hotweir wrote:As author of the blog defending Bonds posted here -- my bad! -- for saying Aaron finished his career in Atlanta. Of course I know he played back in Milwaukee at the very end, I think during that weird period when it was an AL franchise. I was too caught up in the standing ovation Bonds got from Atlanta's fans, obviously, to check my facts. Sorry!
No need to apoligize......I figured you knew where he finished his playing career.
I rarely post anything this long anywhere but the whole Bonds thing has been bugging me over the past year, and I've been struggling to come to any firm conclusions.
The incessant profanity and name calling completely deprived the entire article of credibility. It seems either you're 1) for Bonds, or you're a 2) fat-ass coward, fool, or racist. Even if I'm not part of the class the poster was targeting, he still uses "me," an average baseball fan, to support his own views, which I do not believe are representative. The truth is that neither extreme side of the media world represents the average baseball fan. This whole saga is yet another battle where there are a million varying shades of gray, and yet only the "blacks" and the "whites" (er...this metaphor is going to get sticky I can tell) ever get to voice their opinions through meaningful mediums. I can wholeheartedly agree, therefore, with the writer to the extent he's basically calling out those "media elitists" who fall within the extreme "white" side. But I cringe when the actions of people who are actually fall in the "gray" area are spun to denounce the white side to the benefit of the black side.
Okay, enough with the bad pun. But seriously, it's entirely possible for people to vehemently denounce HOW Bonds achieved this HR record and at the same time want to show up at the ballpark to watch him do it. Perhaps it's paradoxical on the surface, but it still is history in the making. Don't blindly assume that people showing up to games and applauding his accomplishments are a representative majority, because you'll never know how many people decline to go to those games, and you can't judge whether those attending fans are just people who wanted to see a part of history, even though they couldn't name another player on the Giants' roster. But I can't blame people for being able to say, "I saw Bonds hit #759," even if they think he cheated to get there.
Second of all, all reasonable Bonds' denouncers will willingly acknowledge he has always been a great player. If someone doesn't acknowledge that, then they're only digging their own grave and don't need anyone else to help them out. And in my opinion, just how great he was makes the whole thing even more sad. Bonds' couldn't live with being one of the best ever; he had to be the best.
Third, and I say this somewhat jokingly in a self-depreciating manner (as an Atlanta resident and someone who grew up in one of the many Southeastern Braves' "satellite cities", so to speak), I laughed at what may be the first instance ever where someone attempts to base an argument along the lines that baseball fans in Atlanta somehow are representative of baseball fans across the country. If that's the case, you'd think there'd be World Series tickets available for purchase on the day of game 1 in every other major league city too...
Jokes aside, the point is that the majority of baseball fans will fall inside of the gray area which is filled with infinite shades. While the "media elitists" the author denounced may not adequately represent us average fans, I think it's a grave misstep to believe that the actions of the fans described by the author support his own equally extreme views. And the fact that much of the article was just profane name-slinging directed towards the other extreme side made it seem that much more transparent. In my mind, most baseball fans did NOT want Bonds to break the record. But at the same time, they wanted to witness history in their lifetime. We can want to see Bonds hit a home run and at the same time hate the man for how he got to where he is. We can hope that his record will be struck from the record books, but still show up to watch him continually break his own record, because we know deep-down that in all likelihood the record will never be struck. Or we can just wallow in agnostic depression and curse the 1998 season as being the root of all of this big mess, which is what I'm becoming more and more inclined to do.
But then again, I probably suffer from the same fault of assuming that I too am representative of most baseball fans. Hopefully, I'm just one of a million shades of gray. But maybe that's naive. I personally think Bonds is trash. A great player even without steroids, but trash nonetheless. If that makes me a racist, then I guess I hate white people too because I despise McGwire. Oh, and Hispanics too thanks to Palmeiro and Canseco. I love baseball as a game, not the establishment or the players. So all these players, and the establishment, are enemies of baseball fans, or at least me.
stepsinsc wrote:Second of all, all reasonable Bonds' denouncers will willingly acknowledge he has always been a great player. If someone doesn't acknowledge that, then they're only digging their own grave and don't need anyone else to help them out. And in my opinion, just how great he was makes the whole thing even more sad. Bonds' couldn't live with being one of the best ever; he had to be the best.
