Race & Racism & Sports Posted by Oaktown Girl, 09 Aug 2007 03:42 am

Performance-Enhanced Hypocrisy: Barry Bonds and the Mirror of Society

By Michael Bérubé

Well, I’ve been meaning for weeks to write something about Barry Bonds and steroids and sports, to follow up on Bill Benzon’s work. I remember Bill asking me whether Tiger Woods’ Lasik surgery should be considered a form of performance enhancement, and I replied that laser vision is useful mainly for putting and chipping, not for the rest of the game; when Bill asked how much of the game consists of putting and chipping, I said, “uh, most of it.” But right around then, Tiger went and lost the U.S. Open to Angel Cabrera, and he lost it on the greens while Cabrera boomed out these ungodly long drives. I believe Cabrera had the longest driving-distance average for the week, and long drivers never win the Open. (It requires more precision than long drivers usually possess.) So go figure. And then, of course, there’s the fact that Cabrera smoked cigarettes on the course throughout the tournament. Unheard of! Don’t tell me nicotine isn’t a performance enhancer. . . .

Anyway, within a few weeks, Lance Armstrong had publicly defended Floyd Landis, tossing in the claim that some hockey players are juiced; Gary Player showed up at the British Open and claimed that ten (unnamed) golfers are steroid users; and before I knew it, the issue of steroids in sports had gone way beyond my ability or my desire to deal with it. (Just for the record, though, I am typing this post without the aid of caffeine, my daily performance enhancer. I wanted to be “clean” just this once.) So here’s all I have to say about Barry Bonds today:

One of the most revolting things about this spectacle is that it allows a certain kind of white guy the opportunity to profess his undying, if retroactive, admiration for Hank Aaron, regardless of how said white guy actually felt about Hank Aaron 33 years ago. Now, I’m not saying that Aaron doesn’t deserve our undying admiration. He damn well does. But for all I know, some of the same people who were fuming about Aaron surpassing Ruth in 1974– hell, maybe some of the people who were threatening Aaron and his family– are now pretending to be outraged at Bonds on Aaron’s behalf. Feh. What a truly disgusting scene that was when Aaron was chasing the record; no one can blame Aaron for not wanting to relive those years. And how very stupid of Babe Ruth’s racist supporters, as well, since everyone knows the Babe was black.

And then we have the secondarily disgusting spectacle of the ghoulish Bud Selig, who, having colluded with other MLB owners in the great Free Agent Collusion Scandal of yesteryear, is now posing as a beacon of integrity and rectitude in fallen times. Feh and feh again, I say.

At least one thing remains clear, however: the record for career home runs by a white guy is still owned by Harmon Killebrew. I don’t recognize that drug-bloated McGwire fellow as a legitimate wearer of the crown.

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Responses to “Performance-Enhanced Hypocrisy: Barry Bonds and the Mirror of Society”

  1. on 09 Aug 2007 at 4:22 am 1. Bill Benzon said …

    I don’t really know what I think about steroid use, ultimately, Michael. Ultimately ultimately there are those who think we can cheat death by enhancing and reconstructing our bodies and, when that all fails, downloading and uplinking our minds into computers. That, I’m sure, is moral foolishness, albeit of an ordinary human frailty sort. And I figure steroid enhanced athletics is somewhere on the road to that, but just where and what matters, that I’m not at all sure of. For one thing, there are technical issues here (about what the drugs actually do, how effective they are, or are not, harmfullness, etc.) that I’m not up on and won’t be, because I don’t have the time or the background.

    Whatever.

    But steroid use does seem to be one of those “between the cracks” issues that makes us squirley. And those issues always seem to get magnified by race.

    There’s some really interesting reading on Bonds & steroids & sports at the blog of one Art De Vany, an economist retired from U Cal San Diego who’s written a terrific book on Hollywood Economics (which I’ve reviewed at Amazon.com), likes riding motorcycles, and is heavily into what he calls evolutionary fitness — diet and exercise informed by evolutionary psychology. He thinks Bonds may go on to hit 800, maybe even 900 homers. Here’s a bit of what he says:

    Barry Bonds occupies a unique spot in the history of baseball. He holds the record for most home runs in a year (73 in 2001) and most total home runs (755 and soon to go higher). This is a crowning achievement.

    For those who think it is steroids, get real. Read my paper and have a look at this smart comment from a reader of my paper (I lightly edited it):

    Your article supports my rationale that every gym in America has big strong guys but they can’t hit a baseball. Steroids may add to one’s physical fitness but not to the batting eye or the swing technique. Further, in all the ruckus, no one points out that Aaron was admittedly fed pitches by some pitchers, whereas, Bonds is walked an absurd number of times.

  2. on 09 Aug 2007 at 8:20 am 2. JP Stormcrow said …

    I think you’re safe on Harmon Killebrew, as the Idaho-born former player is surely a candidate for “whitest man in America”. Of course he played right in the heart of the greenie era, but Killebrew may be a candidate for someone who stayed “clean”:

    Asked once what he liked to do for fun, Killebrew replied, “Well, I like to wash dishes, I guess.” Killebrew was baptized a member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints in 1968.

    After he retired, he was in business for a time with a former LDS Democratic congressman from Idaho, Ralph Harding who sounds like an interesting guy.

    During his tenure in the U.S. House of Representatives in a floor speech in 1963, he blasted then-LDS Church apostle Ezra Taft Benson for his support of the John Birch Society.

    Killebrew now runs a charitable foundation, and has a side gig in a Terry Bradshaw tribute band.

  3. on 09 Aug 2007 at 9:28 am 3. Kiera PSI said …

    You know, I really don’t care about the enhancement part of the steroid issue (probably because sports records have never particularly impressed me). Use of steroids gives you all sorts of health problems including an exponentially increased risk of cancer, virility issues, hair loss, etc., and will kill you if you take enough of them over a long enough period. I think that’s punishment enough for “cheating”.

    What bothers me about Mr. Bonds is that the man is an asshole. He’s rude, he’s condescending, he’s anti-social, and he’s beyond arrogant. It’s also reported that steroid use negatively affects your personality. I hope that’s the case here, because if he was that way naturally, I’d have to blame whoever raised him.

    Note: I also have issues with Mark Maguire, and for the same reasons that I have issues with Barry Bonds. My disparagement is color blind, both skin and team jersey.

  4. on 09 Aug 2007 at 9:47 am 4. Seattle said …

    I’m amused because I was driving to work this morning and I heard a lasik surgery ad on the radio with Tiger Woods doing a testimonial about how he hadn’t had to wear glasses or contacts for 7 years and how he now had 20/20 vision. And into my head pops that factoid that he actually had his vision corrected to better than 20/20 and truth in advertising doubt crept into my little brain.

