Bonds' Accusers Make Big Stink

Barry Bonds will probably break Hank Aaron's home run record soon, an event that will give us media folk fodder with which we'll write and speak and blog for at least a full two weeks after the event.

So what has mutated into the more unbearable thing, Barry's head (Juicius Nogginus Maximus) or media coverage of it (Pontificatus Ad Nauseam)?

My vote goes to us. From Spewing Sportscasters to Poison Pens and their illegitimate offspring, Frank Deford and Peter Gammons, among others, (Spewing Pens?) there is no leaked grand jury testimony left unturned, already.

As Bonds breaks the record and, with it, the seventh seal on live television, while the Spewing Pens again bring up those hints and allegations and the odd call to strike his record to balance our moral compass, just remember: when they say the camera adds 10 pounds, Truth is not immune to that.

Television is the medium at the heart of the issue. I've said before that it is a bloating canvas. Reality shows...aren't. Not even sports is "real" as seen on TV.

Sports play as one-dimensional on television -- winners and losers -- when the reality of any one game, any one play, involves so much more. Much less an entire career as productive as Bonds'.

Take the unbelievable amount of time and space the media displaced after LeBron James decided to pass the ball instead of shooting it in Game One of the NBA's Eastern Conference Finals.

Michael Jordan would have taken the shot, they said while playing the archive footage of MJ taking the shot. LeBron is a disappointment, they said while playing footage of James excusing himself after the loss.

The sweet irony is The Pass helped lose Game One but it helped win the series, because it kept Detroit guessing as to what King James would do next and gave him the space to coronate himself.

History will now show that His Airness took three years longer to reach the NBA Finals than His Heirness.

As this applies to Bonds, the more the klieg lights of media scrutiny beat down on the issue, the less shadow there is to provide depth to the picture. It is replaced with the media's own artificial shading. Every Bonds home run highlight comes with a "However..." attached.

It then becomes easier and easier for Congress and the Commissioner and Baseball and Us to point fingers at Bonds because...well, we can't be for the guy. He's a jerk!

Agreed, but sorry -- this is the definition of a witch hunt, and the accompanying stench is the by-product that arises from every allegation hurled by those trying to look cleaner by making Bonds look dirtier. Somebody strike a match or spray some Glade, please.

Congress spends whatever it takes to bring in baseball big-namers to testify about performance enhancing drugs, ensuring prominent mentions for these insightful leaders (who need your vote) on every major national sportscast and in daily papers across the country.

Commissioner Bud Selig isn't sure if he'll show up for Bonds record-breaking game. Wonder if the commish was whistling the same tune when he was the owner of the Brewers back when steroids were in every locker room?

Diablos manager and former big league pitcher Butch Henry has told me more than once he would be at his locker in the Bigs sitting right next to a guy shooting himself up with the juice.

The Commissioner didn't know? Owners and managers didn't know?

And, of course, team equipment managers and trainers never talk with anyone about seeing so-and-so doping, much less the guys who sign their paychecks.

Right.

Want truth to truly conquer and fairness to reign? Then you can't throw out Bonds' coming achievement.  At least, you can't stop with just that one. Just like with Bonds, you must pick the deadly sin first, then let the records and Hall of Fame ejections fall where they may.

Start with Gluttony: Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Steve Howe, Darryl Strawberry, Ken Caminiti, just to name five.

How about Wrath: Ty Cobb, a man who made Ron Artest look like a choir boy by jumping into the stands to punch out a handicapped heckler. Also, a vicious racist who beat up a black groundskeeper over the condition of a field then choked the man's wife when she tried to stop him.

There's Greed: Anybody remember any of the eight work stoppages? Honestly, who would be left?

Let's not forget Pride: Again, who would be left?

Gluttony: David Wells and the Bambino would take the cake there.

Now there's Juicing, which has become baseball's eighth deadly sin. But if you can't get thrown out of the game for any of the other seven, why is everybody bothering?

Baseball needs Barry Bonds as much as Bonds needs baseball. Sports -- sports on TV most of all -- are not nearly as compelling unless somebody is breaking records, proving The Game is Moving Forward.

Tell me you haven't watched Alex Rodriguez or Albert Pujols and done the math. Could either be next? Both?

And if there's no progress? No controversy?

That's where a good universal TV remote comes in handy. The harshest cut of all for any sport.

Comments

[DaNun]

On the money Duke. US will win the Gold Cup. US will make out the second round in the Copa America.