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Nice column, John, and you made some very good observations that all of us readers can agree with, but you're approaching the point of whipping a dead horse. Look, I'll put it very simply for you - Bonds is a dick and nobody (GMs, managers, team mates, fans, etc.) wants to put up with his bullshit.
What don't you get? It's very easy to comprehend.
I wouldn't hire him if I were a GM, even if he was an upgrade over my current left fielder, because I think he's a scumbag and I want nothing to do with him. You can argue all you want that my responsibility as a GM is to field the best team possible, but there is something called ethics. Call me old fashioned, but I and perhaps many others place ethics before money making. I'm a Yankee fan, but I'd rather lose without Giambi than win with him, because he's a scumbag too. I can't wait for him to get out of the uniform.
Do you get it now?
I get it--what I don't get is the inconsistency.
Why Barry Bonds and not A.J. Pierzynski or Albert Belle, or John Rocker, or Luis Polonia? Why was Steve Howe given seven chances? Why were Daryl Strawberry, Doc Gooden, Sidney Ponson etc. given multiple opportunities? Why is Julio Lugo who abused his wife considered more toxic than Barry Bonds?
Were their offenses less obnoxious than Bonds? Yeah, Bonds is a dick--no argument, but is it worse that issuing a death threat to a woman and the children he fathered in the case of Elijah Dukes? Is smacking around your wife less evil than what Bonds did? Is endangering the public by repeatedly driving intoxicated and assaulting a judge less dickish behaviour than Bonds? Is chasing children in your SUV less evil than being nasty to the media?
How come Steve Howe's left arm bought him seven chances after drug violations while Bonds' 170 OPS+ does not? How come a man can spout racist venom yet teams not be put off by that rather than Bonds being a dick to people regardless of background?
Here's the thing: I am deeply offended that MLB thinks I will not be offended by people that abuse their spouses, threaten their children with death, sleep with girls my daughters' age, are vitriolic racists, repeatedly drink and drive but think I will be put off by an obnoxious athlete who used PED and lied about it. Were every other PED user in the sport honest about it and otherwise fine upstanding gentlemen?
Why does MLB think I won't be offended by that, but will be by Barry Bonds?
That's my question and the point of my article--if it's not collusion, then Barry Bonds is the worst person ever to play MLB. Even the greatest crime in the sport's history (throwing the World Series) didn't keep a team from desiring their services then obviously, Barry Bonds is considered worse than Ed Cicotte, Chick Gandil and Swede Risberg.
That I do not get.
Never forget this: the press used to lionize Steve Garvey, Pete Rose and Kirby Puckett, they told us there wasn't rampant PED use in the sport, they told us in the 1980's that teams weren't colluding, they were just being fiscally conservative and financially prudent, they told us that public funding of sports stadium were a great deal financially for the community, they told us that major league teams were going bankrupt and the game wouldn't survive without NFL style revenue sharing and a hard salary cap ... now am I supposed to believe them when they say Barry Bonds is the Worst. Teammate. Ever? Am I supposed to believe that the media is a bastion of fair and objective reporting where they never let personal feelings colour their view?
Further, did he suddenly become an intolerable dick in 2008? Why not 2007 or 2006? Wasn’t he a distraction and clubhouse cancer in those seasons? Was he too toxic to employ those years? Obviously not. What happened in that period of time that suddenly made him unemployable at any cost? What happened in those seasons that enabled MLB to find religion and wish to purge evil from its midst?
Simple, Bonds was under contract and the home run chase was making money for MLB. To do something before this year would mean the Giants would have to pay Bonds’ contract without getting anything in return--it would have cost a member of the cartel money plus they would have to forego the revenue for the run at No. 756.
To simply say no to that money or insist that Peter Magowan sacrifice that money as a sunk cost to get the toxic Bonds out of the game was simply not an option. First, MLB had to extract as much money as possible from Barry Bonds and the march to Aaron before it could find its principles.
Fans packed stadiums around the league to cheer, boo or watch to see when Bonds would hit HR No. 755 and 756--now that’s over with, they too have found religion and realize that they never want to see him again.