    I don’t follow sports, but I do understand that a professional wrestler who chronically used steroids committed a double homicide/suicide recently. Not necessarily a one-off issue either.

  5. on 09 Aug 2007 at 12:06 pm 5. JP Stormcrow said …

    since everyone knows the Babe was black.

    Ok. Now since Josh Gibson was the Black Babe Ruth, does that mean that Babe Ruth was actually the Black Josh Gibson?

    The following is from He Got Game, where the father (Denzel Washington) explains to his son why he named him Jesus.

    [on Earl Monroe] Jesus. That’s what they called him– Jesus. ‘Cause he was the truth.
    Then the white media got a hold of it. Then they got to call him Black Jesus.
    He can’t just be Jesus. He got to be Black Jesus.
    You know, but still… he was the truth.
    So that’s the real reason why you got your name.

  6. on 09 Aug 2007 at 12:31 pm 6. James Killus said …

    Oh dear, I find it necessary to remind Kiera that unless she actually knows Barry Bonds personally, then all she (and I) have to go on to form a personal opinion of the man is what has been written about him, quoted from him, and his appearances at various media events, all of which are subject to substantial manipulation by the same people who have decided that whomping up a good steriod scandal is good business.

    I have said most of what I would want to say about “performance enhancing drugs” (or other artifices), here:

    Koufax

    I note that, for example, Sandy Koufax would not have had the last several years of his career without a different kind of steroid (cortisone), but since that helped him to “play hurt,” and thereby cause his body even more damage, that was in keeping with the American Sports Narrative.

    I did not note in that essay, though I will here, that if there were actually a drug that would allow an ordinary shlub to become a sports superstar there isn’t a sportswriter in the country who would not murder his mother to obtain and use it.

    I recall an I. F. Stone essay, quoting Walter Lippman, I believe, which noted that “every knock is a boost,” and when moralizers gobble publicity by the tut tut, they are, in fact, promoting the behavior that they claim to decry, which suits their purposes, of course, since without that behavior they would have nothing to preach against.

    I had a conversation with a bicyclist a few weeks ago, who had argued himself around to the opinion that Lance Armstrong juicing was just “leveling the playing field,” but Barry Bonds was cheating and a disgrace to the sport. To his credit, with some prodding, he did admit that the positions were somewhat inconsistent, and it was at least possible that race had a little to do with it. For my own part, quoting Jon Stewart, Armstrong had cancer of the balls and then went on to win the Tour de France seven consecutive times; I don’t care if he did it with a rocket up his ass.

    The number of baseball players who have used steroids is beyond counting (rather like the number of them who are assholes, in fact), but there is only one Barry Bonds, he’s on the team just across the Bay, and he’s my guy. I don’t care if he’s playing with a rocket up his ass, and his critics can go pound sand.

  7. on 09 Aug 2007 at 1:05 pm 7. Seattle said …

    LOL Gee, James, don’t hold back there-tell us what you REALLY think… : )

  8. on 09 Aug 2007 at 1:15 pm 8. JP Stormcrow said …

    I have not followed Bonds that closely since he left the ‘burgh. However, I will also say that I am leery of his media reputation. I am quite prepared to believe that he is an all-time jerk, but the evidence while he was here was somewhat mixed - and from what I saw he did not stand out on the celeb/sports star scale. For instance there was a fair bit of understated tension between him and Andy Van Slyke (One report said that calling one another off of fly balls was about the total extent of their conversation.) However, Van Slyke usually came off much better in the media (save for one time when he remarked that he liked the freeway belt system around St. Louis better than the roads in Pittsburgh - big mistake.) - but Van Slyke had plenty of his own edge.

    Barry is/was certainly a ligthning rod.

  9. on 09 Aug 2007 at 1:28 pm 9. JP Stormcrow said …

    Oops meant to link to this story from USA Today in 2001 which has a number of players/coaches etc. Talking about Bonds. We asked those who have seen him close-up for their lasting impressions of Bonds, for what sticks in their minds when his name is mentioned.
    Take it ALL with a grain of salt.

    But I will absolutely say that there is a complicated racial element that often comes into play. (Complicated because it is not … well black and white about black and white, but rather involves an intricate interplay of expectations and roles - willingness to kowtow to the media being a big part of it.) One of the more depressing instances was seeing the reactions (some overt, but mostly subtle) of many in Northeast Ohio to Frank Robinson’s groundbreaking stint as the Indians’ manager. Really sad stuff. … and Jim Brown before that was yet a whole ‘nother story.

  10. on 09 Aug 2007 at 1:53 pm 10. Oaktown Girl said …

    James - I’m glad you pressed that cyclist to dig a little deeper into what might really have been shaping his/her strong opinion on Lance vs. Barry.

    Normally, I’d agree about the danger of forming opinions about people we don’t personally know. But in this case, I’d say Kiera’s right because there is one other way we can form an opinion about someone we’ve never met personally: by the accounts from people who have. Now to be sure, no one’s an asshole jerk all the time, this we know. But based on several (and I do mean several) personal accounts I’ve heard from people who have had the distinct (dis)pleasure of having worked with or otherwise encountered him, Mr. Bonds weighs inordinately heavy on the jerk side.

    The common theme from all the stories I’ve heard is not just that he’s rude and inconsiderate, it’s that he goes out of his way to do so. The exception being his hospital visits, for which I’ve heard glowing reviews. But it’s easy to be nice to a sick kid and their family in a hospital, isn’t it?

    None of this, of course, has anything whatsoever to do with the hypocrisy of Bud Selig, Hank Aaron’s suddenly New Biggest Fans, and the other Barry Bashers who are oddly selective about whom they wag their fingers at. (And I say “oddly” with a huge tongue in cheek).

  11. on 09 Aug 2007 at 2:02 pm 11. Kiera PSI said …

    Sorry, James…it’s the psychic talking. I saw him up close and personal once…anger, annoyance, resentment (guess of the fans that were taking up his time), and a feeling of “these people are nothing” washed over me. If I recall correctly, it was at the Turtle Bay Hilton. I forget what he was doing there…I don’t think it was any organized event, at least not one at which he was scheduled to “appear”. It was the “these people are nothing” and his snotty expression that really stuck in my craw. I understood the resentment and annoyance since he wasn’t making a professional appearance.

    JP, read the link. Interesting that Jason Giambi hooked up with, admired, and liked both Barry Bonds and Mark Maguire. I forgot to include Jason in the probably “steroid induced asshole” rant.

  12. on 09 Aug 2007 at 2:28 pm 12. Seattle said …

    “I understood the resentment and annoyance since he wasn’t making a professional appearance.”

    Fame: it’s a 24×7 job. Comes with the multi-million dollar contracts. No sympathy.

