Page 2 article on Bonds (non-Astros)

[Trey]

I have mixed feelings about ESPN.com's Page 2.  In general, I think it's a great idea.  In practice, it is occasionally great, frequently mediocre, and sometimes downright horrible.

Chuck Klosterman has written a few articles for them that have been excellent.  Today he does one on the greater meaning of when Bonds passes Ruth.  I thought it was pretty good and certainly worth the read.

 CLICK ME!

[pravata]

Quote:
I have mixed feelings about ESPN.com's Page 2.  In general, I think it's a great idea.  In practice, it is occasionally great, frequently mediocre, and sometimes downright horrible.

Chuck Klosterman has written a few articles for them that have been excellent.  Today he does one on the greater meaning of when Bonds passes Ruth.  I thought it was pretty good and certainly worth the read.

 CLICK ME!

Well worth reading.  However, I'm concerned that he seems serious about these 2 sentences,

"Because steroids make the values of all modern statistics confusing and incomparable, they also diminish the two things baseball had going for it: history and math..."

And that baseball is an,    

"...intellectual game; it's the game most compelling to the likes of Ken Burns and George Will"

I do think Bonds considers baseball solely as a business.  A means to make money.  He cares nothing for the baggage that most of us load onto the game.  But, the writer brings up his relationship to some of the greatest players in the game.  You'd think that he would feel some sort of responsibility to his father and uncles.

[Froback]

To understand Bonds and his motivation you have to understand the bitterness his father and uncle still harbor over the way they were treated in the early days of integrated baseball, when this country was openly hostile to non-whites in the game.

Bonds was raised in that bitterness and it became part of him.  So he has a love/hate relationship with all things baseball.  I think he truely loves the game, but the bitterness he was taught by his father and uncle have tainted his love and ruined any chance he would give to any non-player associated with it.

That bitterness is also why he WANTS to pass the Babe, and not Hank...  (although this last bit is my opinion, I think the rest is very true)

[Gizzmonic]

I liked the article, but I have a real problem with the media excusing themselves from not knowing about the steroid problem with baseball.  

I didn't even follow baseball that closely in 1998 and it was pretty obvious to me that Sosa and McGuire were on 'roids.  When they found the andro in Big Mac's locker, did it not cause a light to switch on?  How about Barry Bonds' head size changing?  Do you need a freakin' doctor to tell you that adults' head sizes DO NOT GROW?

It seems to me that like the MLB front office, the media knew of and was complicit with steroids.  The MLB front office's agenda-setting power caused the media to hype home run chases instead of steroids.  Happens in politics all the time, why not in sports?

Ironically, the politicians themselves trumped Bud Selig's agenda-setting power with their own; the President and Congress needed something to distract from their gross mismanagement of the nation so they could look like they were doing something good For The Children.

Quote:
I have mixed feelings about ESPN.com's Page 2.  In general, I think it's a great idea.  In practice, it is occasionally great, frequently mediocre, and sometimes downright horrible.

Chuck Klosterman has written a few articles for them that have been excellent.  Today he does one on the greater meaning of when Bonds passes Ruth.  I thought it was pretty good and certainly worth the read.

 CLICK ME!

[pravata]

Quote:
I liked the article, but I have a real problem with the media excusing themselves from not knowing about the steroid problem with baseball.  

I didn't even follow baseball that closely in 1998 and it was pretty obvious to me that Sosa and McGuire were on 'roids.  When they found the andro in Big Mac's locker, did it not cause a light to switch on?  How about Barry Bonds' head size changing?  Do you need a freakin' doctor to tell you that adults' head sizes DO NOT GROW?

It seems to me that like the MLB front office, the media knew of and was complicit with steroids.  The MLB front office's agenda-setting power caused the media to hype home run chases instead of steroids.  Happens in politics all the time, why not in sports?

Ironically, the politicians themselves trumped Bud Selig's agenda-setting power with their own; the President and Congress needed something to distract from their gross mismanagement of the nation so they could look like they were doing something good For The Children.

Until the BALCO case there was no real proof.  Speculations based on head size werent persuasive to me.

[homer]

 

Quote:
Speculations based on head size werent persuasive to me.

You can't be serious. That sounds like bad case of denial.

[davek]

Quote:
To understand Bonds and his motivation you have to understand the bitterness his father and uncle still harbor over the way they were treated in the early days of integrated baseball, when this country was openly hostile to non-whites in the game.

Bonds was raised in that bitterness and it became part of him.  So he has a love/hate relationship with all things baseball.  I think he truely loves the game, but the bitterness he was taught by his father and uncle have tainted his love and ruined any chance he would give to any non-player associated with it.

That bitterness is also why he WANTS to pass the Babe, and not Hank...  (although this last bit is my opinion, I think the rest is very true)

Now this is one I've never heard, that Bobby and Reggie were "bitter" over the hostility with which they were received... Especially Bobby who played on a team with many black and latin players in perhaps the most liberal city in the country...

