We don't need no stinking steroids
Congratulations to future home run king Barry "the Asterisk" Bonds for being elected to his thirteenth National League All-Star team... and congratulations to National League fans for having the courage to vote for him in the face of relentless media opposition.
Bonds, who at this writing is hitting .304 with 16 homers and 40 RBI (plus a season slugging percentage only a couple of points shy of his overall career aggregate), came in third in the fan balloting, with 2,325,391 votes.
Go ahead — name the last 42-year-old major leaguer (Bonds will turn 43 later this month) to put up batting numbers like that. I'll be waiting a while for your answer, because there isn't one. It's never happened before.
We can all speculate on whether Bonds was anabolically juiced when he smashed the single-season home run record in 2001. I don't know for sure (though I'd put my money on the affirmative), and you don't either. But we have to concur on this: He's unquestionably squeaky clean today (because you know that with Henry Aaron's record only five swats away, The Baseball Powers That Be are testing Barry's tinkle at every opportunity), he's almost four years deep into his 40s, and he's still recording stats that guys half his age would sacrifice their firstborn to achieve.
Good, bad, indifferent — you've got to acknowledge that there's never been a player like Bonds. I might not want to invite him over for dinner, but I'll stop what I'm doing to watch him swing the bat any day of the week, and twice on Sunday.
You go, Barry.
Bonds, who at this writing is hitting .304 with 16 homers and 40 RBI (plus a season slugging percentage only a couple of points shy of his overall career aggregate), came in third in the fan balloting, with 2,325,391 votes.
Go ahead — name the last 42-year-old major leaguer (Bonds will turn 43 later this month) to put up batting numbers like that. I'll be waiting a while for your answer, because there isn't one. It's never happened before.
We can all speculate on whether Bonds was anabolically juiced when he smashed the single-season home run record in 2001. I don't know for sure (though I'd put my money on the affirmative), and you don't either. But we have to concur on this: He's unquestionably squeaky clean today (because you know that with Henry Aaron's record only five swats away, The Baseball Powers That Be are testing Barry's tinkle at every opportunity), he's almost four years deep into his 40s, and he's still recording stats that guys half his age would sacrifice their firstborn to achieve.
Good, bad, indifferent — you've got to acknowledge that there's never been a player like Bonds. I might not want to invite him over for dinner, but I'll stop what I'm doing to watch him swing the bat any day of the week, and twice on Sunday.
You go, Barry.
Labels: Celebritiana, I Love the Giants, Sports Bar
SwanShadow was randomly pounding the keyboard at 4:06 PM
1 insisted on sticking two cents in:
I think you missed the point. I'm naive enough to think at this point, MLB executives would actually fudge numbers to get him into the all-star game just to save face and build momentum going into the second half of the season to try to get fans excited about it. Let me tell you something...Not going to happen - except for in San Fran, which should be obvious. No matter what, I believe the majority of baseball fans will elect to not recognize Bonds as the home run king given the past. Bud Selig and the rest of MLB can be blamed for this. When you watch something as serious as the steroid scandle take place without taking action, you're asking for demise. Right now I rarely watch anymore.
JG
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