Anybody else have a problem with that? I sure do.
Had MLB decided that Bonds was too nasty to employ while he still had significant financial value to them (and they, a financial obligation to him) I can comprehend that the stand they’re taking possessed a degree of nobility. However, to stand up and say that he’s too much of a burden on the game after they’ve cashed all the big checks…
Sometimes it is necessary to continue beating dead horses because once folks stop, people forget, when people forget, the powers that be are tempted to resuscitate it. The lessons of collusion didn't last 20 years before it was attempted again (they paid the MLBPA a collusion settlement in the last CBA) Folks in power count on past actions being forgotten--it's how history repeats itself. History teaches us that if you don’t cease beating the dead horse, they can be resurrected and ride again.
On a larger, nastier scale, the crusades of the Middle Ages didn't deter the acts of 9/11. The horrors of the concentration camps in Nazi Germany didn't dissuade the internment camps in Bosnia, the Holocaust didn't deter the "ethnic cleansing" that was attempted there. The Japanese internment camps didn’t prevent Guantanamo Bay. The lessons learned didn't stick for much longer than 50-odd years with a good chunk of the population around for both events (the crusades excluded of course).
(Mr. Godwin, paging Mr. Godwin--would Mr. Godwin please pick up the white courtesy phone?)
No, I'm not comparing Bonds to the above, what I am saying in matters both large and small that letting the wrongs of the past be forgotten (read: stop pummelling the deceased equine), we're only encouraging it to happen again. I think it was George Bernard Shaw that said the only thing that man learns from history is that man never learns from history.
If Bonds is being colluded against, then owners realize that the media and public have got their backs--after all, they did in the 1980's as the public reviled the "pampered and greedy players" … why not attempt it again?
Did we learn nothing from blindly following the media’s lead back then?
I don't like Barry Bonds and I agree that he is a dick, but to single one man out for sanction without any sort of due process is simply wrong because one day it may be you or I or someone we care about that is standing on the trap door and we find the noose we put on someone else is now around our necks, and who are we to complain that the rules we arbitrarily made are now being used against us?
For me, this hasn't been about Barry Bonds, these articles would appear regardless of the player involved--it's been about the right way and the wrong way to go about sanctioning a player. Quite frankly, it bothers me that people let their hatred for the man to celebrate and indeed encourage a possible illegal act being done to him. If every lying, PED using dick in MLB were being treated like Barry Bonds--that would be one thing, however Bonds has been isolated from every other lying, PED using dick in MLB and a different standard applied.
That's just plain wrong.
If MLB doesn’t wish to employ Barry Bonds then it should stand up, suspend him, allow him the chance to file a grievance, let all evidence be heard and a decision rendered.
The fact that they haven’t done that tells me that they know they haven’t got enough on him to make it stick--after all, look at all the other dicks MLB has allowed to stay in the game.
Let me ask one question: is what Bonds has done is more objectionable than what was done by Elijah Dukes, Sidney Ponson or Julio Lugo? If the answer is no, then why isn’t anyone calling for their ousting from MLB? Why is Barry Bonds the only one that offends enough that there’s seemingly a need to set someone straight that doesn’t like Bonds himself, but rather hates the thought of collusion more?
Why is there approval of the “dick-line” being drawn at Barry Bonds? Do we believe unconditionally and absolutely that everything written about him has been the stone cold unvarnished truth? If not, then how can we unconditionally believe that Bonds deserves to be the demarcation line for behaviour unacceptable for a major league player?
This isn’t about good-riddance to bad rubbish--that’s not the issue and it never has been. It’s about the possibility that the enablers of the steroid era (and worse scoundrels than Bonds will ever be) that bold-faced lied to the government both about the effectiveness of their drug testing program and their economic condition (a few years earlier) possibly standing in judgment of a player who was enabled my MLB in his steroid usage and lied to the government about it and deciding that they will illegally deny him employment in his chosen profession even though his sins are far less worse than many others before him.
Best Regards
John