Is there something wrong with that? Why shouldn't he want to be the best?
stepsinsc wrote:Second of all, all reasonable Bonds' denouncers will willingly acknowledge he has always been a great player. If someone doesn't acknowledge that, then they're only digging their own grave and don't need anyone else to help them out. And in my opinion, just how great he was makes the whole thing even more sad. Bonds' couldn't live with being one of the best ever; he had to be the best.
Is there something wrong with that? Why shouldn't he want to be the best?
No, and that's a failure to elaborate further on my part. The sad part isn't the he wanted to be the best, it's what he did to become the best when he had already attained greatness.
stepsinsc wrote:Second of all, all reasonable Bonds' denouncers will willingly acknowledge he has always been a great player. If someone doesn't acknowledge that, then they're only digging their own grave and don't need anyone else to help them out. And in my opinion, just how great he was makes the whole thing even more sad. Bonds' couldn't live with being one of the best ever; he had to be the best.
Is there something wrong with that? Why shouldn't he want to be the best?
No, and that's a failure to elaborate further on my part. The sad part isn't the he wanted to be the best, it's what he did to become the best when he had already attained greatness.
You mean he started doing the thing that was basically the norm in baseball for several years? That's the sad part? I can't say if I was in his situation I would have gone about it any differently.
stepsinsc wrote:Second of all, all reasonable Bonds' denouncers will willingly acknowledge he has always been a great player. If someone doesn't acknowledge that, then they're only digging their own grave and don't need anyone else to help them out. And in my opinion, just how great he was makes the whole thing even more sad. Bonds' couldn't live with being one of the best ever; he had to be the best.
Is there something wrong with that? Why shouldn't he want to be the best?
No, and that's a failure to elaborate further on my part. The sad part isn't the he wanted to be the best, it's what he did to become the best when he had already attained greatness.
Enlighten me. Aaron admitted to using an illegal performance enhancing substance to achieve his goals. How is that any different from Bonds?
"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that." ~George Carlin
Yoda wrote: Enlighten me. Aaron admitted to using an illegal performance enhancing substance to achieve his goals. How is that any different from Bonds?
I might have fallen behind the times. When exactly did aaron admit to using a performance enhancing substance?
Yoda wrote: Enlighten me. Aaron admitted to using an illegal performance enhancing substance to achieve his goals. How is that any different from Bonds?
I might have fallen behind the times. When exactly did aaron admit to using a performance enhancing substance?
It comes from Aaron's biography where he admitted experimented with amphetamines to help pull him out of a slump.
I Had a Hammer wrote:"Actually the 1968 season wasn't the best time to present my case. It was the first time since my rookie year that I didn't drive in or scored 100 runs. I was so frustrated that at one point I tried using greenies that one of my teammates gave me."
Yoda wrote:Enlighten me. Aaron admitted to using an illegal performance enhancing substance to achieve his goals. How is that any different from Bonds?
First off, I never mentioned Aaron in any capacity, so this Bonds versus Aaron argument is spurious. Second, there are plenty of distinctions that can be drawn between amphetamines and steroids, which in my head eliminates the validity of the analogy you're making. The biggest of which is that Aaron admitted to using them in 1968, but they were not made illegal until 1970. As far as I can recall, and feel free to correct me, Aaron's autobiography did not admit to continuously using them over the course of his career, but rather in 1968 out of frustration due to a down season. But even assuming those distinctions don't hold up, it doesn't change my original opinion. My opinion of Bonds is not dependent upon an opinion that Aaron was clean, so this takes us back to the first point.
Last edited by stepsinsc on Sat Aug 18, 2007 4:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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