Last week, Iraq was on the verge of a “civil war,” the people of New Orleans were still suffering from the effects of Hurricane Katrina, the state of South Dakota had firmly decided to disobey the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision.
But people were still talking about Barry Bonds’ alleged steroid use.
In excerpts of Jeff Pearlman’s new book “Love Me, Hate Me: Barry Bonds and the Making of an Antihero,” which ran in last week’s ESPN The Magazine, Pearlman recounts a conversation between Bonds and fellow baseball star Ken Griffey Jr. that took place at Griffey’s home late in the 1998 season. Bonds confided to Griffey that he was fed up that Commissioner Bud Selig and that other higher-ups in Major League Baseball didn’t seem to care that Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa could be on the juice.
Bonds felt that, on a level playing field, he had been a superior player to both McGwire and Sosa. But, because Selig wanted the fans to forgive baseball for canceling the 1994 season after a player’s strike, the legitimacy of McGwire and Sosa’s dramatic assault on Roger Maris’ then-record of 61 home runs in a season was never questioned or challenged, according to Pearlman’s source.
Bonds’ 37 homers in 1998 – a total that was consistent with the efforts of past seasons for the then-three-time MVP – suddenly didn’t seem so impressive. So, he decided to, once again, up his game.
The way I see it, the only way this story would be newsworthy was if Bonds was the first or the only ballplayer to use steroids.
He is neither.
He is, however, the most famous and the most controversial player to be accused. So, instead, the scandal focuses on his broad shoulders and his pumpkin-sized head, not his ability to hit a ball more than 450 feet.
When a national radio host such as ESPN’s John Seibel fires off an incendiary comment like, “If he did it, hang him!” it does disturb me, not because I take Seibel literally – only a fool would in this day and age – but because even without the poor choice of words, the comment reeks of racial bigotry.
While there has been considerable progress made in the struggle for racial equality, in sports journalism there is still a subtle segregation. White athletes are “gritty” and “heady,” terms that praise their smarts and their desire. But black athletes are “athletic” and “gifted,” words used to describe their physique. When a white athlete is prickly or standoffish with the media, he is excused for it because “he’s got his game-face on,” but when a black athlete does the same thing, he’s criticized for being rude and defiant.
It wasn’t news when Sports Illustrated allowed 20 pages worth of the book “Game of Shadows,” by San Francisco Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams – a book that exhaustively details Bonds’ steroid use – to be transcribed within the magazine’s pages. Sports Illustrated has been after Bonds for years, ever since he was less-than-pleasant to a reporter they sent to do a feature on him for the infamous “I’m Barry Bonds and You’re Not” story that ran in 1993.
Sadly, we still live in a society where the public and media can adore an athlete if he or she’s black or a jerk, but not both.
Because Bonds has always refused to play the media game the way corporate pitchman Michael Jordan did – and still does, well into retirement -the media hacks will always have it in for him, even though he’s never acted any differently from his peers on the field.
He was just better than them and, because he was never shy about letting people know it, because he never gave any phony “I guess I got lucky on that swing” answers to the media, he’s being singled out and persecuted.
The bottom line is that Bonds has never failed a steroid test and that they weren’t even illegal in baseball until 2004.
There is no story here.
-Michael Erler is a political science senior.
-This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Daily Aztec. Send e-mail to letters@thedailyaztec.com. Anonymous letters will not be printed – include your full name, major and year in school.