  13. on 09 Aug 2007 at 2:31 pm 13. JP Stormcrow said …

    Another recent “only her personal trainer knows for sure” story has been Dara Torres coming back and winning swinmming Nationals at age 40. (We need spyder back - he undoubtedly has some insider story.)

    Ogged at Unfogged has an opinion:
    Dara Torres is a cheater. I have no proof.

    Further discussion there. As well as 300+ comments on everyone’s favorite Bondsman. (Well, maybe not Ogged’s favorite: Thanks for nothing, buses, sharks, lightening bolts, and other potentially quick and fatal means of putting an end to the ignominious endeavors of one Barry Bonds.)

  14. on 09 Aug 2007 at 3:10 pm 14. christian h. said …

    Hey comrades, just putting my blogging head above water for a couple minutes on some insanely pricey Norwegian internet connection before I go for that ultimate performance enhancer: sleep. I went with coffee for a week, but I’ll stop setting a bad example for young mathematicians right now! Honest!
    I agree with Michael and Oaktown Girl and everyone on the Bonds issue, Selig’s and the other owners’ hypocrisy, and the sudden champions of Hank Aaron.
    As for the general question: how should this be handled outside sports? For me, the main point isn’t that a game might become tarnished - whatever. It’s that the use of these things by a critical mass of participants, which can be fairly small, forces everyone else who wants to play to do so, too - cycling being a good example - even if it’s dangerous.

    And that kind of thing could easily spread to more mundane jobs (in many ways, of course, it already has - people working hurt or sick because they need the pay, or fear being fired is only one example).
    [Edit: spelling corrected, I hope. Clearly, I need to enhance performance - so good night to everyone.]

  15. on 09 Aug 2007 at 3:20 pm 15. JRoth said …

    A couple things:

    The asshole issue is unimportant to me, but it does bug me that people wave it off as racism/sportswriter myth. Greg Anderson, who has spent years of his life in jail to protect Barry, portrays him as a staggering asshole to his friends. I view that as pretty convincing. But it doesn’t change how I feel about his play, or his cheating.

    As for the Lance vs. Barry issue, I’m a big cycling fan myself, and a year or so ago I wrote a post about my very different feelings towards them. It came down, largely, to a belief that Lance was clean, even though I considered the possibility that he wasn’t. Well, after this year’s Tour, I no longer believe that Lance was clean, and I don’t ever want to hear from him again. So at least for myself, I’m pretty consistent: No cheating.

  16. on 09 Aug 2007 at 4:11 pm 16. Seattle said …

    These guys/gals are victims of their own competitive drive to win. If they chose not to cheat, a little voice in the back of their competitive heads tells them they’ll loose out to those who do. Maybe we should just set up a new league: The Chemically Enhanced League.

  17. on 09 Aug 2007 at 5:03 pm 17. Bill Benzon said …

    It’s that the use of these things by a critical mass of participants, which can be fairly small, forces everyone else who wants to play to do so, too - cycling being a good example - even if it’s dangerous.>

    Yes, I find this bothersome. It’s one thing if you out-perform through more rigorous training and diet and even more risk-taking on the field of play. But if it’s a matter of being more willing to chemicalize, well, there you forcing a certain kind of choice on others and that’s bothersime.

  18. on 09 Aug 2007 at 5:11 pm 18. JRoth said …

    But if it’s a matter of being more willing to chemicalize, well, there you forcing a certain kind of choice on others and that’s bothersime.

    This is exactly my problem, as well. At least in a game like baseball, a talented, clean team can beat a largely-juiced team often enough. In cycling, if more than a few others are juicing, a clean rider doesn’t stand a chance - the benefits of juicing are so much more directly related to the critical matter at hand (racing up a fucking mountain without one’s legs falling off).

    What makes it especially pernicious is that some truly gruesome juicing options are out there - stuff that makes steroids look like No-Doz. It’s one thing to trade off long-term health for short-term success; it’s quite another to risk short-term death for short-term success.

  19. on 09 Aug 2007 at 5:29 pm 19. Oaktown Girl said …

    It’s equally true that Bonds is not a very likable sports figure in most people’s opinion AND there’s racism involved in the bashing of him.

    The asshole issue is unimportant to me, but it does bug me that people wave it off as racism/sportswriter myth.

    JRoth - if what you are saying here is that some people are dismissing accusations of Bonds being a jerk as purely racism, I don’t know anyone who’s doing that.

    There is no doubt that Bonds does take more flack for being moody (and sometimes an outright jerk) than White moody and (sometimes outright jerk) players do. There’s a huge double-standard on the amount and severity of media attention and general public attitudes toward White athletes compared to Black ones. No doubt about it.

    Say, who’s this “christian h.” fellow that’s suddenly appeared acting like he’s a familiar around here?

  20. on 09 Aug 2007 at 5:41 pm 20. James Killus said …

    “Fame: it’s a 24×7 job. Comes with the multi-million dollar contracts. No sympathy.”

    I once saw an interview with Julia Roberts where she noted her reaction to the argument, “Well, it goes with the territory. She wanted success and this is the price.” Her response was, basically, “No, that’s not right. Unless you’ve experienced it at this level, you can’t possibly know, so you can’t possibly make that choice.”

    My point on the Bonds/media thing is not that it is some sort of racism/sportswriter myth, but rather that I have no way to tell how much of it is a myth, how much of it is real, and how much of it is a reaction to all the other stuff, including the racism and having to deal with sportswriters. Maybe Bonds is intrinsically an asshole and would be even worse if he weren’t successful.

    The other point is that none of it is my business.

    Bonds is first of all, an entertainer. That’s where the bucks are. He’s good at it, by the only measure of the industry: he puts fannies into seats and eyeballs on the tube. He is, second of all, an athlete, specifically a baseball player. He’s good at that too.

    I don’t do much sports spectating, but so what? One roots for the local team or one you have some sort of affinity for, otherwise, why bother at all? It’s part of “community.” Or you follow a sport or team or player for some sort of aesthetic/philosophical reason, which is why I sometimes watch boxing matches. I rarely watch baseball, but Bonds has made it interesting. Would it be as interesting if Bonds were a “nice guy” who didn’t have people going after him because they hated his guts? Would we even be having this conversation? Was Sandy Koufax cheating?

    I know amazing writers who are total assholes personally; I don’t refuse to read their work. I know some lovely people whose work I find unreadable; I try not to tell them.

