Allright...so it's been a little while since the last time I posted something for you all to read. Sorry. I know there's only three of you out there anyhow.
So to placate all the dissenters calling for something other than comics here we go...
Now first off, I want to preface this for all my friends, to whom I am generally regardedm as sports-stupid, and just say this: pay attention. For everyone else, I want to say this: Fuck Barry Bonds. No. Really. I'm now going to try to put this into more developed and coherent language but really, that's it: Fuck Barry Bonds and all those of his ilk.
Since you asked...here's my problem with Barry Bonds. Barry Bonds is still carrying on as if breaking Hank Aaron's record actually means anything anymore. And, apparently, it does. To all the fans and media and naysayers and prosayers and the lawmakers and the record keepers and the number crunchers and everyone else who's involved in this, fuck you too. Barry Bonds's pending smash of Hank Aaron's career home run record is crap. Here's my question: why are we still paying attention to this guy and why is noone talking about the fact that he used steroids to do what he, presumably, is about to do? And why is noone talking about this in terms of "well even if he does break the record, he'll still have an asterisk next to his name"?
And if noone is asking those questions, why do we, the people who pay money to see this scumbag play ball and turn him into some sort of hero for our kids who play ball, continue to give a crap about whether anyone in pro sports cheats or not? Because that's what this boils down to. You can't have it both ways. Either you mean what you say, practice what you say and punish this guy for cheating and polluting the sport which, in America today seems tantamount to religion, or you say what you say to look like you care about the right thing and then go on edifying the people you publicly decry.
That's what we've done with Barry Bonds and all the rest. We have set the rules: no performance-enhancing drugs of any kind. Presumably to preserve the notion that the Gods that now occupy our consciousness (i.e. the sports stars) in fact represent the pinnacle of human performance. We have sent the message: be the best, just so long as you are pure and these are the rules for being the best. And yet, when one of the Chosen is discovered to have disregarded those rules, we allow them to continue to play with minimal punishment. We have now sent a new message: forget the rules, what really matters is being the best, no matter what.
Now there are some that would disagree with me and say that Mr. Bonds is only human and is entitled to a mistake once in a while. And to a certain extent, I would agree. However, when you or I make a mistake, there are consequences. I don't see consequences of any substance here. I certainly don't see any regret. And I definitely see Mr. Bonds continuing as if nothing happened. In fact, it seems to me, he is being rewarded for his actions, as he is still regarded as the peak of hitting pefection, no matter what he did to acheive that.
Again, Mr. Bonds is not entirely to blame. I rest much of that blame on the shoulders of his fans that continue to support him, the sports media who continue to idolize him for their ratings and the team that continues to alolow him to play. My feeling, and I am sure I am in the minority here, is they should have taken this guy and all of his steroid taking friends and thrown them the hell out of baseball FOREVER and made them all work for a living.
I have no symapthy for this kind of stuff, in case you hadn't already figured that out. Everytime I see Bonds on television being commended for another home run or talking about when he is going to break the record, it makes me sick. Everytime I think of how criminally overpaid these guys are despite having broken the law, the ethics codes of their organizations and the hearts of millions of kids, I want to puke. The bottom line here, for me, is this: I think the only thing, in my mind, that would redeem Barry Bonds as a person, would be for him to retire prior to breaking the record. Or, at the very least, make a public acknowledgement that he recognizes that his acheivement is marred by his poor judgement.
But that's just me...
