Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Moldy Bread & Barry Bonds


Have you ever dug into that old wrinkled plastic bag of Wonder bread planning to pull out a few slices for a nice peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Remember how disgusting it was to see that musty, dry bread with those flecks of invading black bread mold on the edges? Remember how you no longer wanted that sandwich, even if there was a new and unopened bag available?

That's how I felt when I read that latest story on the alleged steroid use (okay, okay... he did admit to mistakenly using some steroid cream during his grand jury testimony) by the San Francisco Giant's outfielder Barry Bonds. Who among us, who has a shred of intelligence was surprised when we were bludgeoned with this story of steroids in baseball soon after he broke Mark Maguire's home run record in 2001? I know, they BOTH refuted the allegations, but you could look at the bulked up biceps, the oft-erratic behavior during interviews, and see those magnificent home runs to know that SOMETHING was up!

Keep in mind, Major League Baseball did not ban these performance enhancing products until 2002, so he wasn't breaking any rules of the game. It's funny there was no ban when Mark McGuire and Sammy Socsa were knocking them out of the park with regularity in 1998! And Major League Baseball didn't put any real teeth into enforcing the ban until last year.

So it's been about 5 or 6 years that this has been common knowledge (despite the protestations) and now we have this "bombshell" of a book telling us what we've known all along! What bombshell? Okay, they have detailed records about how and when he spread the cream on his biceps. WOW! I'm really impressed by this example of journalistic tenacity... give me break. He already has the proverbial asterisk by his home run records, so what are they going to do now... add another asterisk?!?

I guess I won't be watching any ESPN tonight, because I tire easily of sactimonious and self-serving pontification. I'll have to settle for a Caesar salad (with no croutons) and an innocuous escape with American Idol.

2 comments:

Christopher King said...

Look on the bright side:

Gordon Parks probably did not abuse steroids.

http://christopher-king.blogspot.com/2006/03/goodnight-gordon-kirby.html

But what about Kirby?

Anonymous said...

You're right, plez the reporters are just haters and/or racists.

I'm wondering if they suspend Bonds retroactively are they going to delete the home run records of McGwire and Sosa just to make things fair(or at least put asterisks besides their names)?

As for sports reporters and analysts they've become gossip columnists. I remember when Kobe was accused of raping the crazy girl from Colorado. Before the incident Kobe was a praised for being quiet and staying close to home. As soon as the incident happened all of a sudden Kobe was a recluse or hermit who didn't like to socialize. All of a sudden he kept to himself because he had a dark side. They are the sleaziest.