http://www.sacbee.com/100/story/292614.html
On Baseball: It's a bit late to be so pious
As the Steroid Era arrived, baseball owners and the media ignored the obvious.
By Paul Gutierrez - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PDT Thursday, July 26, 2007
Story appeared in SPORTS section, Page C3
SAN FRANCISCO -- A throng of reporters from across the country is milling about the Giants' clubhouse, waiting for something, anything to happen with the star player.
A manager is seated on the top bench of his dugout, left to answer questions about the absent star player with scores of microphones and cameras thrust in his face.
And the commissioner sits awkwardly in a luxury suite, fidgeting like an antsy 2-year-old on a six-hour flight as he waits for the star player to make history, tainted or not. And you thought Mark McGwire looked uncomfortable in front of Congress.
Welcome to Day Umpteen of the Barry Bonds home run watch, filled with more hurry-up-and-wait moments than a trip to the emergency room, more handwringing than buyer's remorse, more soul-searching than a trip to confession.
Talk about your moral dilemmas.
Amid the white noise, do you root for Bonds, the fearsome, snarling face of the Steroid Era, to pass the regal Hank Aaron and take the all-time home run record? Or do you boo BALCO Barry's every swing and pray a stay on the disabled list for his breaking-down 43-year-old body is near to halt his pursuit of the most hallowed record in sports?
Truthfully, this is what baseball gets. This is what we deserve. We are all to blame for the awkward aura enveloping our national pastime since we were all complicit at the dawn of the Steroid Era.
Think about it.
In the wake of the devastating players' strike of 1994, Bud Selig and the owners turned a blind eye to hitters' bulging physiques and the surge in homers. And isn't it interesting that Selig decided this was the "appropriate time" to follow Bonds, when it's apparent an indictment for perjury against him is not forthcoming since the grand jury investigating him has been extended.
Plus, many of the same holier-than-thou media who find it fashionable to trash the likes of Bonds, McGwire and Sammy Sosa as muscle-bound freaks who cheated the game have conveniently forgotten how they once kept their heads in the sand. They celebrated records being crushed like so many hanging curveballs. These self-appointed protectors of the game opine that we want our records broken by the rules, with no help from chemists in lab coats. They must forget the Greenies Era of the 1960s and '70s, when players popped amphetamines like Flintstone vitamins just to get through nine innings.
So don't get on a soapbox to offer a morality play while screaming about asterisks and the death of the grand old game. Not when its history has more than a few drunks, bigots, druggies and gamblers tucked neatly in its Cooperstown closet.
And the ticket-buying fans who keep setting attendance records? They were along for the ride then, as they seem to be now.
How did we get here? Where did it all go so horribly wrong? Harry Edwards, the noted sports sociologist, offered a theory as he spoke on a panel entitled "Sports, Scandals and Steroids: When Sports and News Stories Collide" at last month's National Association of Hispanic Journalists convention.
"The most difficult kind of corruption to root out," he said, "is the corruption where everybody is getting paid."
Indeed, chicks digging the long ball was not the only windfall, financial or otherwise.
On a day in which BALCO Barry's pursuit of Hammerin' Hank was relegated to the fourth-most interesting sports story of the week, following the NBA's referee gambling probe, the NFL's Michael Vick and his dog-fighting indictment and the latest rash of Tour de France doping, Bonds rested.
He was not in the starting lineup for the Giants' game against Atlanta on Wednesday night, and it appears his chase, which many hoped would conclude this week at AT&T Park, will extend to next week and enemy territory at Dodger Stadium and San Diego's Petco Park, where a syringe was thrown at Bonds last season.
Imagine the most sacred record in the game being broken and the new mark's author jeered viciously as he circles the bases while chased by George Mitchell's small army of gumshoes. Sounds sad, doesn't it?
Then again, it would be the perfect and most symbolic coda to the Steroid Era. As such, Edwards said its assault on baseball's record book gave birth to the concept of a record holder (Bonds) vs. the standard bearer (Aaron).
"Even Rip Van Winkle eventually woke up," Edwards said.
Too bad it took us this long.
About the writer: The Bee's Paul Gutierrez can be reached at (916) 326-5556 or pgutierrez@sacbee.com.
