[...] John Newman created a sweet baseball article today.Here’s a mini excerpt.Baseball can’t move on until it apologizes. Baseball, specifically Bud Selig, owes Bonds an apology. Sorry, Barry, for hanging you out to dry; for allowing the news media and the public to make you the vilified face of baseball’s … [...]

[...] Original post here [...]

Well, there was this from earlier in the week. Its more of a crack on the Giants organization rather than the Commissioner’s office, but the actions and lack of leadership by both Weasels-In-Chief is evident.

“The image of the insolent, cowardly, greedy and narcissistic Alan Selig deliberately posing, slouched, with his hands in his pockets, refusing to watch Bonds circle the bases after tying Aaron’s record was about as classless a public act by a Sports Commissioner as I’ve ever seen. Not even Bowie Kuhn would have disrespected the game so much. A perfect opportunity for Magowan to deflect some of the heat coming at Bonds and in turn we San Francisco fans who had been ridiculed for years by the National Media. A perfect opportunity for Magowan to call out the weasel commissioner and denounce him for the conniving little shitbag that he is. For publicly disprespecting His(Magowan’s) player. Our player. Our Guy. His team. His city. His fans. But more importantly for disrespecting the game of baseball. But no. He sat on his hands until Barry’s last home game as a Giant and wept for the cameras. Phony.”

And more

“There is a small chance that Bonds will be wearing an A’s uniform next season. I think there would be something symbolic in Bonds wearing white shoes when and if he breaks 800. He will have all but a few Bay Area baseball fans cheering him when he does. And there will be no scowling, disrespectful Bud Selig tugging at his bad hairpiece in the house to ruin the picture.”

My god, there’s a man of integrity in the media. It’s seemed to me for a long time that MLB (and sadly, the Union) have been hoping that Bonds would be the poster boy and take all the heat off of everyone else. Then, Bonds would retire and everyone would forget about it. Imagine if you were Bonds, and were thinking the same thing – surly? The man’s got more patience and forgiveness in him than Ghandi – if it was me, I’d be screaming from the rooftops. That’s where the real crime is – MLB and the union sold a player out.

“Disrespected the game” is exactly right.

Let’s see…Bonds is the anti-Christ because he’s…stayed in SF virtually his whole career, loved the city, scorned the vultures in the news media, worked his ass off to win (often times surrounded by shit that he makes better), respected the franchise at every turn, promoted his undying love for his dad and godfather, etc., etc. VS. Roger Clemens? Roger Clemens…how many teams? How much money demanded? How many bats thrown at players? How many player drilled in the ribs? How many half-seasons by choice? How many references (and passes) to his “workout regimen” that no other player gets? How much improvement as he aged? Yeah…what I thought.

This whole issue is beyond ridiculous and only now a few in the “media” are questioning themselves. I respect Rhoden’s stuff and like to see that he’s able to confront his (mis)perceptions. Too bad there are so few like him and so many seem to want to turn the players into comic book characters that they can paint as “good” or “evil” or go nostalgic on us for “how great” it used to be. This shit is what’s undermining the game, ’cause it’s still great. And…as we all know…there are no PED problems in the NFL, NHL, or NBA. Yeah, right!

Happy holidays guys!

respected the franchise at every turn

Thanks for the laugh.

Even Bill Simmons — definitely not a fan of Bonds — pointed out the obvious…

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/071214

“You aren’t even playing the race card if you point out the differences in how Barry Bonds and Clemens were “covered” by the media from 2000 to 2007: Other than Bonds’ expanding head, we had just as much circumstantial evidence that Clemens’ second prime was extremely fishy, only most people chalked it up to his “legendary” workout regimen. Well, why? Why weren’t more people suspicious? Much to my delight, I was always suspicious and even have various parts in my book that prove this. I couldn’t be prouder. You never had me fooled, Clemens! Never!”

I get amused at the folks who see racism where there isn’t any. Jeez, folks. People wanna compare the treatment of Clemens and Bonds? That’s funny to me – since I’m not aware of Clemens being attached to a unit that had a raid conducted on it by the feds, I’m not aware Clemens ever told a grand jury he used steroids (whether knowingly or unknowingly) and I’m not aware that Clemens has claimed to be better than Babe Ruth.

But maybe racism never reported those things, right?

Let’s compare the treatment by media types and fans of Bonds and Jason Giambi. Better yet, if you want sportswriter hypocrisy, let’s consider the following gem:

Writer: “I can’t vote for McGwire because he might have used steroids and won’t tell us.”

Interviewer: “But what about Bonds?”

Writer: “Well, that’s different altogether. First, Bonds has never tested positive (note: I don’t recall McGwire testing positive, either). Secondly, Bonds was a Hall of Fame before we started hearing rumors about his steroid use (uh, so was McGwire). If you believe Jose Canseco (who has lied more times than Bill Clinton) then McGwire began using steroids in 1991 (and, of course, Canseco wouldn’t lie).” (You can put Tim Jerk-ijan or Buster Olney’s name here and you hear the same thing).

Interviewer: “Now, we do have Bonds admitting under oath that he used the cream and the clear.”

Writer: “But this was an illegally leaked grand jury testimony” (Of course, the same writer treats Jose Canseco as the infallible Pope regarding his own book).

For those who bash Bud please tell me – what was he supposed to do? Impose drug testing? How? Those of you who blame Selig for this need to tell me what he should have done? The players union is the most powerful union on the planet – so the notion Bud could have passed it is ludicrous.