    And by the way, one of the things about lance Armstrong is that, after the chemotherapy, he lost a good part of his body mass, and what he put back was what was needed for bike riding, and not what wasn’t needed. So his body was “unnatural”–and better suited for uphill climbs. As for EPO, there is no doubt at all that he took it; it’s a standard treatment for anemia due to chemotherapy. The only question is whether or not he ever stopped. But that’s not a question I bother to ask. If there is a clean cyclist who might have had a chance at a win sans Armstrong, maybe he has a beef. But the rest of us can take EPO until our blood turns to sludge and we’ll never even finish the Tour de France.

  21. on 09 Aug 2007 at 5:50 pm 21. JRoth said …

    Well, OK, let me be clear on this: of course some of those who dislike Bonds and complain loudly about him are racists. Some of those who do anything in America are racists. My point is that the presence of racism shouldn’t be used to diminish the assholishness of someone who appears to be, to all evidence, a world-class asshole. In every discussion of this topic, someone pops up saying that we don’t really know what he’s like, we just get the spin from the sports press which is mad that he doesn’t kiss their asses (sometimes you even get a friendly little “shuffle” reference at this point). Well, it may be true that we can’t precisely calibrate his assholishness compared to his peers, but we know as well as we know anything about public figures that he’s a bigger asshole than anyone we’d like to know. That’s enough for me.

    Also, I totally agree that “moody” black players fare worse in the public eye than their “moody” white peers. But moodiness is not what describes Mr. Bonds.

    Why do I even talk about this issue, when I said before that I don’t care much about it? Because it’s part of this whole smokescreen that surrounds Bonds. It’s like how, to this very day, you still get people claiming that baseball had no steroids policy before 2002. Well, they were explicitly banned in 1991. I know there was no testing, and that there was blind eye-turning. But I have seen dozens of arguments predicated on “he’s not a cheater, because it wasn’t against the rules.” I was furious when I realized how long I’d been bamboozled on that point. Know the facts and discuss them, or don’t talk about the subject. And don’t dare try to take the anti-racist, anti-moralistic high ground when you don’t know the facts. (not you, Oaktown Girl - I’m talking about the comments I see on this subject all over the place)

  22. on 09 Aug 2007 at 5:54 pm 22. JRoth said …

    one of the things about lance Armstrong is that, after the chemotherapy, he lost a good part of his body mass, and what he put back was what was needed for bike riding, and not what wasn’t needed. So his body was “unnatural”–and better suited for uphill climbs.

    This was precisely the centerpiece of my argument in the post I linked before. But it doesn’t change the fact that I’m certain he used PEDs in his 7 victories, and that I’m not happy about that. I know that he (probably) couldn’t have beaten a juiced-up Ullrich without juicing himself. But I wish he’d tried. Hell, I wish he’d used his status to blow apart the doping in the sport, so that this year’s farce wouldn’t have taken place (I have hopes - perhaps delusional - that this year marks a turning point; we’ll see).

  23. on 09 Aug 2007 at 6:18 pm 23. Oaktown Girl said …

    I know amazing writers who are total assholes personally; I don’t refuse to read their work.

    The difference is that athletes, especially today, have far more forced interaction with their fans than someone like a writer does. It’s very much a part of the job. In many sports, fans can get very close to the athletes before the game while they are warming up and get autographs and chat with them. Athletes are interviewed on TV and radio before and after every game, they’re not limited to occasional Conventions or professional gatherings. So fans do feel like they kind of “know” these players, and to a certain extent, they are right.

    There’s also fan-interaction time that’s mandated by the teams, even beyond the pre and post game interviews: fan day gatherings, booster club events, and charity events just to name a few. There’s a much larger personality factor at stake for athletes (and team owners) today than for other high-profile or famous people, even more so than actors.

  24. on 09 Aug 2007 at 6:21 pm 24. Oaktown Girl said …

    By the way… (from James up at #6):

    For my own part, quoting Jon Stewart, Armstrong had cancer of the balls and then went on to win the Tour de France seven consecutive times; I don’t care if he did it with a rocket up his ass.

    Does anyone else wonder if maybe Lance got “cancer of the balls” because of the cycling?

  25. on 09 Aug 2007 at 8:19 pm 25. Bill Benzon said …

    No, it was the rocket up his ass that did it.

  26. on 09 Aug 2007 at 9:34 pm 26. James Killus said …

    Hell, I’m willing to go much farther. I’m entirely willing to concede that my defence of Bonds is a product of my own racist leanings. Race matters and (for complex reasons, because these sorts of things tend to be complex) I will tend to take the side of an African-American (or, more accurately, the descendents of former Southern slaves) in these sorts of arguments.

    But “interaction with their fans?” Bonds “interacts” plenty. So some people have a problem with that “interaction.” Well, obviously that’s true, but he sells tickets. He generates passion. He has us all talking about him. How is that not doing his job?

    As for the “it was against the rules” argument, when they kick Don Drysdale out of the Hall of Fame for throwing spitters, maybe I’ll get concerned. The basic rule, ever since Ty Cobb filed his spikes to draw blood, is “Don’t get caught.”

    And, ultimately, none of these arguments have anything to do with the actual question of whether performance enhancing medical techniques belong in sports. This is all just a “good drugs/bad drugs” kind of argument. Ruth drank during Prohibition and Strawberry got suspended for cocaine. Conseco tells of doing steroids, and Drysdale copped to the spitters, both to sell books. And Bonds (to a high probability) took a steroid that couldn’t be detected by the tests of the time. Why the hell should I care about any of this? Because somebody else disapproves? Yeah, that always looms so large in my calculations.

    I’m pretty sure that rockets up the ass only cause hemorrhoids, though.

  27. on 09 Aug 2007 at 10:18 pm 27. Oaktown Girl said …

    Bonds “interacts” plenty. So some people have a problem with that “interaction.” Well, obviously that’s true, but he sells tickets. He generates passion. He has us all talking about him. How is that not doing his job?

    James - if you’re referring to my comment in #23, I never said, nor did I imply, that Barry Bonds is not doing his job. I was simply laying out all the myriad ways that pro athletes in the major sports, esp. sports that play multiple games per week such as baseball and basketball, are forced to be far more exposed to their fans than other high profile folks, such as the “writer” example you gave.

    And to explore it further, it has to be acknowledged that big money sports today is completely tied in with fans needing to actually like most of the players, or at least not decide that they are assholes or jerks. Sports fandom is emotional by definition. And for most fans, they don’t just like their “team”, they like their “guys” on that team, or at least they’d like to. It’s always been that way. And while the money for the players is a hell of a lot better today than in the past, there’s also a much higher cost in terms of media scrutiny. Actual game ticket sales are just a small piece of a much larger revenue pie that is merchandising, advertising, partnerships and tie-ins with other businesses, and all kinds of crap.

    I contrast this again with the “writer” example. A lot of writers (and most artists, I believe) actually have their fan appeal increased if they are reclusive or eccentric in some way - including being outright rude. I’m quite sure a lot of pro athletes are jealous about that.

