Bonds, the HR chase & the race issue

[EStreetJoe]

A search didn't show this article, so hopefully it's not a d_b

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2861930

Portions of the article...

More than half of baseball fans are rooting against Barry Bonds as he tries to break Hank Aaron's major league home run record of 755, according to an ESPN/ABC News poll.
.....
However, race plays a unique role. Black fans in the survey are more than twice as likely to want Bonds to break Aaron's record (74 percent to 28 percent), and 37 percent of black fans think Bonds used steroids, compared to 76 percent of white fans.

Blacks are nearly twice as likely to think Bonds has been treated unfairly (46 percent to 25 percent). Why? The survey found that 41 percent of black fans think this is due to the steroids issue, 25 percent think it's because of his race, and 21 percent blame Bonds' personality.

For whites who think Bonds has been treated unfairly, 66 percent blame steroids. Virtually none blame race.

There's a lot more to the article than that, but that's just a sample

 

[Boom_70]

Numbers are similiar for those surveyed on whether they wanted OJ to get off or not.

 

[ondeadline]

It's sad to hear that people express opinions based on the amount of pigment in somebody's skin or automatically assume the best or the worst of somebody or automatically support somebody based on that.

 

[EStreetJoe]

It is sad to see how this is breaking down along racial lines, instead of based on Bonds' character, the evidence on how much he's grown, or other baseball related factors.
Boom... I agree the numbers are very similar to the OJ numbers during his trial.

Anyone know if there were surveys like this done when Aaron was chasing Ruth and what those numbers were?

 

[novelist_wannabe]

Well that's nice. He's a cheating scumbag who happens to be an asshole (and on top of that, he makes other blacks look bad by association), and the media's got to make it all about race. Sure, race colors everything in this country. If you took a poll on which chewing gum was best, it likely would be divided along racial lines. The fact is that blacks and whites view the world differently. But race had nothing to do with Bonds using the cream or the clear. He made that choice on his own.

 

[outofplace]

Mike Greenberg actually had a good response to this poll on Mike & Mike this morning (Yeah, I listen to it. I admit it). He wondered if the black people responding really understood what Hank Aaron went through during his pursuit of the record when it belonged to Babe Ruth and how hard racism made it for Aaron.

I agree with him. Aaron overcame racial hatred, overcame the death threats, and he did it with the kind of dignity and class that Bonds has never shown. As much as I have always been a Bonds fan, the guy is a spoiled, arrogant prick. It is sad, but it seems like a lot of black people are buying into Bonds' claim that this is all about race, not about being the highest-profile user of PED's or about behaving like such an ass for so long that nobody wants to give him the benefit of the doubt.

 

[The Big Ragu]

This is exactly parallel to "OJ guilty or innocent," in which most whites couldn't understand why blacks thought he was innocent. I had black friends who told me with a straight face that OJ was innocent and it was just a dead-end conversation for us. The best explanation I have gotten is from a friend who said something to the effect that "black guys get screwed so often that a black guy is going to bend over backward to give another black guy the benefit of the doubt."

I've tried really hard to understand this, even though I can't totally relate. It makes sense, though. I guess if you are a black guy and you see that one in three black guys in his 20s is in jail or prison, it tempers your outlook. Maybe a a lot of the guys you grew up with are in jail or on probation and you look around and you don't see that being true of whites. You see yourself getting pulled over by the cops a lot for DWB, while your white friend (me) never has that problem.

I think a lot of black guys have gotten so bitter over those kinds of facts that they don't really look at things on a case by case basis. They just see another black guy getting persecuted. They aren't going to think about whether it's justified or not in the case of Bonds, because from where they sit, the black guy always gets screwed. So even if they are playing mental games with themselves to convince themselves that Bonds didn't roid up, there is a big element of "Good for Barry. For once, the black guy is going to come out on top."

 

[ondeadline]

I'd be curious to hear what percentage of black respondents who think Bonds is clean think that McGwire is clean.

 

[Boom_70]

Mike Greenberg actually had a good response to this poll on Mike & Mike this morning (Yeah, I listen to it. I admit it). He wondered if the black people responding really understood what Hank Aaron went through during his pursuit of the record when it belonged to Babe Ruth and how hard racism made it for Aaron.

I agree with him. Aaron overcame racial hatred, overcame the death threats, and he did it with the kind of dignity and class that Bonds has never shown. As much as I have always been a Bonds fan, the guy is a spoiled, arrogant prick. It is sad, but it seems like a lot of black people are buying into Bonds' claim that this is all about race, not about being the highest-profile user of PED's or about behaving like such an ass for so long that nobody wants to give him the benefit of the doubt.

It's understandable that there is a bit of confusion. Up until last year both Jason Whitlock and Tom Verducci thought that Babe Ruth still held HR record.

 

[Football_Bat]

Last time I yanked the race card out of Boom's trusty wallet and checked it, the numbers didn't seem to matter. Aaron: Black. Bonds: Black. So a black man will break the record. Saw it already.

Ultimately in 10 years, a brown man will break it again. A-Rod, followed by Pujols.

 

[Montezuma's Revenge]

I'd be curious to hear what percentage of black respondents who think Bonds is clean think that McGwire is clean.

