Robinson can't sub for Bonds

Buck, I respect your position. You know that, we've been over all this before.

Once or twice. Ha ha.

 

I'm not sure how you can say "the lesser-known guys are worse" when you simultaneously provide the exact reason why they are roiding up, a reason that Bonds, McGwire and Palmeiro cannot fall back on.

I could almost excuse these other guys for doing what they have done. At the very least, I can certainly understand it. They weren't blessed with the same levels of talent. They didn't have 10-12 years or more of stardom in the show before realizing they had to start juicing up in order to remain competitive and/or soothe their egos. They didn't have big back accounts to see them through their golden years, as the stars ostensibly do.

They didn't have access to the kinds of opportunities enjoyed by Barry Bonds, able to hone his already impressive natural abilities under the watchful eye of his big-leaguer father and to showcase those abilities in front of scouts who will always pay more attention to those with the "right" bloodlines. Unless you honestly believe Pete Rose Jr. would have made it anywhere near the majors if his name was Pete Putzweiner and he had the same amount of talent, or lack thereof.

You know, that's probably the biggest outrage of all, that a guy with perhaps more natural talent and ability than anyone else who ever stepped on a ball field - I mean, in the entire history of the fucking game - could be so greedy and ungrateful and graceless and shameless that he would knowingly and deliberately use chemical enhancements to put himself even further ahead of the curve. And why? Apparently, because his fragile psyche could not handle knowing that two other players, out of the hundreds and hundreds of men who were and had been his colleagues and peers, were receiving the kind of press and love that he apparently thought should have been his, even though he has always disdained that sort of treatment. What kind of person is this, a pathological attention whore who cannot or will not, for whatever reason, embrace or even accept the adulation he so obviously craves? Maybe a psychiatrist could explain it, but I just can't. I can't even fathom it.

I guess that's why, now that I've stopped to actually think about it, I feel sorry for Barry Bonds. Really. He is a cosmic joke. For all the gifts he has been given, for all the opportunities he has enjoyed, for all the fame, money and records he has accumulated, he has missed out on one very crucial thing, maybe the most valuable thing of all - humility. Babe Ruth had it. Roger Maris had it. Hank Aaron has it. Barry Bonds does not have it. He either wasn't born with it, or no one has yet been able to impress its importance upon him. And this, more than anything else, is why he should never, ever be ranked with the true giants of this game. At the end of the day, ladies and gentlemen, Barry Bonds is nothing more than a bitter, angry little man, and he deserves from us nothing but our pity.

"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and that could be again." - Terence Mann.

 

They take more stuff than a lot of the top guys, that's why I'm saying they're worse.

They have to, they have to take more chances, or else it's back to the minors.

That's my only point.

 

FYI to Zev,
The Dodgers are hardly the only team whose players all will wear No. 42 today. There are a bunch of others, including the Astros.

And also FYI to Zev,
Villifying Bonds will hardly lead to the end of the African-American baseball fan. That ship (if it ever had many passengers at all) sailed so long ago, it's not even funny.

All you have to do is look at the stands in Atlanta or St. Louis. 99.9999999% of the people in the stands are white. 99.99999999999% of the people serving the beer and hot dogs are black. However Bonds is treated, it won't make a whit of difference.

It's a lily-white suburban sport. Sad to say, but it is. That's why the increasing number of star players from other countries (regardless of colour) aren't exactly becoming part of the "national pastime"'s fabric.

 

Ballscribe says, "It's a lily-white suburban sport."

He forgot to add that it's also written about by lily-white suburban sports journalists.

 

I wonder where the lily-white suburban sports reporters were at during the 1990's? Were they simply drunk and/or asleep while the rule changes in baseball were being implimented? What's with all the outrage ten years too late. Why didn't the lily-white reporters do their jobs at the time?

 

Most of The lily-white suburban sports journalists are either dumb or were enablers, which one is it? Both answers are pathetic. Seems like nobody wants to accept any of the blame for the problem. Let's see. It wasn't the owners. It wasn't the players union. Maybe it is entirely the players fault for creating this mess. What happened to the sports journalists, who were supossed to be protecting the integrity of the game and providing us with our "right to know?"

 

I attcked the two Chronicle reporters here for repeatedly providing misinformation and misreprersenting the facts in many instances in both their Chronicle articles and Game od Shadows book. I stand by eveything I have posted here about their reporting.

 

Do you honestly understand and believe all the bullshit you've posted here?

Barry cheated.
We found out.
He may very well keep that record, but no one will think he did it honestly.
This is no one's fault but Barry's, and to place blame on anyone other than Barry for any of this is ridiculous.