Letters to the Editor
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Rewarding Bonds
By being in attendance when Bonds breaks the record, Selig is in effect saying that you can break the rules and MLB will still reward you. That's a terrible message to send.
Aaron broke the record based purely on his natural physical ability. And that's why the record should remain his, regardless of what Bonds does.
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Nope, not race
I don't know about anyone else but myself but it has nothing to do with race. I hear he is a jerk and brooding, so be it, don't know, don't care.
He could have been a great player but sullied his accomplishments with drugs, plain and simple. Mark Maguire (sic?) is the same thing, druggie. I'm a competitive athlete have been so for all my life and will never take *ANY* drug nor respect others have done so. Any athlete, all athletes, who take drugs are not to be respected.
Yes, there is the argument 'what is a drug and what level is it ok, etc, etc." I don't always have those answers, but there are players who clearly went over the line. Barry Bonds is one of them.
It's not racial nor is it a hard decision.
B.N.
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Aaron will still be the king
I agree with the first post here. It doesn't matter what Bonds does, I will continue to view Aaron and Ruth as the greatest home run hitters to play the game. I'll be glad when Bonds breaks the record simply so it will be over with and he'll be out of the headlines.
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whaaa?
Oh man how you came to race for this article is astounding and an example that throwing out the race card for any imagined indignity upon a person of color has now jumped the shark. get a clue.
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Um... Sandy?
How can you say that Commissioner Selig is both a racist and a decades-long friend of Hank Aaron?
Um...Salon, why did you post this article?
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Giving Bonds a pass?
As someone who follows baseball only in a very sporadic fashion, perhaps I can offer something of an outsider's untainted perspective to this issue. Personally, I don't buy the argument that, because other players have quite probably been violating baseball's drug policies too, Bonds should somehow be given a pass. Rather, it seem to me that ANY player who is found to be using steroids or other banned substances ought to be dealt with in a way that clearly shows that such behavior is not acceptable. In other words, breaking the rules of the game MUST have consequences.
If it is such a sure thing that Bonds has in fact depended on steroids to achieve his successes, then why is he still playing? And how can any records he establishes be accepted?
My strong impression is that the taint of probable drug use is much more the issue here than racial attitudes. It isn't just that Bonds isn't "cuddly" or that his personality grates on many people in ways that to some extent feed into racial stereotypes and anxieties. It's that he is widely perceived to have CHEATED. And that is not something to be honored.
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The only color of concern is red -- as in herring.
We can't blame Barry Bonds for all that's changed in the last 33 years.
No, but we can blame him for his personal behavior and choose not to celebrate the results of his proven cheating and insufferable disregard for the truth.
To inject race into this story is akin to saying George W. Bush is loathed by so many because he lives in Texas. Absurd, right? Bush is loathed for his actions, deceitfulness and utter contempt towards the American public.
Exactly like Bonds.
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As I understand it, Hank Aaron wishes no part of being in attendance, either.
Is Hank Aaron also failing to "rise above the race issues that color Bonds in the public eye"?
I suppose this is a valuable article, in that it shows the lengths to which Salon will go in order to twist, tease and torture a left/liberal storyline out of what would ordinarily be the most mundane set of facts.
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home runs
I was wondering why no one mentions Josh Gibson in these discussions? I mean - that's racism at its heart isn't it?
Aaron continues to display a grace and class that Barry will never know, but for Selig to compound his numerous villainies by not even showing up when one of the most storied legends in all of sports is broken would be unthinkable, and icing on the cake.
A pox on all of them, except Aaron.
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What a load of bull
Sammy Sosa's charm and enjoyment of baseball is a "game?" And Barry Bonds' surly shitheadedness is, what, more authentic?
Enos Slaughter, until he made up for it many years later, was reviled for his treatment of Robinson, and Ty Cobb is still thought of as the biggest a-hole to ever play the game. They weren't "given a pass."
And why should Selig stay away from any game that has a whiff of steroids? Isn't that a lot different than staying away from a record-setting game with a whiff of steroids? And how does your theory jibe with the justified ostracism of Pete Rose, a white ball player who, like Bonds, is a major jerk who broke the rules. He sure hasn't gotten a pass, nor should he. Barry Bonds is a cheater, who is about to break the greatest record in baseball, a record held in high esteem in part because of the great dignity and grace of the black man who holds it.
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It's the steroids, stupid
I am perplexed by this article. Bonds' image is not a subtle media effort to play on white American guilt and fear of black male rage. Bonds created his own image - he is surly and taciturn, and to that I say, so what? Lots of white players are too and Bonds and all of them pretty much 'get a pass' - he makes a huge salary and regularly gets voted onto the All Star team despite his unwelcoming aura - an aura Bonds and Bonds alone is responsible for.
I watched Hank Aaron pass Ruth's record. It was one of the most exciting nights of my life - and I was a little girl watching TV with my father. I was young and had no idea he was threatened and slurred as he was, and this only makes my love and respect for Aaron and his accomplishment that much bigger, these years later.
As for Bonds -he's a cheater, plain and simple. And so was Mark Maguire, and so was Sammy "cork bat" Sosa. I loved watching Maguire and Sosa's home run derby at the time, and was glad that it rejuvenated baseball...but I remain disappointed at the falsity of their accoplishments and the way they accepted accolades as if they had done it without illegal assistance.
If I were Selig, I would not attend. I'd send a congrats telegram and a big basket of fruit and flowers and maybe a gift of some sort..but I'd want Bonds to know that cheating has consequences, if only the witholding of total respect.
This has nothing at all to do with race. Bonds cheated. Period. His accomplishment should go down in the record books with a color-blind * for 'steroid-fueled'.