  28. on 10 Aug 2007 at 7:56 am 28. Sven DiMilo said …

    I rarely watch baseball, but Bonds has made it interesting.

    Huh. I would say exactly the opposite: I love to watch baseball, I do so whenever I can, but I find the whole Bonds “issue” a giant yawner.
    I am a real-time baseball fan–I have no head full of stats, and even though I watched all World Series games for the past 3 decades probably, I have a hard time remembering who played–even who won–3 years ago. And here’s my point: to a real-time baseball fan–one who enjoys the game itself–the home run is just about the most boring thing that can happen (usually…I should say instead that the excitement of a home run is entirely context-specific). When I am watching a game, I would much rather see a stolen base, a triple, a beat-out bunt, a nice catch in the outfield, a double play, even a sacrifice fly than a home run, almost every time. TV “highlights” of baseball games consist largely of solo dingers…BORING. And therefore I find home run records the most boring of records.

    And Ty Cobb was apparently a real dick (remember that great line from Field of Dreams), but the guy could hit, run, catch, and throw, and may have been the greatest ever to play the game. They can’t all be Orel Hershisers, thank Gojira.

  29. on 10 Aug 2007 at 9:54 am 29. Oaktown Girl said …

    Sven - I’m exactly the same kind of baseball fan you are, and we’re not alone. But, you know, the radio and TV sports media say we don’t exist. We’re all just a bunch of home run morons. They say that’s the only thing that gets us (fans) excited. And women get the bonus condescending insult with that oft-repeated sexist line, “Chicks love the long ball”. Gah!

    Most exciting game I’ve ever seen in person was a 1-0 A’s victory over the Red Sox that the A’s won on a suicide squeeze. But never mind that, because…
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    Chicks love the long ball.

  30. on 10 Aug 2007 at 10:17 am 30. James Killus said …

    Sven, what I find interesting about Bonds’ effect on the game is not the solo homers, it’s the surrounding effects. Pitchers routinely pitch around Bonds even when it is not particularly advantageous to do so. Lately the Giants have played some energized baseball and won plenty of games even when Bonds goes hitless. Does the media attention play a part in that? I rather suspect it does, and I find that interesting.

    But again, we don’t have to go by personal opinion here: the recent Giants games have been sellouts; does anyone want to argue that it isn’t due to Bonds? And I’ll find it interesting to see whether or not the enthusiasm continues now that Bonds has the record. After all, every game he’s in has the potential of another broken record; it will just be his own record he’s breaking. On the other hand, attention fatigue is real.

    Oaktown Girl, I’m guessing that you don’t have much experience with science fiction fandom or conventions. Writers’ personalities loom very large in the scheme of things in that microcosm. But the celebrity writer is certainly a fixture in our society. One of the features of Joe Eszterhas’ career was that he created the role of celebrity screenwriter (Rod Serling was an avatar, but he was also a TV host). More people have seen Stephen King on television than have read his books, and he’s sold a lot of books. The talk show circuit sells books, not the other way around. In any case, I was using writers as an example because I know more celebrity (more like semi-celebrity, actually) writers than other sorts. But really I can’t think of many celebrity professions where “nice” is that high on the job specs.

    Contrariwise, the “bad boy” sports star is so ordinary as to really need no comment. Part of the genius of pro wrestling was to make that role intrinsic to the spectacle.

    But mostly what I’m getting here is the various ways that people stake out their own moral high ground. For some, it’s not the steroids scandal, it’s that Bonds is an asshole. Sven complains that home runs are boring. JRoth says about Armstrong: “I know that he (probably) couldn’t have beaten a juiced-up Ullrich without juicing himself. But I wish he’d tried. Hell, I wish he’d used his status to blow apart the doping in the sport…” To which my immediate response is, yeah, because losing conveys so much authority in the sports world. Spare me.

    I don’t have to be taking the “anti-moralistic high ground” to find all this questionable. All I have to do is to try to appreciate the institution of American Spectator Sports for what it is, not what I’d like it to be. In fact, I’ll stipulate that this is my method for staking out my own patch of moral high ground.

    American Spectator Sports glorify winning, period. Players are lauded for “playing hurt,” for damaging their bodies for the amusement of others. Playing fast and loose with the rules is part of the process, and even getting caught at it isn’t that bad. If you do it right, you’ll be forgiven, and “the comeback” is even more uplifting, although the “fatal flaw leading to his downfall,” is also very big.

    If that sounds a lot like American politics, or even American life, it damn well should. But it demands an answer to the question of how much something like the Bonds saga is a substitute for other, more important frustrations (rather like the Clinton blow jobs, isn’t it?). I suspect that real full-steam-ahead racists know how their opinion of Barry Bonds fits into their political worldview. The question is, do the rest of us have even that degree of self-awareness?

  31. on 10 Aug 2007 at 11:09 am 31. Oaktown Girl said …

    James, what I was saying is that writers and actors and such don’t have their daily work performance scrutinized 5 or 6 times per week as baseball players do. I understand that fandom is intense in SciFi writing, but while writers are writing their books and actors are shooting their movies, they’re not subject to pre and post writing/acting interviews day to day, and their actual writing/acting process isn’t televised. Further, that day to day working process is not then replayed on SportsCenter as well as the local sports shows, and also broken down in depth down to the most minute of details on sports talk radio. It’s a huge difference. That’s the distinction I was trying to make.

    Sven clarified his statement (and I agreed) that that home runs aren’t inherently exciting in and of themselves. It’s about the context.

  32. on 10 Aug 2007 at 11:30 am 32. Kiera PSI said …

    My favorite part of baseball is the really close plays. Home runs don’t do it for me, unless it’s the bottom of the 9th, the home team is behind by 3, and the fans are ready to write the game off…and someone hits a bases loaded home run, unexpectedly winning the game. Now THAT does it for me.

  33. on 10 Aug 2007 at 12:14 pm 33. Sven DiMilo said …

    I was watching an excellent HBO documentary on the ol’ Brooklyn Dodgers the other day, and they noted in passing that the centerfield wall at the NY Giants’ Polo Grounds was almost 500 feet from the plate! We need more parks like that.

  34. on 10 Aug 2007 at 1:22 pm 34. James Killus said …

    Oaktown Girl, it all depends upon the level of celebrity. Some professional athletes make the front page, some make headlines in the sports section, and some are never quoted or interviewed during their entire career.

    My point here is that this isn’t a baseball vs writing thing, this is a celebrity vs non-celebrity thing. Some sports are public performances; some much less so. Public performances are more likely to create celebrities, but there are other routes.

