[MSNBC]: Michael Ventre “Every time he opens his mouth, it’s either to call attention to himself or to lash out at his critics.”

[Fox Sports]: Ken Rosenthal “If this season is Bonds’ last, Aaron’s mark almost certainly will be out of reach, saving MLB the embarrassment of celebrating a tainted slugger passing one of the game’s most dignified greats.”

[MSNBC]: Gary Peterson “Hey Barry, we’ve heard all this before.”

[ESPN]: Gene Wojciechowski “Not since Reggie Jackson and the “magnificence of me” days has there been a player more tone deaf when it comes to understanding how tiresome his martyr act has become.”

[As soon as I finished posting this entry, I see a report that Bonds has backed off the retirement talk. Will everyone please stop playing the Favre card!]

I guess Bonds wants his farewell tour in 2006. In an interview with USA Today, Bonds cemented his place as the whiniest baseball player of our generation.

I’m not playing baseball anymore after this. The game (isn’t) fun anymore. I’m tired of all of the crap going on. I want to play this year out, hopefully win, and once the season is over go home and be with my family. Maybe then everybody can just forget about me.

If Bonds wasn’t such a dick to everyone until it served his needs, then maybe fans is stadiums around the country would show up to wish him well. But I have a hard time believing that many fans will show up to honor Barry Bonds. I’m not even talking about the steroid allegations. Let’s assume that doesn’t even exist. Why would fans show up to honor him when he’s given so little back to the game? Barry is a selfish, arrogant, me-first athlete and he wants us to adore him? Please.

A quick check of Giants blogs shows that even Giants fans don’t really care.

[USA Today]: Bonds: ‘I’m not playing baseball anymore after this’
[SFGate]: Bonds goes back, forth. Stories differ about retiring

Felipe Alou suggested that he might bat Bonds second to get him more at bats.  Sure, it’s not as cool as batting clean-up but it makes sense.  Without Bonds, the Giants are a terrible offensive team and more at -bats might mean more steroid fueled dingers into McCovey cove.  But Bonds wants none of it.

I am going to speak with Felipe, because at this point in my career it doesn’t work for me to be second bat.

Remember, Barry’s bigger than the team.  Or at least his humongous melon is.

[SFGate]: Bonds Batting 2nd ‘Doesn’t Work