"Take me out to the ballgame, take me out to the crowd. Give me some peanuts and Cracker Jacks…..lah, de, dah, dah…..give me some steroids and heart attacks! Oh, Take me out to the ballgame…..NOT!
Well, apparently Randy Hill for Fox Sports just doesn’t seem to get it in my book, but click here and see if you agree. Personally, I think pretty much the entire piece is rather poorly written and a bit confusing about what he’s really trying to say here. It seems that many contradictions abound, but one thing seems clear and that’s that he’s most certainly a Bonds’ fan….poor Barry, it seems has been picked on.
He mentions that baseball has rallied a bit from the strike of 1994 and asks: "Why has this happened?" According to him, "the biggest reason is baseball’s commitment to power." "commitment" you say, huh?
Here’s a little diddy from a Bonds’ Biography for your enlightenment.
Duhh….yeah, cheating’s ok as long as we see more power and if it takes cheating, well, so what? The real bottom line of course is MONEY and baseball’s "commited" for sure.
With Bonds now 4 homeruns behind Hank Aaron’s amazing record, what’s it all mean? For me, absolutely nothing since the playing field is definitely not level and Bonds’ "accomplishments" mean nothing as far as I’m concerned. Sorry, but we’ll never know the truth about whether Hank’s record could have been beaten without Bonds’ drug use, etc. Nor will we ever know what Bonds could or could not have honestly accomplished in his career if he hadn’t cheated.
Many place Bonds in the company of many of the game’s greatest hitters such as Pete Rose, Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Rogers Hornsby and Ted Williams. Puhlleeeze! I had the pleasure of going to many a Cincy Reds game during Rose’s career and they didn’t call him "Mr. Hustle" for notin’….I’m thinking betting on baseball is a bit less serious than injecting power-inducing drugs into your body, but then, hey, I’m no longer a baseball fan partly because, let’s face it, the game’s not really America’s past time anymore for many of us who believe that honesty’s still the best policy. The Babe must be turning in his grave and Williams probably would be too if he weren’t frozen!
I hate to tell all you sports’ junkies, but many sports are dishonest these days along with much of society unfortunately. From personal experience allow me to share a story of just one example.
My son Ryan, a professional snowboarder, was competing in the slopestyle event (think ski slope containing 4-5, 60-80 foot jumps off of which riders spin, flip, etc. (yes, all at the same time) and hit rails doing other tricks while speedily going down the hill) at his Second Winter X Games. Twenty riders are invited who have won a major pro event during the previous year. Ten riders advance to the finals. Well, Flyin’ Ryan was the bubble boy in 10th place with one rider to go with a chance to knock him out of the finals. It was an Olympic Year and I nervously watched as Olympian Danny Kass (a great guy by the way) started his run. There’s no slopestyle yet in the Olympics but Danny competes in the half pipe as well, Ryan does not.
Danny was very good right up until the last "money booter"….the biggest jump in the course. Unfortunately, Danny fell which usually automatically disqualifies a rider from scoring well or advancing….stomped landings are very important criteria along with amplitude and technical difficulty which the judges’ score on.
After Danny fell, while I was sorry for Danny, I "knew" Ryan would be in the final since he had a run with similar difficulty (I traveled with him for 3 years until he turned 18 and quite simply know alot about the slopestyle event) but stomped all of his landings except for a bit of a "wiggle" on the last "hit’s" landing (no hand down or fall, etc. like Danny) after spinning a corked cab (think spinning your least favorite and hardest way depending on which foot forward you ride on) 1080 (3 spins), the same trick Danny successfully completed except for the landing.
The Winter X Games is a huge ESPN media event and represents big bucks for at least the top three finishers in the variety of events and making the finals puts you in a position to hit the big money. ESPN makes a ton of money as well with world-wide broadcasts. I ran into a few ESPN guys at the airport the previous year, started talking snowboarding, moto-cross, etc. who said they laugh in the booth many times and even know when things have been "fixed" and they’ll shout fix, fix, fix when poor-judging is so very obvious. They were talking about an event I happened to miss that year, but I certainly knew the general idea of the conversation. Ahh, but I digress…
Much to my surprise, Danny’s score goes up on the jumbotrone and he narrowley scores higher than Ryan bumping Ry out of the finals. I know it’s not "right" and alot of the crowd seems to agree as they start booing. Now, you could just say hey, it’s mom and she’s biased. But wait….there’s more to the story.
Ryan licks his wounds, understands Danny "needs" to be in the finals especially with the Olympic’s just around the corner and this final event is on TV all over the world. Great publicity, of course, for the pre-Olympic athletes and events. Ryan knows life’s not always "fair" and neither is snowboarding.
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Simply by accident while on my way to the athlete’s tent, I run into one of the announcers I’ve known for several years. He tells me how he was in the judge’s booth and the judge’s realized they scored Danny way too high and that Ryan should have made the finals. Okay, so I stupidly ask: "are they going to correct the scores?" He looks at me with the "you know better than to even ask that question" look….I’m disgusted, again, that sometimes people can’t make a mistake, correct it and move on.
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Well, it’s not that I haven’t seen other snowboarders "robbed" at any given time at various events over the years, so it just happened to be Ryan in the precarious position this time. What bothers me is that this sport, like many others, just poo-poo’s things with the ole’ hey, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose and if you can’t take it, go big or go home attitude!
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I’m not very happy, and even recommend that Ryan file a protest. "Yeah, right, Mom, then they’ll just blackball me and not invite me to some of the other big events…you know how it is", he says as best as I recall.
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Good for Danny as he ends up 2nd or 3rd in the finals behind probably the best known snowboarder in the world, Shaun White. They both go on to the Olympics and Ryan goes home to Utah with $250 for 11th place and no automatic invite to next year’s Winter X as it’s only the top 10 re-invited…so he "pays" twice for doing a better job. Since Ryan had suffered 3 major injuries in the 3 previous years and was counting on a good finish to keep him in the gameand had previously decided to retire after the season he reluctanly decides that this will probably be his last year competing at the pro level. Basically, he says he’s just had enough of the politics of the sport.
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While I digressed, although it’s just an example of "cheating", I hope you thought about Barry Bonds and what you think about Hill’s story "Disdain for Bonds is overblown."
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Me….I participate in alot of different sports, but I watch few on TV since I’m always questioning whether or not the real "winner" was really the real "winner" in many sports that are subjectively judged. Think Olympic Ice Skating from a few years back for another good example of what’s wrong in sports.
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So, yeah, Mr. Hill, I’m one of the "But most of you would prefer lobbing credit (poor choice of words?) for baseball’s problems at steroids and their liaison, Barry Bonds.
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I’d like to go back to a society where, yes, maybe winning is everything, but it’s done with honesty and integrity, no cheating allowed, and politics are left to the politicians who are much more adept at lying with straight faces.
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We’re not doing our children any good by our example, now are we?
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"Please remember that you didn’t invent nearly as much passion when his (meaning Bonds) calling cards were a high average, the stolen base and great defense" said Hill.
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Yep, again, sorry, but I’m not going to give any credit to a cheater offensively or defensively in a cheat-to-win at any cost baseball game or society. It’s how you play the game and that’s what we need to teach our children. I’d rather play my best and lose, then cheat and win at any sport or in life. The ends do not justify the means. I have no problem looking at myself in the mirror, how about you, Barry?