Barry Bonds is the greatest hitter of the last twenty years but he gets treated like shit. People claim it is because he is hard to deal with and that he is an asshole. However, there are plenty of white players that are hard to hard to deal with and that are assholes. Roger Clemens risks the lives of other players by throwing at their heads in games. But he is just a hot-headed Texan. Randy Johnson is hard to deal with but his image is just as a good old boy. Mark Maguire is as juiced as Bonds but is loved by baseball. Pete Rose was and is a complete asshole who gambled on games and may have thrown games, but even he has more defenders in baseball than Bonds. I wonder why?
No, the problem with Bonds is he doesn’t act the way the racist leaders of baseball and racist sportwriters want him to act. In baseball, a black man has to toe the line. Look at Sosa as long as he was the “friendly black man with the funny accent” the media loved him. Once he stepped out of line they came down hard.
Baseball doesn’t want strong intellegent independent black players. They want Uncles Toms.
Are you sure that it isn’t the doping issue? I don’t follow baseball closely but everything I’ve heard criticizing his breaking of the record relates to steroid use and the laughable controls that MLB has attempted to put into place regarding their use.
So, even though a huge number of black athletes ranging from Mohammed Ali to Michael Jordan to Tiger Woods are idolized by people of every color, sportswriters are terricle racists because they feel that steroid use takes away greatly from any Bonds achievement?
I think we have in evidence a good number of black athletes that were not Uncle Toms and were still adored. That would make your OP just plain nutty and this board does not take well to nutty ideas.
Are you sure you didn’t mistake this place for the Black Panther message board?
Bonds is hated because he is a cheater, an asshole, lacks anything remotely resembling class, style or a personality and plays for the fucking Giants. That last one alone is grounds for him being roundly hated by anyone outside the Bay Area. The color of his skin doesn’t enter into it one bit. It’s the color of his ethics that drag him down.
Is he a great hitter? Yes. In case you haven’t noticed, everyone in the stands, Oakland and San Francisco fans alike, are getting to their feet every time he comes to the plate. He gets a lot more love than you’re acknowledging here.
Barry Bonds is his own worst enemy. He was never ill-treated by the press til he started acting like the dick that he is. He’s been whining about the press from day one, even though most started out singing his praises way back when he was playing for Pittsburg. He started that war. He isn’t oppressed. He’s never known the kind of crap that Aaron and his father faced. You want to call it a vendetta, fine. But it isn’t because of the racism Barry continually plays.
On review, basically what sil said, except for the Giants thing, but he’s a Dodger fan and has no responsibility for the insane ramblings coming from his touched SoCal brain.
He is hard to deal with and he is an asshole. Roger Clemens almost beaned someone once in a World Series, and I’m still not sure he was trying to. Randy Johnson is an asshole to the press, but I don’t think anyone accuses him of being a bad teammate. Pete Rose didn’t need any help to make the accomplishments he made as a player; I don’t think he’s better liked than Bonds as a person or as a baseball entity, but I do think he’s more respected as a player because he did what he did solely by playing hard and dedicating himself to his sport.
However, I’ll be the last one to argue that the steroids hit all the home runs for him. You could juice me up all day long and I still wouldn’t be able to hit a baseball–but the same Barry using the same swing on the same pitch in 1992 might have gotten him a double, but in 2002 it would’ve been an upper deck home run. Conditioning can do a little bit in that area, but come on.
Sure, McGwire bulked up pretty suspiciously, but IIUC–and I concede I may not be–the stuff he was using was legal not only in MLB but in federal law at the time. I could be wrong, in which case I can’t refute this point. Keep in mind, though, that timing plays a factor. People were behind Sammy in 1998 just as much as Mark, even in St. Louis. Now, if you were to argue that Barry juiced himself up because he had to in order to keep up with the Joneses, and that his rising above the rest of the juicers is a testament to his great skill, and that it’s an unfortunate matter of timing that he was still playing and setting records when MLB really came down on the juice, well, I can’t disagree with you. But he’s testified that he used “the clear” and “the cream”, and come on, dude. Guilt is guilt. Is it unfortunate that one man is the pariah for a generation of shady ballplayers? Yeah, but he hasn’t exactly been making a case for exoneration, either.
The media came down hard on Sammy Sosa because he corked his bat. Cry me a fuckin’ river, dude. He still doesn’t have to work a single hour for the rest of his life.
Everyone has to toe the line. The media likes players who are friendly to the media, the fans like players who are friendly to the fans, the players like players who are friendly to the players, and nobody likes an asshat, no matter what their skin color.
I don’t ever defend institutionalized racism, and I’m not one to pull out the “you’re only saying that because the pariah is black” card, but it’s true in this case… Barry’s an asshole and people don’t like assholes, period. I doubt he’d get treated differently if he were white, green, yellow, brown, maroon, orange, Martian, Latvian, whatever.
Ever heard of Hank Aaron? Nobody doubts his records.
This is exactly what I was going to say, except for the part about the Giants. Fuck the OP (and others like him) for calling me a racist because I don’t like a lying, cheating asshole that just happens to be black.
It is not just that Bonds is black. It is that he is black and doesn’t act the way the media wants. White players who are assholes get cut breaks a black player never does.
Clemens is as big an asshole as Bonds, but he media just plays it as him being a good old boy from Texas.
Clemens is respectful to the media. The only one he is an asshole to is hitters. Bonds is a moody, rude, spoiled prima donna. And this from someone who still thinks he’s a truly all-time great hitter. Bonds is hated by the media because he treats them like his own personal mouthpiece. When it suits his purpose, he’s fine. When he doesn’t get the reaction he expected, he blames it on them… for what HE said.
Um. No. Clemens is plenty reviled. But I have the idea that no matter how many examples we throw up, you will refuse to look. You want to see something that’s not there, and refuse to acknowledge what is.
Barry’s a dick. He beat his wife, beat his mistress, brings his kid to press conferences to avoid getting drilled with difficult questions, manipulated the Giants FO, got other players traded…
…But he’s a saint, and we’re all just seeing what the press want us to see. Whatever.
Bullshit.
The media switched from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali as soon as he legally changed his name. A lot of buffoons on bar stools wouldn’t give it up (and spent hours bitching about the media for “giving in” to Ali’s name change) and at a time when tensions ran very high across the whole country in regards to the Vietnam War, the (pretty much right wing) organizers of professional boxing screwed with Ali over his conscentious objector claim, but aside from one or two isolated sports reporters, “the media” was not in the habit of giving Ali shit.
Bonds was a clubhouse malcontent before doping was an issue. If you claim that the media has treated John Rocker as “just a hothead” (as opposed to calling him an utter ass), then I will know that you are simply inventing everytihing you have posted here.
I think you probably need to step away from the keyboard and find out what you are talking about before you lose whatever smidgen of credibility you might have once had.