And vice versa. I'd like to think a high percentage of whites think McGwire is dirty.

As FB noted: Bonds is going to break the record of another black man. So can this really fall under the auspices of the white man trying to keep a black man down? Good grief, if this were Ken Griffey Jr. closing in an Aaron, there would be a national celebration like you can't believe.

 

[heyabbott]

If Hank Aaron was African American, people would feel differently. And if Pete Rose was white, he'd be in the Hall of Fame

 

[printdust]

Let me ask, was Aaron white? Hell no.

Did Aaron face more obstacles than Bonds in his career? Hell yes.


Bonds has made his own bed, with a hell of a lot more money than Aaron ever made. And he's half the man Aaron was. I couldnt' give a **** if he was purple.

 

[jason_whitlock]

Mike Greenberg actually had a good response to this poll on Mike & Mike this morning (Yeah, I listen to it. I admit it). He wondered if the black people responding really understood what Hank Aaron went through during his pursuit of the record when it belonged to Babe Ruth and how hard racism made it for Aaron.

damn, i'm devastated that i couldn't have listened to mike greenberg break down for us the troubles hank endured, because clearly mike greenberg knows more about it than the average black man.

 

[jason_whitlock]

Well that's nice. He's a cheating scumbag who happens to be an asshole (and on top of that, he makes other blacks look bad by association), and the media's got to make it all about race. Sure, race colors everything in this country. If you took a poll on which chewing gum was best, it likely would be divided along racial lines. The fact is that blacks and whites view the world differently. But race had nothing to do with Bonds using the cream or the clear. He made that choice on his own.

and all whites look bad by association because of mark mcgwire, floyd landis, jason giambi?

 

[Sportsbruh]

Well that's nice. He's a cheating scumbag who happens to be an asshole (and on top of that, he makes other blacks look bad by association), and the media's got to make it all about race. Sure, race colors everything in this country. If you took a poll on which chewing gum was best, it likely would be divided along racial lines. The fact is that blacks and whites view the world differently. But race had nothing to do with Bonds using the cream or the clear. He made that choice on his own.

and all whites look bad by association because of mark mcgwire, floyd landis, jason giambi?

John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer Ted Bundy.

Just to add a few more guilty by race association.

 

[outofplace]

Mike Greenberg actually had a good response to this poll on Mike & Mike this morning (Yeah, I listen to it. I admit it). He wondered if the black people responding really understood what Hank Aaron went through during his pursuit of the record when it belonged to Babe Ruth and how hard racism made it for Aaron.

damn, i'm devastated that i couldn't have listened to mike greenberg break down for us the troubles hank endured, because clearly mike greenberg knows more about it than the average black man.

He didn't break it down. He just proclaimed his respect for what Aaron went through and how he handled it. Frankly, your statement strikes me as pretty damn racially biased. Are we to think that no white people can express their respect for Aaron breaking Ruth's record despite the death threats and other racially motivated bull**** he went through?

Guess what? Some of us are capable of empathizing with people who are different from us. Apparently, that is beyond your capacity. That is your failing, not Greenberg's or mine.

I think you just can't get over the fact that nobody bought your bull**** about people wanting to keep Bonds from passing Ruth as if anybody still views Ruth's total as the real record. Are you trying to say there is racism motivating some conspiracy to keep a black man, Bonds, from breaking a record held by another black man, Aaron? More bull****.

You want to say that Selig's bias against Bonds is personal? I'll buy that. Selig is tight with Aaron and I can see him wanting to protect Aaron's record, especially from somebody he sees as failing in his role as a representative of the game in the way that Bonds has over the years. But that's not racism. That's personal.

 

[Yawn]

McGwire and Giambi, like Bonds, are lying, cheating sons of *******. As touched as I was in McGwire's lovefest with the Marises after 61 and 62, it makes me sick he was juicing his way past a man who was hated because he dared take the god-given right of Mantle to overtake the Babe.

Aaron had nothing unnatural in his body and I would bet faced more death threats BECAUSE OF HIS COLOR than Bonds has.

 

[Sportsbruh]

especially from somebody he sees as failing in his role as a representative of the game in the way that Bonds has over the years.

Why should Bonds be held to Lofty standards of Representing Baseball. Baseball DON'T love Bonds. Bond got it right. **** Baseball. Make the money, and keep it stepping. For someone that grew up with a baseball in his crib - Bonds gotta be angry with something about that ****ty ass game.

He don't have to spell it out to you -YOU KNOW! Besides, Bonds NEVER wanted to be the representative of this cheating ass sport - CONDONED by upper management.

More or less like Marvin Harrison - Just give me the damn ball and leave me alone.

 

[Chuck~Taylor]

Mike Greenberg actually had a good response to this poll on Mike & Mike this morning (Yeah, I listen to it. I admit it). He wondered if the black people responding really understood what Hank Aaron went through during his pursuit of the record when it belonged to Babe Ruth and how hard racism made it for Aaron.

damn, i'm devastated that i couldn't have listened to mike greenberg break down for us the troubles hank endured, because clearly mike greenberg knows more about it than the average black man.

Timeout, timeout. Who do you think are?