    Muhammad Ali was, at one time, possibly the most famous person on Earth. But it certainly wasn’t because he had a match every day. And at the time Ali was that famous, other contenders for the title “most famous” were Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Richard Nixon, and Elvis Presley.

    And part of why I find that Bonds has made baseball more interesting is that I am more interested in the phenomenon of celebrity than I am in the phenomenon of Major League Baseball.

  35. on 10 Aug 2007 at 1:27 pm 35. JP Stormcrow said …

    My biggest concern in the whole drug/doping/growth hormone/etc. thing is the degree to which it is filtering down to teens and pre-teens. Even 25 years ago a friend worked for a while in a lab that was doing trials on growth hormone stuff (IIRC) and he said there were parades of people with kids at say 25-percentile height, whose parents were bound determined to find a way to give them a boost - and a lot of not even sports-related.

    You know it’s like sports reflects society through some mechanism, like a flat, shiny surface or something.
    Maybe the next post in the series will be Barry Bonds and the Deathly Elusive Hall of Fame.

  36. on 10 Aug 2007 at 1:52 pm 36. Bill Benzon said …

    Tour de Farce

  37. on 10 Aug 2007 at 1:55 pm 37. Bill Benzon said …

    There’s a run of sports posts over at anthroplogy blog Savage Minds, including some on Bonds & drugs. That’s where I got the Tour de Farce link.

  38. on 10 Aug 2007 at 1:57 pm 38. James Killus said …

    JP, as I note in my previously mentioned essay, if influencing children is the problem, who is more to blame, athletes who wish to keep their drug use secret, or those putting up banner headlines? I also feel ratherly harshly toward those who talk as if the various performance enhancers are a free ride, rather than something that requires substantial training to use to an advantage. Anabolic steroids without weight training are almost useless for sports.

    And the HGH-by-parental-insistance is only a mild taste of what we’ll get if real designer genetics arrives.

    Ah, and one more point to address before I bow out of this. JRoth said:

    to this very day, you still get people claiming that baseball had no steroids policy before 2002. Well, they were explicitly banned in 1991. I know there was no testing, and that there was blind eye-turning. But I have seen dozens of arguments predicated on “he’s not a cheater, because it wasn’t against the rules.” I was furious when I realized how long I’d been bamboozled on that point. Know the facts and discuss them, or don’t talk about the subject. And don’t dare try to take the anti-racist, anti-moralistic high ground when you don’t know the facts.

    One might read this and get the impression that baseball banned steroids in 1991. In fact, the original statement is correct; baseball had no official steroids policy before 2002. In 1990, the U.S. made anabolic steroids a Schedule III Substance under the Controlled Substances Act, which meant that they became illegal without a prescription. They remain legal in some countries to this day.

    Or at least so says every reference that I can find. I would be interested in where JRoth gets his facts, if his differ from what I’ve cited. It’s true that Major League Baseball has long had a policy of “no illegal drugs,” but that is a mighty broad umbrella, since it also shades Babe Ruth.

  39. on 10 Aug 2007 at 3:30 pm 39. Oaktown Girl said …

    My point here is that this isn’t a baseball vs writing thing, this is a celebrity vs non-celebrity thing.

    Well, I guess we’re talking about different things, then. I thought we were talking about contrasting the importance of the “likability” factor in various high profile professions, and how differing types and frequency of media scrutiny impact that.

  40. on 10 Aug 2007 at 10:40 pm 40. JRoth said …

    One might read this and get the impression that baseball banned steroids in 1991. In fact, the original statement is correct; baseball had no official steroids policy before 2002. In 1990, the U.S. made anabolic steroids a Schedule III Substance under the Controlled Substances Act, which meant that they became illegal without a prescription. They remain legal in some countries to this day.
    Or at least so says every reference that I can find. I would be interested in where JRoth gets his facts, if his differ from what I’ve cited. It’s true that Major League Baseball has long had a policy of “no illegal drugs,” but that is a mighty broad umbrella, since it also shades Babe Ruth.

    Jesus Fucking Christ

    I can’t stand it. I just can’t stand it.

    An excerpt, for those who won’t click through:

    June 7, 1991

    TO: ALL MAJOR LEAGUE CLUBS
    RE: BASEBALL’S DRUG POLICY AND PREVENTION PROGRAM

    […]
    The possession, sale or use of any illegal drug or controlled substance by Major League players and personnel is strictly prohibited. […]
    This prohibition applies to all illegal drugs and controlled substances, including steroids or prescription drugs for which the individual in possession of the drug does not have a prescription.

    Learn the facts or SHUT UP.

  41. on 11 Aug 2007 at 7:09 am 41. JRoth said …

    OK, apologies if that last was a bit harsh. As you can see from the posting time (I’m on EDT, so add 3 hours), I should perhaps not have been posting.

    That said, this situation reminds me of the Plame story, where you still get, at this late date, people saying “but she wasn’t really covert.” We know that’s not true - the CIA, Fitzgerald, and Judge Walton have all said otherwise. But this wingnut talking point will never die. Same deal with the “steroids weren’t against the rules of baseball” myth. It’s tiresome, and makes me cranky. Especially at 1 am, after a Friday night of drinking. Sorry again.

  42. on 11 Aug 2007 at 10:11 am 42. Porlock Junior said …

    A fine and extensive disscussion, but y’all have missed the one point that is the absolute essence of this American sports phenomenon.

    Because nobody loves Bonds (well, hardly anybody) the ball is expected to bring about half as much money as if it were hit by somebody lovable. The estimate (and you can bid on it at Sothebys on-line at the end of the month) is $200,000 - 300,000. Hank Aaron’s 755th did bring twice that, $650,000 in 2005.

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/11/BA1IRGPEG.DTL

    Now that is a major, irrefutable, objective defeat for Bonds, relative what is most important in sports. (Assuming, of course, that the price really comes out in the estimated range. I have seen things go for multiples of the official estimate — mostly, though not always, against a rather smaller estimate. As well as superbly expensive things that didn’t sell at all.)

  43. on 11 Aug 2007 at 11:35 am 43. Oaktown Girl said …

    JRoth (#41) - to completely skid off the rails into Open Thread territory, one thing that’s always bugged the hell out of me about the right wing “Valerie Plame wasn’t covert” talking point is the not-so-subtle sexism of it: a woman can’t really be a vital part of our covert national security. That’s man stuff! Talk about something making you cranky.

    Porlock - I’ve been thinking the same thing as you, that Bond’s homerun ball might make a lot more if he were widely beloved, even with the shadow of a steroid taint hovering over it. I heard on TV a few nights ago someone offered the ball’s owner $500,000, and my first thought was, “Take it. Take it now!”. But like you said, one never knows how these things are going to play out.

