So it looks like the baseball HOF will get Bond’s 756th HR ball. Assuming it will get some sort of special display - 2 questions:
What story SHOULD the ball tell?
What story WILL the ball tell?
Possible choices are
Barry Bonds is a jerk.
Bond took steroids (extra if the implication is that his records are tainted)
The baseball writers vendetta against Bonds
Many stars were accused of or admitted to taking steroids: Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, Sosa, Palmero, Gagne, Caminetti, Giambi, etc.
Simply, Bonds is the career homerun record holder.
Other
Should be 5 but it will probably be 2 seeing how Bonds now refuses to be inducted.
It should be the centerpiece of a “Steroids in Baseball” display, talking about the run-up to widespread steroid use, the investigation(s) and the Mitchell Report. Extra points for including the Clemens “He took it in the butt” newspaper front page.
But not in a judgmental way. Not saying “The dark days of baseball” or “baseball scandal” or “tainting the game” or anything. Just “this happened, it is a part of baseball history now, and to ignore it would be an unacceptable whitewash.”
I don’t know if you’ve ever been to the Hall of Fame, but the majority of it is a pretty straighforward museum that displays artifacts of baseball and tells you what theyare.
The ball will be displayed with a picture of Bonds hitting #756 and it’ll have some sort of sign that says “Here’s the ball Barry Bonds hit for his 756th career home run, setting a new record.” That’s all it will say and all it should say. Why would it say anything else?
The responsibility of the steroid era falls largely on the owners and commissioners. They have no status to question any records. They profited greatly and allowed it to go on until it became too obvious. Bonds and McGwire saved their asses.They are too stupid to see what they owe them apparently.
The story the ball will tell will be in the eye of the beholder, just like any other museum artifact. What’s different about this one?
The story isn’t the ball, or even Bonds, but yes, about the Steroid Era. Perhaps it could go next to Ruth’s 714th, representing the Caucasian Era. Maybe someday the Amphetamines Era will draw to a close as well.
Good then Giamatti,Vincent and Selig should get an asterisk iwhen they get in… They did nothing to stop a problem everybody was aware of. They did not do their jobs. The success of the times was due to steroids . They may well have saved the game. Bonds,Sosa and McGwire are due a thank you from baseball. Now they are being discarded.
Giamatti can hardly be blamed for a problem that was NOT apparent when he was commissioner - in fact, when he was in charge, home runs and offense were down a bit - and that he was dead before he could do anything about anyway. I can understand blaming Selig, but what the hell’s your beef with Giamatti? Why would you not also include Ueberroth while you’re at it?
As has been demonstrated again and again and again and again, using actual evidence, Major League Baseball has enjoyed almost thirty years of revenue growth now, the only exceptions being brief drawdowns after the strikes of 1981 and 1994. There is not the slightest trace of evidence that the home run records “Saved” baseball. Baseball was more successful in 1996 than in 1995, in 1997 than in 1996, and was already on its way to a better year in 1998 than in 1997 when it became apparent the record might be broken. Baseball revenues were going up and up and up in the late 70s and the 1980s and the early 1990s too, when no home run records were set and nobody was doing 'roids. Even if we assume that without steroids the home run records would not have been broken, the difference to MLB would be been minimal. MLB was not going to go away and isn’t now and will very likely be going strong when every member of this message board has died of old age.
You jest. Sosa and McGwire were the darlings of the press. Sosa and his cute little praying and kissing his medal. McGwire and his huge homeruns. Crap they cut away regular programming to show the homerun battle. No way you convince me they weren’t a huge piece of bringing baseball back.
Yes, they were. And three years before Cal Ripken Jr. had been the darling of the press and everyone said HE had saved baseball. 1997 - the year before the McGwire-Sosa chase - was the second best year for attendance in the history of baseball. And it was doing better in 1998 before the record got close. And it’s been doing even better the last few years. Baseball was clearly doing fine before Sosa-McGwire. Look up the attendance figure for 1997 if you don’t believe me.
Look, this is not debatable, it is fact. Baseball was doing better almost every year for decades until after the 1981 and 1994 strikes. Attendance was way down in 1995, and then it started climbing rapidly in 1996. It’s not a matter of opinion, it’s the plain truth; baseball is a hugely successful enterprise that makes oodles of money.
If you want to know WHY baseball is doing better, you’d be better off looking at luxurious, taxpayer-funded stadia, rather than roid-pumped sluggers. It’s not a coincidence that attendance spikes have followed new stadia. What was the first team to draw 4,000,000 fans in a season? What did they have at the time?
I don’t know how anyone can take baseball seriously anymore. The HOF ball will represent the steroid age of baseball, and the beginning of the decline of interest in the sport.
Why- he bought it, he could use it as a buttplug if he wanted to. If he wanted to draw a picture of Bonds with his cock in Aaron’s mouth on it that his right. Are you saying he’s a dick for desecrating a sacred peiece of history or some such?
He could have just turned it in to the Hall of Fame for display. But noooo, this guy has to make a spectacle out of it. And that’s OK. But doing it and then turning it over to the HoF? That’s a dick move. He could have boiled it and made it into soup if he wanted to destroy it, but the whole “I’m better than you” charade that he put on is ridiculous and embarrassing.
I’m thinking that I’m going to go to the Smithsonian this afternoon and chainsaw the Spirit of St. Louis. I’m sure that that’s OK with you, being as how it belongs to the public, and I’m a member of the public so I want to carve off my piece. Who cares, it’s just history, right?
That is a silly statement, IMHO. Baseball presents great sporting, day to day, drama, with and without artificial stimulants, as it has since the 1870s. As long as that stays the same, baseball will be all right.
Not the same thing at all because you don’t own it or anything there- this guy bought the ball from its legal owner. And not real history, sports history which isn’t close to the same thing- the declaration of independence and Babe Ruth’s first contract for instance aren’t even in the same discussion when it comes to historical significance.
And he abided by the voting of the public, who are the ones who go to the HOF anyway- this is what the people want to see when they see the ball there. Bonds called the guy an idiot, which says it all
