Barry Bonds: You are No Babe Ruth!
JOHN W LILLPOP
With 42, 935 San Francisco Giants’ fans standing and cheering wildly, Barry Bonds launched his seventh home-run of the 2006 season at ATT park on Sunday.
Bonds thereby passed George Herman Ruth….affectionately known as ‘The Babe’.… for second place in career home runs.
Except for Giants fans, most of the rest of the nation, especially die-heard baseball fans and former big-league ballplayers, grimaced at the news. Why?
Because mentioning Barry Bonds in the same breath as The Babe is sports blasphemy.
Hardly on a par with the Iran nuclear crisis or the ongoing struggle in Iraq, but nonetheless of grave concern to those who love baseball.
If there was a missing Mullah in baseball, he would surely emerge from the bottom of the well at Cooperstown, NY upon hearing of Bonds’ 715Th. The Mullah would then officially close the Baseball Hall of Fame, and all records enshrined therein, pending receipt of enough Asterisks(*) to last through the Bonds era.
Asterisks to denote that performance-enhancing substances make Mr. Bonds achievements highly dubious, if not downright fraudulent.
That may sound harsh. Some will argue The Babe was an abuser as well. They will point to his reputation as two-fisted drinker, wild womanizer, one who devoured copious amounts of junk food, and never met a curfew he could not ignore. In other words, The Babe was a boy who never grew up.
Much of that criticism is valid. However, The Babe’s excesses diminished his athletic skills. Being over-weight and hung over most of the time cost The Babe lord knows how many home runs.
On the other hand, Barry Bonds’ sins were designed to enhance his offensive output and exorcise haunting images of Mark McGuire from the Sullen Ones consciousness. Jealousy of McGuire, with whom Bonds battled for home run supremacy in the late 1990s, apparently drove him to the steroids bar and fraud at the ball yard.
Bonds also comes up short against The Babe in another important measure:
Babe Ruth’s domination and persona may have actually saved baseball. Indeed, the 1919 “Black Sox†scandal threatened to destroy the national past time. Thankfully, the ‘Sultan of Swat’ emerged as the greatest ball player to ever play the game, and his presence alone kept the sport from dying.
His affable, easy-going manner made The Babe a national icon and hero to millions of young men and boys.
By contrast, Barry Bonds has brought scandal and disgrace to the game. Depending on how several legal issues are eventually resolved, Bonds and others in the ‘Steroids Era’ may end up doing more harm, than good, to the sport that made them all extremely wealthy.
Barry Bonds: You are No Babe Ruth!
John Lillpop is a recovering liberal, "clean and sober" since 1992 when last he voted for a Democrat. Pray for John: He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where people like Nancy Pelosi are considered reasonable! | More from John Lillpop
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