  44. on 11 Aug 2007 at 2:42 pm 44. JRoth said …

    Oaktown Girl- I hadn’t even thought of the sexism in that statement - I’d certainly detected the overall sexism inherent to the whole mess, but the subtext of that part of it had eluded me completely. Yet another reason to hate those people.

    As to the ball’s value, I hadn’t really thought of it in terms of the “he’s a jerk” discussion, but it’s certainly true. McGwire’s and Sosa’s HR balls have devalued as well, but neither of them was a fan favorite prior to ‘98 - they weren’t hated the way Bonds is, but they didn’t have a reserve of good will that led people to give them the benefit of the doubt once the steroids suspicions came about.

    Junior Griffey hasn’t come under much suspicion, for the obvious reason that he still looks thin and rangey, but I bet that, if he were under vague suspicions, he would get much more benefit of the doubt, because he’s always been a likeable player (except to those curmudgeons who objected to the backwards hat thing). I still don’t think he’d skate clean, but he’d have a lot more defenders. And, frankly, I think it’s only natural (if not fair or rational) that it should be that way.

    Nobody ever said, “Say it ain’t so, Ty.”

  45. on 11 Aug 2007 at 3:04 pm 45. Oaktown Girl said …

    About the market value of the home run ball, let me clarify - I believe the steroid factor is what will reduce the value of the ball from what it might have been. Period flat. I feel the fact that Bonds is also disliked by so many people devalues it even more, as fewer people will be trying to get it than might otherwise. (I reserve the right to be totally wrong, of course. Just speculatin’ here).

    About the sexist spin on the Plame outing, oh yeah, especially when it broke it was really, really bad. Novak and Co. were on TV screwing up their faces and positively indignant about the idea that she was a key player in national security. It’s much more toned down now, but in the beginning, they tried to paint her as little more than a glorified administrative assistant who occasionally dabble in some analysis reports. It was positively sickening. And it was so easy to do it, because, she was, you know, just a woman.

  46. on 11 Aug 2007 at 9:06 pm 46. trust but verify said …

    Killebrew the most HRs by a white guy? Wasn’t there someody named Ruth? I don’t remember his ethnicity, maybe you could look it up.

    The issue of when steroids became against the baseball rules is interesting. While we see above a quote that they were part of a blanket “not tolerated” rule in 1991, the same equally holds true of amphetamine greenies. By the logic that the ‘91 rule made steroids cheating, then every play anyone made after downing some greenies was cheating as well. I don’t think you can have it both ways.

    When MLB said use of illegal, non-prescribed drugs would not be tolerated, what did they say they were going to do about it?

    From another case, if a player confessed now to having used a corked bat for 5 years in the 70s or 80s, would we want asterisks or alterations of the records?

    For my part, I’ll admit I’d have a hard time working up motivation to keep following Floyd Landis’ case if he had Armstrong’s personality, which seems to approach Bonds, where Landis is more of an Ernie Banks. (http://trustbut.blogspot.com)

    Likeability does count, some, but the numbers 7 and 756 have significance of their own. I don’t think Bonds gives a hoot what his HR balls sell for.

    TBV

  47. on 11 Aug 2007 at 10:47 pm 47. JP Stormcrow said …

    And the HGH-by-parental-insistance is only a mild taste of what we’ll get if real designer genetics arrives.

    Oh, I certainly agree. And was not trying to “blame” this trend on the world-class athletes. My point was more - this urge springs eternal, and that if high school football players do it and other teens do it just to be buff, should we be surprised that peak athletes where millions are at stake do it. As I think I said back on Bill’s earlier post on the juicey juice, a viewing of Rollerball is in order. (I have not seen the remake, but can recommend the James Caan original.)

  48. on 12 Aug 2007 at 6:00 pm 48. James Killus said …

    Oh well, it seems that I’ve lost a post into the ether, and it was such a good post. I will mention the gist, but there’s no way I’m going to redo all the links, especially since that’s probably what killed the damn thing.

    The possession, sale or use of any illegal drug or controlled substance by Major League players and personnel is strictly prohibited. […]
    This prohibition applies to all illegal drugs and controlled substances, including steroids or prescription drugs for which the individual in possession of the drug does not have a prescription.

    means the same thing as “Major League Baseball has long had a policy of ‘no illegal drugs,’ but that is a mighty broad umbrella…”

    In fact, steroids are Schedule III drugs, and the authority for the DEA to declare a drug an “analog” was originally limited to Schedule I and II drugs. I am unable to find either a regulation or case law that expands the DEAs power of coverage, though I have no doubt that they claim it.

    Moreover, confining the prohibition to illegality means that steroids continued to be unconstrained by Organized Baseball if used by prescription, or in another country, or if the drug had not yet been declared an analog by the DEA.

    Which means that the folks who say “it wasn’t against the rules until 2002″ have as much of a case as anyone who says otherwise. You want to get legalistic, legalism is what you get in return.

    However, the real reason why I didn’t let the message just drop was because I wanted to convey a friend’s old observation that Jesus Fucking Christ is such a miracle of velocity that He could also serve as the cameraman.

  49. on 13 Aug 2007 at 6:43 am 49. Kiera PSI said …

    James, it also says in the 4th paragraph (which is on page 2)that any prescribed drugs, including steroids, must be administered under the supervision of the team doctor, or if by another doctor, the team doctor must have a written record of it.

    I’m sure if any of those accused of steroid use during that period had them administered under the supervision of the team doctor, or if the team doctor had a record of it, they would have used that as a defense. Since no one has claimed that, I’m thinking that IF they did indeed use steroid during that period, they were technically in violation of the 1991 (lets call it a) restriction on their use.

  50. on 13 Aug 2007 at 10:07 am 50. James Killus said …

    Kiera,

    The real problem is that this controversy is over a drug that had not been legally classified, as a steroid or anything else. I noted the “prescribed drug” loophole in the same spirit as the “it would have been perfectly all right to have taken steroids in Mexico”–as a counterweight to the implication that there had been an outright ban on steroids by Major League Baseball.

    As for using a notification to the team doctor as a defense, that might or might not be considered a good strategy, depending upon the circumstances, and you cannot assume that such a notification would be used. If a team physician were prescribing steroids to players, I can easily imagine the doctor (and the team) hiding behind doctor/patient privilege to the bitter end. I don’t think that this happened with Bonds, for example, but I would not care to place a bet on the matter for McGwire or Sousa, since neither of them are under indictment, and neither seem eager to blab about any drugs they were taking.

