"Tank McNamara" weeps for... Barry Bonds???

Cafe Society
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Anybody seen this weeks “Tank McNamara” comics? Now, I’ve ALWAYS thought Jeff Millar had manure for brains, but this week, he hit a new low.

Seems he’s stumbled upon a horror that he feels needs correcting. Something terrible is happening in major league baseball that’s sending a DREADFUL message to our children. What is this atrocity?

Those mean old pitchers won’t give Barry Bonds any good, meaty pitches to hit out of the park!!!

Millar is SERIOUS, folks. He thinks it’s tragic. He thinks it’s immoral. He shows a little kid asking his Dad, “Dad, Barry Bonds is trying his best to hit the ball… why won’t they LET him hit it?”

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Of course, as long as he’s at it, I wonder why Millar doesn’t tackle some other horrors:

  1. Poor old Roberto Duran was trying his best to hit Sugar Ray Leonard, but that mean old Sugar kept bobbing, weaving, dancing, and ducking. He wouldn’t let poor Roberto hit him! THAT’S NOT FAIR! He should have stood there and let Roberto try to knock him out!

  2. Poor old Deion Sanders! He was trying his best to make interceptions and long punt returns- but whenever he was covering one side of the field, quarterbacks always threw the OTHER way! And punters kept kicking the ball AWAY from him! THAT’S NOT FAIR! Quarterbacks should have thrown RIGHT AT Deion, to give him a chance to make an interception. And punters should have made line drive kicks right to him, so he could score touchdowns!

  3. Oh, and what about that poor Michael Jordan? He was trying his best to score, but those mean coaches on the other team would double team him! THAT’S NOT FAIR! What kind of message does THAT send? Everyone should have laid off Michael, and let him score as much as he could, unmolested.

  4. Poor Kurt Warner! He tried to throw touchdown passes in the Super Bowl, but those mean Patriots dropped 8 men into pass coverage, and wouldn’t let him find any wide-open receivers. THAT’S CHEATING!

Okay, I could come up with a hundred more examples, but you get the idea. Since WHEN does a competitor in ANY sport have a moral obligation to make life easy for his opponents?

What’s Millar thinking, in any case? Does he expect Curt Schilling to read that strip and say, “Gosh, he’s right! I’ve been such a cad! Next time we play the Giants, I’m going to give Barry nothing but high fastballs right over the plate.”

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You say he’s really serious? There’s no chance that he was joking? I obviously haven’t seen the strip.

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Do you mean today’s comic?

Seems to me it’s a character complaining that Bonds isn’t getting good pitches, and he’s being made out to be pretty clueless, too.

Of course, this comic doesn’t make sense in other ways – commercials are scripted, generally, so if they want to show Bonds hitting one out of the park, they don’t have to wait for a pitcher to stop intentionally walking him.

On the other hand, I just looked at the comics for the two previous days, and they don’t make much sense either. So “Tank McNamara” may just be a particularly weird strip, or I could be completely missing the references. (Unless the whole week is a weird “nobody will pitch strikes to Barry Bonds, ever” comment, which makes no sense – I’m not the baseball fan I used to be, but I’m pretty sure Bonds has had hits in his career.)

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Not pitching to a batter is different than double teaming a basketball player, or putting a shift on a hitter.

The pitcher is really just giving up. Sort of like saying, you’re so good, and we’re so afraid that you might hit a homerun, we’re not even going to let you try to hit the ball. Please just take the base.

That’s not a trick, a new defense, or a clever plan. Cowardly, but I guess it works.

And as previously stated, it’s Millar’s character that is complaining. The OP almost reads as if Bonds is complaining.

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I hate that when it goes to can’t find page, but sort of posts anyway!