Of course, this posting goes without saying. In no uncertain terms should Barry Bonds ever don the green-and-gold, unless he decides to use his chemically-enhanced muscles to play linebacker for the Green Bay Packers.
Sending out feelers to gauge the public’s stance towards Bonds playing in Oakland is despicable enough, but the quick backlash says more about the people of the East Bay than anything else.
Having principles like integrity is something just about every fan of every Major League club seems to possess except for the fans of the San Francisco Giants. The shrill opposition found in numerous public chat rooms, including the den of A’s thought,
Athletics Nation, and numerous letters to the editor will probably be duplicated in the next city that voices some interest in signing the discredited slugger. The uproar in Arlington , San Diego or New York , though, will never be as intense or to the point as it was in Oakland because we’ve been his roommate for so long.
The armpit of the Bay Area that is Oakland (some parts) has gained a whiff of the stench from AT&T Park in concentrated doses. Being a baseball fan in the Bay Area it takes quite a bit to be inoculated from discussing the hypocrisy of Bonds and the Giants.
To know the destruction of moral values pertaining to sports in the Bay Area is to watch the broadcast of a Giants game last year while reading the excellent work the
San Francisco Chronicle’s Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada. Overlay the two opposite storylines of the Giants announcers praising the enduring greatness of Bonds at the same time the Chronicle details the dirty methods that got him within a half-season’s worth of homers from Henry Aaron’s 755 and feel your blood pressure rise.
For pure audacity, isn’t it exactly like President Bush repeatedly saying the war in Iraq is going swimmingly while the
New York Times reports Iraq is dangerously teetering on Civil War. Both scenarios defy logic and imagine supporters of the two as ostriches with their heads in the sand.
Call San Francisco a red city in a sea of blue when it comes to Bonds. Giants’ fans, when it comes to their tainted slugger, just don’t get it. When a Padres fan threw a syringe at Bonds on opening day in San Diego it was like the S.F. fandom could not fathom why someone would perpetrate such an act, not because it was dirty or dangerous, but it was as if they could not recognize the symbolism of a syringe and Bonds any more than a piece of cheesecake and Bonds. The fact is they need each other and this symbiotic relationship is the root of the problem.
Nobody wants to deal with Baroid’s antics or poor public relations except for possibility of financial reward. The Giants, more than any other ball club, need a huge draw like Bonds. Being the only privately-financed park in the last 40 years, the Giants need to keep the stands full or risk defaulted on their $30 million mortgage note. This is the downside to keeping the Giants in San Francisco and a unique problem. One the A’s and every team don’t have to deal with. Flirting with Bonds for others is about winning and whether you and your fan base can stomach the three-ring circus that is Bonds.
The assertion that A’s general manager and guru to those enamored with the numbers game, Billy Beane, made probably stokes the fires of the A’s nation when he casually spoke of Bonds’s outrageously high on-base percentage; a certain statistics that Mr. Beane’s finds particularly alluring. The problem was that the every statistics linked to Bonds is tainted. When new A’s manager Bob Geren seemed intrigued by a reporters question about the possibility of coaching Bonds next season, he acted liked a five-year-old boy who was just offered a million pieces of candy.
Spouting Bonds’s recent performance as fact without mentioning the means that he attained to garner such lofty praise does a disservice to any team that thinks about signing him. If Beane spoke of Bonds in the context of an aging superstar looking for one last hurrah like a Rickey Henderson, for example, who is judge on his accolades of fifteen years ago rather than Bonds who is lauded for his recent crooked body of work rather than his early 90s resume, the hypocrisy would be significantly lower. It’s as if Beane wouldn’t mind to sample a bit of Bonds’s black heart if it can get him what he wants: a ring.
The problem with fans of Bonds and apologists of him is that you must accept he is fraud and his work too is tainted beyond recognition. From 2000 to today, the supreme aura of greatness that Bonds attained is not to accept as part of his already stellar career. When Beane and Geren gush about his recent exploits it only gives the impression that the A’s hierarchy is no better than the Giants or anybody else. They view him as mercenary who can get them what they want: a World Series title. It’s precisely this sort of logic that pushed Barry Bonds, Tim Montgomery, Rafael Palmeiro, Marion Jones and every offensive linemen in the NFL to take steroids in the first place; to win at all costs even if it risks losing your soul.