On Baseball: It's a bit late to be so pious
As the Steroid Era arrived, baseball owners and the media ignored the obvious.
By Paul Gutierrez - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PDT Thursday, July 26, 2007
Story appeared in SPORTS section, Page C3
SAN FRANCISCO -- A throng of reporters from across the country is milling about the Giants' clubhouse, waiting for something, anything to happen with the star player.
A manager is seated on the top bench of his dugout, left to answer questions about the absent star player with scores of microphones and cameras thrust in his face.
And the commissioner sits awkwardly in a luxury suite, fidgeting like an antsy 2-year-old on a six-hour flight as he waits for the star player to make history, tainted or not. And you thought Mark McGwire looked uncomfortable in front of Congress.
Welcome to Day Umpteen of the Barry Bonds home run watch, filled with more hurry-up-and-wait moments than a trip to the emergency room, more handwringing than buyer's remorse, more soul-searching than a trip to confession.
Talk about your moral dilemmas.
Amid the white noise, do you root for Bonds, the fearsome, snarling face of the Steroid Era, to pass the regal Hank Aaron and take the all-time home run record? Or do you boo BALCO Barry's every swing and pray a stay on the disabled list for his breaking-down 43-year-old body is near to halt his pursuit of the most hallowed record in sports?
Truthfully, this is what baseball gets. This is what we deserve. We are all to blame for the awkward aura enveloping our national pastime since we were all complicit at the dawn of the Steroid Era.
Think about it.
In the wake of the devastating players' strike of 1994, Bud Selig and the owners turned a blind eye to hitters' bulging physiques and the surge in homers. And isn't it interesting that Selig decided this was the "appropriate time" to follow Bonds, when it's apparent an indictment for perjury against him is not forthcoming since the grand jury investigating him has been extended.
Plus, many of the same holier-than-thou media who find it fashionable to trash the likes of Bonds, McGwire and Sammy Sosa as muscle-bound freaks who cheated the game have conveniently forgotten how they once kept their heads in the sand. They celebrated records being crushed like so many hanging curveballs. These self-appointed protectors of the game opine that we want our records broken by the rules, with no help from chemists in lab coats. They must forget the Greenies Era of the 1960s and '70s, when players popped amphetamines like Flintstone vitamins just to get through nine innings.
So don't get on a soapbox to offer a morality play while screaming about asterisks and the death of the grand old game. Not when its history has more than a few drunks, bigots, druggies and gamblers tucked neatly in its Cooperstown closet.
And the ticket-buying fans who keep setting attendance records? They were along for the ride then, as they seem to be now.
How did we get here? Where did it all go so horribly wrong? Harry Edwards, the noted sports sociologist, offered a theory as he spoke on a panel entitled "Sports, Scandals and Steroids: When Sports and News Stories Collide" at last month's National Association of Hispanic Journalists convention.
"The most difficult kind of corruption to root out," he said, "is the corruption where everybody is getting paid."
Indeed, chicks digging the long ball was not the only windfall, financial or otherwise.
On a day in which BALCO Barry's pursuit of Hammerin' Hank was relegated to the fourth-most interesting sports story of the week, following the NBA's referee gambling probe, the NFL's Michael Vick and his dog-fighting indictment and the latest rash of Tour de France doping, Bonds rested.
He was not in the starting lineup for the Giants' game against Atlanta on Wednesday night, and it appears his chase, which many hoped would conclude this week at AT&T Park, will extend to next week and enemy territory at Dodger Stadium and San Diego's Petco Park, where a syringe was thrown at Bonds last season.
Imagine the most sacred record in the game being broken and the new mark's author jeered viciously as he circles the bases while chased by George Mitchell's small army of gumshoes. Sounds sad, doesn't it?
Then again, it would be the perfect and most symbolic coda to the Steroid Era. As such, Edwards said its assault on baseball's record book gave birth to the concept of a record holder (Bonds) vs. the standard bearer (Aaron).
"Even Rip Van Winkle eventually woke up," Edwards said.
Too bad it took us this long.
About the writer: The Bee's Paul Gutierrez can be reached at (916) 326-5556 or pgutierrez@sacbee.com.
