Count me among those who hopes Barry beats the rap. Not because I think he's innocent of steroid use or even innocent of perjury, but because of how the media tried the hardest to make him the face of steroids. Now I'm not saying they all got together and came up with the idea. But it's obvious over the years that so many of the tv guys, writers, and radio hosts gave it to Bonds with both barrels while holding their fire on everyone. It took a bad appearance in front of Congress for Mark McGwire to get any real heat, and Roger Clemens had to make a fool of himself in a 60 minutes interview for any real suspicion to come up. Bonds got it as soon as he went after the 70 home run record after ballooning up like the Michelin Man. Yes, it's obvious he was on the juice, but it was obvious with McGwire and Sosa as well. And Clemens late career resurgence screamed steroid (or HGH) use but nobody cared much.
Barry got tagged as the face of steroids not so much because of any actual use of them but because he was reportedly a jerk. To the media, to his teammates, and even some fans. OK, there's more than enough evidence over the years to come to that conclusion. And I'm sure that the fact he was about to break some serious records made the baseball media elite want to hurl. I also think that even if Bonds had been totally clean the media still would have hated on him. That's what you get when you get snippy with them. If Brett Favre treated the media like Bonds did we'd have read a zillion columns and articles about whether or not Favre should have been suspended being for being a pill popping drunk instead of the syrupy stuff we've been handed all these years.
The media seized on everything they could with Barry, and when the Game of Shadows book came out they screamed 'Checkmate!' for all to hear. When Bonds broke the home run record, the crowed that his new records should be given an asterisk or that Bud Selig should have suspended him before he got there. And then came the game winner, spoken by so many radio guys and talking heads on TV:
'Thank God A-Rod will break the career mark soon, and we'll never have to hear about Barry ever again'
How'd that work out? Now we know that A Rod was ridin dirty, too. And we get this from ESPN's Buster Olney:
"A-Rod was supposed to be the guy who saved baseball the way Mark McGwire did in 1998. He was suposed to ride in and save the home run record from the clutches of suspected steroid user Barry Bonds."
Excuse me while I laugh really hard. Look, I got no beef with A-Rod, but this is just great to see. The media's anointed hero turned out to be as tainted as the man they hated more than any other. And if Barry beats the perjury rap they'll be even sicker. Which serves them right; there was feeling I got that many of the baseball media were looking at a perjury conviction and jail time as a way of getting their pound of flesh from Bonds for all the times he told them to go jump in the lake. And as the government's case gets flimsier (a lot of crucial evidence was thrown out by the judge last week), it looks more and more like Bonds has a shot at going free. Which is great. There is nothing I'd enjoy more than hearing all these people have to stumble over themselves talking about how we're stuck with a steroid tainted home run king either way, and how they can't believe Bonds got away with it.
I am in total agreement
couldn't have said it any better myself.
Count me in. I'm on the same Barry Bonds boat.
What I love is how everyone is being exposed now. Barry might just win this one.
Put AFraud on trail