1. Antoine Walker was robbed at gunpoint at his home yesterday. (Fortunately, police say there were no injuries.) Does it amuse me when millionaires get robbed? Though I did root for Robin Hood as a kid, I'm going to have to go with no, I'm not amused by that specifically. Just hang on a sec.
Right now, though, who's got Walker's back? His agent, Mark Bartelstein:
"He's OK," Bartelstein told The Associated Press. "There was a robbery. It's a scary thing. It's a terrible thing. He's trying to get himself back together. Police are there and he's getting it taken care of."
That's thoughtful enough. Walker's team, the Miami Heat, is concerned, too. Um, I think?
The Heat were aware of the incident, a team official said, but had no other comment while they attempted to gather facts.
Good for them! It would be reckless for the Heat to just assume Walker was an innocent victim in the whole robbed-at-gunpoint-in-his-home incident. I know it's nit-picky, but why even have a PR department if they can't throw together a, "Our hearts are with Antoine Walker and his family tonight, and we're grateful no one was hurt," in an evening? That is seriously one of the most heartless things I've ever read.
2. An Associated Press report on SI.com says that Barry Bonds doesn't care whether Bud Selig is at the game when he breaks Hank Aaron's career home run record. That's not really the precise impression I got from the quotes, so I've lifted them:
"Does it matter to me? I think it's just terrible the way it's gone down, that's all," the San Francisco slugger said Monday, a day before the All-Star game.
"That's up to Bud, it's not up to me. I'm going to do my thing anyway. I have to go out and play for my teammates. That's up to Bud. Bud is his own man. And I respect him. Whether Bud shows up or doesn't show up, I'm going to still play baseball that day," he said.
That's a pretty mature way to handle it, to be honest. I don't know how you could be in Bonds' shoes and not be hurt by all the mystery of the commisioner's plans. I'm not losing sleep over it, but I'm just saying.
Anyway, I love the classic "please don't sue me" quote in the story, and I love that people think they still need these, though I'm sure I'd do the same:
Revered in his own ballpark, Bonds is usually booed on the road, with fans suggesting his accomplishments are tainted because of steroids allegations.
I guess it's just funny to read about fan's "suggestions", and also the idea that you can't just say that Bonds used steroids. It's not like his privacy and/or rights weren't already horribly violated with that leaked grand jury testimony or anything. (Bonds reportedly said he didn't know he was using steroids, but then I guess that comment was from the grand jury testimony, too.)
(And Cap, if someone wrote that Bonds used steroids, and Bonds sued that person, could the writer use the widely-reported-but-theoretically-secret grand jury testimony as evidence that Bonds did indeed use steroids? Just curious from a legal perspective.)
I didn't mean to turn this into a Bonds post, since we'll discuss him plenty in the coming weeks, but his comments on Hank Aaron were interesting, too:
"No one can determine when that's going to happen, and Hank has a life, too," Bonds said. "You could go weeks. You expect this man to just travel all over this continent for weeks?
"It's just not fair to him. That's just all it's about. If you can predict what you're going to do and he can get there and like OK, bam, it's going to be this day and this time, that's a different scenario.
"Hank's a great ballplayer. He's the home run king. He will always be the home run king in our hearts. We respect him. We love him. Hank, if you want to stay home, stay home, brother," he said.
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