You can check out the latest steroid allegations in an article on the website of Sports Illustrated.
Barry Bonds used steroids-that's still news? Really?
Okay, I don't really feel bad for Barry-he's obviously responsible for his own steroid use and, as a grown man, was fully aware of what he was doing in taking illegal drugs. This is not a "blame society" piece, in which I show how the expectations of fans created pressures so severe that he just had to take steroids, making the man in the stands the true villian. And it's not a tale of how we build up stars just to tear them down, though that runs throughout the Bonds saga.
Yet Bonds is an interesting case, because if the dates are correct in this story-which suggests Bonds started using steroids out of jealousy springing from the fame of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa in 1998-he was very clearly an all-time great before he ever cheated.
Somehow Bonds was left off one of baseball's greatest marking gimmicks of recent years, the All-Century Team, a fact that becomes ever more hilarious as time goes on. Bonds, not one of the best players of the last century? Please. By 1999, when the team was named, Stan Musial and Ted Williams were the only leftfielders who could claim to be on Bonds' level, and Musial's grasp was slipping fast. (Of course, in typical all-star fashion, the All-Century Team grouped centerfielders, left fielders and the men in right together into one imaginary position).
Two quotes from the article (which is actually an article about the book excerpt which will run in this week's SI) stood out to me. The first said,
For instance, the authors write that by 2001, when Bonds broke Mark McGwire's single-season home-run record (70) by belting 73, Bonds was using two designer steroids referred to as the Cream and the Clear, as well as insulin, human growth hormone, testosterone decanoate (a fast-acting steroid known as Mexican beans) and trenbolone, a steroid created to improve the muscle quality of cattle.
The muscle quality of cattle? The man risked turning himself into livestock for our attention? Sad that he thought it would work; sadder still that it did. Can you even concieve of considering that? Second:
According to the book, Bonds, in comments to his mistress, Kimberly Bell, often dismissed McGwire with racially-charged remarks such as, "They're just letting him do it because he's a white boy." But Bonds looked at McGwire and his hulking physique and decided he needed to dramatically increase his muscle mass to compete with him.
That actually sounds like a pretty good point. Of course, Sammy Sosa got a pretty free ride as well, and not only is his skin dark, he's not even American. So whether "they" are major league baseball or just the sports media, race wasn't the only reason McGwire got a free ride compared to Bonds. A bigger reason, of course, is that Barry Bonds is a jerk to reporters. It's unfortunate that so much of our public perception of athletes is based on how they treat journalists-yet once the star fades, we eventually find out the sad truth about our fallen idols. Does anyone think of Sosa as anything but a con man today?
I also worry about the damage baseball has done to itself by allowing the game for so long to drift away from timely scoring into full-blown offensive fireworks. It was a great temporary fix and threw the sport back into the spotlight during the summer of 1998. But increased scoring lengthens the games and draws further attention to the tedium of pickoff throws and hitters stepping out of the batter's box.
Besides, home runs are only exciting when they're rare. Have you seen baseball highlights the last few years? It's home run, home run, home run, and a weak pop-out to end the game. Lather, rinse, repeat. Home runs aren't that fun to watch outside of the game context-each one looks the same. Isn't a late-game strikeout or a properly-executed double play a more dazzling display of athletic skill? Even high-scoring games can be competitive and exciting, but baseball is fast losing its youthful beauty.
1 comment:
I think the biggest reasons no one slams McGwire are that a) everyone liked him in the first place, while no one liked Bonds and b) he's not playing any more. It'll be really fun when he comes up on the Hall of Fame ballot, though.
You're right, Sosa was never blasted the way Bonds was. But Sosa never held the home run record, either. And if he was on steroids in addition to corking his bat and still couldn't break the records-well, that's even worse.
Of course, no one went after McGwire when he was playing-except for andro, which isn't technically a steroid-so it's a complicated issue.
I like your take on Selig, but even more, I'm thrilled with how the players look in this. Basically every player-at least every good player-from the last ten to fifteen years has a huge cloud of suspicion over everything they accomplished. And that's what they get for siding with a short-sighted union that always valued dollars and bargaining position over what should have been more pressing concerns, like the long-term health of its members. Talk about having no sense of the people who will come after you! And baseball-the one sport that really treats its legends like, well, legends-will never hold them in that same lofty position.
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