    This is not a Scooter Libby sort of situation where the fact that justice was obstructed meant that it was impossible to prove the underlying crime. It is literally true that we have no obvious underlying crime. The “crime” in question depends upon technical legal details of the classification of “analog substances” by the DEA, for a category of drugs that is not usually controlled by such an extreme use of the criminal justice system. If famous sports figures had not been involved in the Balco case, not only would we probably never have heard of it, but it probably would never have been investigated by a Grand Jury in the first place. If you want a textbook case of a “perjury trap,” this case is it. And if the drug were not found to be illegal, then it would not have been a violation of the 1991 Major League Baseball policy. All this if very legalistic, of course, but if you invoke the law, then you’re daft if you don’t anticipate dealing with legalisms.

  51. on 15 Aug 2007 at 1:26 pm 51. JRoth said …

    Well, this is strange. I came here to respond to James’ latest, which is in my Inbox, but not here. Hmmm.

    That said, many of his arguments also appear in 48 & 50 above, so:

    James seems to be under the impression that Bonds is only under suspicion of using “analog” drugs or others somehow not covered by US law. Except that we know - as well as we know any of this, which is better than we know what happened at Thermopylae or Valley Forge - that Bonds started out using completely standard gym-rat steroids that date back to Schwarzenegger’s days as a weightlifter. Is the claim, James, that these aren’t controlled under fairly specific law? Because that’s not what you seem to be saying, and I’d be pretty shocked if it were true, since I have been told that they’re illegal (w/o prescription) since long before ‘91. If it turns out that people like Greg Anderson have been surreptitiously selling steroids out of their trunks for 30 years for no apparent reason, that would be pretty big news, and it would, indeed, cause me to shut up.

    So, unless Greg Anderson, weight lifters across America, and I are wrong (what a group), we know that Bonds did, indeed, use controlled substances. Next, for some reason James privileges himself to facts not in evidence - that Bonds was using under doctor’s supervision and/or team doctor’s supervision and/or Mexican pharmacist’s purveyance. This part is especially unclear to me. We have no reason to believe that any of these legalistic loopholes exist, yet James insists that, by failing to take them into account, I’m being unfair to Bonds. I see no reason to provide alibis for the accused when there’s no reason to believe they could possibly be true. I don’t think this turns me into Javert.

    So what are James’ arguments? Near as I can tell, these:
    A. Bonds’ designer drugs probably aren’t banned.
    B. A good lawyer might be able to weasel Bonds out of the other parts of the 1991 memo, although there’s no factual reason to believe this.

    Forgive me for being unimpressed. Furthermore, since I’m saying he’s a cheater, not that Bonds should be banned from baseball or thrown in jail, legalisms don’t, in fact concern me. The original assertion, put forward by many, was that MLB had no steroid policy prior to 2002. I feel fully comfortable that the 1991 memo flatly contradicts that, even if a specific player may not be proven in violation of it.

    Lastly, a note on usage: “legalism,” as a derogatory term, doesn’t generally mean “to refer to the existence of a law;” it generally means “weaseling out of a law.” James once again proves that weaseling out of things is what separates us form the animals.*

    * Except for the weasel.

  52. on 15 Aug 2007 at 1:55 pm 52. Oaktown Girl said …

    JRoth -
    the missing comment to which you are referring went out just fine in the email, but on the blog it got eaten by a technical glitch. Sorry.

    In any event, without passing judgment on any of the participants here, by order of the Minister of Justice, the comments for this post will be closed after today.

  53. on 15 Aug 2007 at 8:30 pm 53. Michael Bérubé said …

    Hi, everyone– and thanks for all the wonderful comments! Sorry I was gone for a few days. The home front is beyond belief. I blame steroids!

    Anyway, thanks for the update, Bill (#1), and JP (#2), Harmon Killebrew and Boog Powell will always share Most Whitest Man Ever honors in my book. Kiera (#3), Bonds is indeed (even taking all his press coverage cum a great big grano salis) a massive asshole, and no doubt if he were closer to the Kirby Puckett end of the spectrum than to the Albert Belle end (speakin’ of moody black players JRoth), sportswriters would love him more. But then, Jeff Kent is also a great big massive asshole. It must have been fun to have been on those Giants teams. . . .

    James (#6): good one with that Koufax guy. Hey, does that make this thread eligible for a Koufax? What happened to the Koufax Awards, anyway? Do they need some cortisone? And let’s not forget that without the wonders of cortisone, the inspirational Willis Reed Moment in game seven of the 1970 Knicks-Lakers series does not happen, because without cortisone, Reed doesn’t even stand up that night.

    Christian:

    the use of these things by a critical mass of participants, which can be fairly small, forces everyone else who wants to play to do so, too

    Apparently that’s exactly why Bonds started on the stuff. One of his attack-biographers insists that he met with Ken Griffey Jr. in 1998 and said, “this is bullshit — you and I are the most talented players in the league, and we’re getting pwned by second-tier guys on juice.” Well, maybe he didn’t say “pwned.” But I know I have the gist right.

    Sven (#28), I hear you. For me, the most exciting thing in baseball is great defense on the field. It’s an extraordinary thing to see in person, especially — the teevee doesn’t do it justice. And you can’t really juice a shortstop any more than you can juice a golfer (imho). But the Polo Grounds (#33)? No thanks. 480 to center, but only about 280 down the lines. It was a football field converted to baseball use (and you just don’t see those anymore).

    More in a sec.

  54. on 15 Aug 2007 at 8:46 pm 54. Michael Bérubé said …

    OK, now for round 2. James (#30): Pitchers routinely pitch around Bonds even when it is not particularly advantageous to do so.

    The much-maligned Joe Morgan pointed out the other day that Bonds’ 2546 career walks amount to having the bat taken out of one’s hands for about five full seasons. That, like, totally blew my fucking mind right there.

    JP again: My biggest concern in the whole drug/doping/growth hormone/etc. thing is the degree to which it is filtering down to teens and pre-teens.

    Football is death. It can’t be said often enough. And how come, in the HGH debates, high school wrestling isn’t front and center, especially here in PA, JP, where it’s a major fetish for certain older men who run local-paper sports sections like that of the Centre Daily Times?

    You know it’s like sports reflects society through some mechanism, like a flat, shiny surface or something.

    That’s really smart. If only there were a name for that reflective mechanism! Then we could come up with an entire aesthetic theory right here.

    And now back to Ruth. TBV: Killebrew the most HRs by a white guy? Wasn’t there someody named Ruth? I don’t remember his ethnicity, maybe you could look it up.

    No, you can’t. The whole “Schamberger” back story is part of the Atonist conspiracy detailed by Ishmael Reed in Mumbo Jumbo. See also Conspiracy Brother, played by Dave Chapelle, in Undercover Brother. Trust but verify, dude.

    And I have no opinion about legal matters. All I know is that we have to toss out “Rubber Soul” and “Revolver” because, as Chuck Klosterman pointed out, the Beatles were taking performance-enhancing drugs at the time.