The Buhner.com Blog

Ah, Barry Bonds. Just when I’m trying to finish up a rant about how the Devil Rays love to screw themselves over, you give me more things to write about. My ADD made it difficult to finish that article with this popping on the newswire.

Ok, now I’m focused.

Barry Bonds is upset. He says he could be out for half the season, or he could be out for the whole season. He could be out forever. He doesn’t seem to care if he is or not. He’s tired.

Tired tired tired.

And the thing is, there’s a ton of people now who are screaming “I KNEW IT! STEROIDS! HE’S AFRAID!” And it’s understandable. If Bonds were on steroids in the past and not on them now, he risks having a dramatic decline in his numbers and pretty much proving that his inflated numbers over the last few years were a result of BALCO, or stay on the steroids and end up getting caught. By claiming injury and sitting out half the season, or just not playing any more, we take away any evidence of the post-steroid policy Bonds to compare to the pre-steroid policy and Bonds numbers still hold up and it just becomes a source of argument without proof.

But look at it from Bonds perspective. He’s 40 years old, not 34 like Jason Giambi. Very few baseball players play until they’re 40, and no 40 year old player has played at the performance level that Bonds has. Assuming Bonds never took steroids, he comes into 2005 with a bad knee and a 40 year old body where he has to perform at the same level that he did the previous season, or else the finger gets pointed at steroids. He doesn’t get a pass because he’s old, unlike any other superstar who may have “hit the wall”. Recently retired Roberto Alomar hit his wall at 34 - coming off possibly his greatest season in 2001, Alomar’s average dropped 70 points, OBP 84 points, and slugging 165 points. No one says that Alomar was coming off “the juice” in 2002, they just attribute it to the downside of his career.

Bonds doesn’t have this convienence. Add onto this a knee injury (that can surely affect performance) and there are many reasons for Bonds to have an “off” season in 2005, none of them steroid related. Of course, they could be steroid related, and the media and many fans would love to point the finger to that being the only reasoning behind it.

Bonds hasn’t made himself a popular figure outside of the San Francisco Giants fanbase. He’s not an overly friendly personality like Sammy Sosa (or at least like Sosa was) or an “aw shucks” type like Mark McGwire was when they were both going after Roger Maris’s home run record in 1998. Bonds at times has come off smug and uncaring - whether justified in that image or not - and hasn’t endeared himself to the media or the general fanbase. That’s not Bonds’ fault; he shouldn’t have to smile and be happy-go-lucky if that’s not his personality. However, in a baseball era where longstanding records held by baseball icons look to be broken, we want certain people to break them if they have to be broken. Bonds isn’t one of those people.

It’s unfortunate for Bonds because if he were “popular”, the issue might not be as big as it is now. Mark McGwire showed all the signs of steroid use (he even admitted using a performance enhancing drug - Androstenedione - which wasn’t technically “illegal” at the time), but people turned their heads and looked the other way because they liked McGwire, and wanted to see him as a record book guy. The majority doesn’t want to see Bonds as a record book guy, regardless of what he does. Therefore, when we have an opportunity to prove why Bonds shouldn’t be in the recordbooks, we’ll jump all over it.

It’s unfortunate and unfair, but at the same time, Bonds hasn’t made himself a sympathetic figure. Seemingly blaming his injury on the media, Bonds made sure that it seemed that the reason he wouldn’t be back was because of the media instead of his knee or any other reasoning. “You guys wanted to hurt me bad enough, you finally got me,” Bonds said most recently, referring to the media. The fans and the media aren’t directly related, and attempting to guilt the media into apologising and stating that you’re not going to go back to playing because you’re tired of the media bothering you isn’t going to endear yourself to the fanbase you’ve been slowly alienating.

Sure enough, an ESPN.com poll asking what site visitors wanted to see Bonds do next saw “retire” leading the voting with almost 70% of the vote. Cal Ripken would never have run into a similar situation.

I feel bad for Bonds, but it’s hard to feel sympathy for someone who seemingly asked for it this past announcement. Bonds says that he’s tired of his kids crying because their dad keeps getting run down in the paper. If you know your father is clean and innocent, can’t you take solice in knowing that the papers aren’t telling the truth?

It’s hard to find a “right” and “wrong” in this situation. There’s a lot of gray.