In any event, it seems a bit of a stretch to describe it "as the early days of integrated baseball" when both arrived some 20 years after Robinson broke the color barrier...

I don't recall hearing Willie and Ernie were bitter and they were much closer to being Robinson's contemporaries...

But maybe I'm wrong about that too...

[pravata]

Quote:

Quote:
Speculations based on head size werent persuasive to me.

You can't be serious. That sounds like bad case of denial.

It's a serious accusation.  I wasnt jumping to conclusions based on phrenology.

[homer]

Quote:

Quote:

Quote:
Speculations based on head size werent persuasive to me.

You can't be serious. That sounds like bad case of denial.

It's a serious accusation.  I wasnt jumping to conclusions based on phrenology.

Phrenology was only part of my three part diagnosis, along with his general massive increase in size.

[pravata]

Quote:

Quote:

Quote:

Quote:
Speculations based on head size werent persuasive to me.

You can't be serious. That sounds like bad case of denial.

It's a serious accusation.  I wasnt jumping to conclusions based on phrenology.

Phrenology was only part of my three part diagnosis, along with his general massive increase in size.

That'd be included in the science of phrenology.  Is increased hat size a scientific test for steroids?

[homer]

Quote:

Quote:

Quote:

Quote:

Quote:
Speculations based on head size werent persuasive to me.

You can't be serious. That sounds like bad case of denial.

It's a serious accusation.  I wasnt jumping to conclusions based on phrenology.

Phrenology was only part of my three part diagnosis, along with his general massive increase in size.

That'd be included in the science of phrenology.  Is increased hat size a scientific test for steroids?

My understanding of phrenology is that it only relates to his giant skull. His giant arms, legs, back and chest are additional factors. So, no, an increase in hat size alone would not be enough to believe he was juicing... but that in conjuction with the other factors were pretty persuasive.

[pravata]

Quote:

Quote:

Quote:

Quote:

Quote:

Quote:
Speculations based on head size werent persuasive to me.

You can't be serious. That sounds like bad case of denial.

It's a serious accusation.  I wasnt jumping to conclusions based on phrenology.

Phrenology was only part of my three part diagnosis, along with his general massive increase in size.

That'd be included in the science of phrenology.  Is increased hat size a scientific test for steroids?

My understanding of phrenology is that it only relates to his giant skull. His giant arms, legs, back and chest are additional factors. So, no, an increase in hat size alone would not be enough to believe he was juicing... but that in conjuction with the other factors were pretty persuasive.

I was waiting for evidence more substantial.  And, got it.

[Foghorn]

Quote:
I liked the article, but I have a real problem with the media excusing themselves from not knowing about the steroid problem with baseball.  

I didn't even follow baseball that closely in 1998 and it was pretty obvious to me that Sosa and McGuire were on 'roids.  When they found the andro in Big Mac's locker, did it not cause a light to switch on?  How about Barry Bonds' head size changing?  

As I said earlier, the following items are facts and are indisputable:

(1)  Baseball players for years had been taking "greenies", amphetamines, looking for an edge.  Ball Four minces no words..."How fabulous are greenies", or after watching a player dive for a ball and come up a few inches short, "another 5 milligrams and he'd have caught it".

(2)  Ben Johnson was stripped of the gold medal in the 1998 Olympics for failing a drug test.  Nobody interested in sports seemed shocked that a track athlete would have been busted for 'roids.

(3)  Lyle Alzado, after being diagnosed with cancer, tells all about his history of steroid abuse, which started in the late 1960's.

So you have the following facts:  baseball players taking illegal substances they believe improve their performance, Olympic gold medalist and fastest man in the world taking steroids to improve performance, former All Pro football details a lengthy history of steroid abuse going back to the late 60's and early 70's.  Yet the Commissioner of Baseball wants me to believe he never thought there could be any problems in baseball.  

Bullshit.  Brady Anderson hit 50 bombs in 1996.  You tell me nobody thought he might be roiding up during that year?

[Gizzmonic]

The real question is, what would cause an adult's head to grow, besides a brain tumor?  Human growth hormone/steroids.

Now, this isn't a court of law, and you can argue that everyone should be presumed innocent until proven guilty, but there's nothing that medical science knows of that would cause someone's head to grow besides what I've just listed above.

Just to clarify, I'm not ragging on you for taking a measured approach.  I definitely would not have put my suppositions in print.  But I'm pretty sure that this has been an "open secret" with this press nearly as long as it has been with the players.  Maybe not all press and players, but enough to merit more attention than it got before the President's State of the Union address.

Quote:

Quote:

Quote:

Quote:

Quote:
Speculations based on head size werent persuasive to me.

You can't be serious. That sounds like bad case of denial.

It's a serious accusation.  I wasnt jumping to conclusions based on phrenology.

Phrenology was only part of my three part diagnosis, along with his general massive increase in size.

That'd be included in the science of phrenology.  Is increased hat size a scientific test for steroids?