The furor over Barry Bonds’ use of creamy substances and/or the Sultan’s surly disposition are mere smokescreens designed to hide white America’s Fear Of A Barry Planet writes the Denver Post’s Mark Kiszla.
Go ahead. Name an American sports hero at the top of his game more despised than Barry Bonds.
When the boos rain down on the slugger as he steps to home plate, what do you hear?
I hear racism.
Bonds proves bigotry in this country is always as close as the back of a fan’s throat.
Resuming a brilliant career left for dead by his painful knee injury and a chronic steroid controversy, the 41-year-old Bonds is again bashing hanging curveballs and his detractors into the upper deck.
Bonds hits our town with 707 home runs to his name. Roll over, Babe Ruth. The king of baseball’s asterisk era has your hallowed statistic dead in his sights.
And White America hates it.
The same baseball poets who wrote odes to Mark McGwire cannot wait to tar and feather Bonds as a cheater.
Bigots who buy tickets heckle Bonds, until the boos are stifled with awe for the next moon shot launched from his bat.
In a country that pledges to fight for freedom of speech, Bonds is disliked for speaking the unpopular truth.
He is often 100 percent correct. A killer hurricane is a bigger national disaster than a national pastime that poisoned itself on juice.
Whether Bonds rubbed a cream on his body that transformed him into the San Francisco Hulk is not nearly as disturbing as the leaking of secret grand jury testimony, which is a crime against the U.S. justice system.
Cheater or not, Bonds is the only hitter I would pay to see. Yet I have felt the drop-dead glare Bonds offers the media horde when cornered in the Giants’ clubhouse, maybe because he has been bitten too often to give strangers the benefit of the doubt.
Bonds is easy to hate only because pity is so much more work.
Being the home run king should be a sweet blast. Too often, Bonds acts as if his job is shoveling manure.
It stinks when the boos leave such deep scars on a slugger’s heart that it is tough for Bonds to feel the love while circling the bases.
Where’s the joy in a home run if it doesn’t touch us all?
Good question, and if I had Dave Kingman’s home telephone number, I’d ask him right now.
90% of caucassian baseball picthers were given greenies & steroids in hs. even mcguire admitted it. not one test given by major league bb shows barry bonds used steroids ect. the klanish groups are trying to discredit his great deeds. no one said no problem when mcguire was breaking all those records. he was only using a legal steroids,. ???? they knew he was using the real steroids even when was with oakland. THE RACIST KLANISH GROUPS THAT ARE POISONING THE IGNORANT, IS ONLY DESTROYING BASEBALL. LOOK AT THE ATTENDANCE. Real baseball & sports are winners tghose little racist teams like the cleveland indians ,will always be klanish loosers. NO ONE CARES ABOUT RECORDS ANYMORE. ONCE THE BLACKS & HISPANICS BROKE THEM ALL, THE CAUCASSIANS MADE THE BALL PARK SMALLER SO THEY COULD COMPETE WITH THE LONG OUT AS HOME RUNS. NOT PITCHING TO BLACKS WHO WERE BREAKING THEIR RECORDS ECT ONLY LET THE WHITE WOMEN KNOW THEIR WEAKNESS, NOW THESE IDIOTS AR KILLING WHITE WOMENSBECAUSE THEY KNOW THE REAL STATISTS OF MAN. NOT MADE UP LIES.
thanks, Ed. If Scoop Jackson ever breaks his hands, I think ESPN will be giving you a ring.
Indeed, there’s no evidence of Barry flunking an MLB drug test. Though they weren’t testing for performance enhancing supplements throughout Bonds’ career. While he’s never flunked an MLB test, there is the small matter of his grand jury testimony in the BALCO case.
But yeah, I share your concern about baseball’s KKK-ish elements, particularly those that juiced the ball and made the stadiums smaller so that great symbol of white supremacy, Sammy Sosa could challenge for the HR mark.
I’ve seen black people boo barry bonds. It’s not just racial critisizm, so you can swallow that comment with your stereotypical pride.
ALL OF YOU: Your racial comments only prove your lack of education. I think you love to bitch about race, personally.
Steriods in general are giving baseball a bad reputation. This includes more than just Barry Bonds, as Mark McGwire, Jason Giambi and many other “white” as well as “black” or any other race that was involved were questioned by a grand jury.
I don’t think there is a person in the world who thinks Barry Bonds does NOT use steriods. People don’t boo him for race, they boo him just like they boo mcgwire, giambi, etc. for their use of steriods in the sport and give it a bad name.
Your racial entities are your own personal problem, not Major League Baseball’s.
Dear Shithead,
sorry, I guess I fell asleep last night when someone threw a syringe at Jason Giambi.
Barry Bonds is hardly the only steroid abuser, but he’s easily the most villified. Is it his surly disposition to blame for all the abuse he gets, or is it that he’s just very successful? If it has NOTHING to do with the color of his skin (and I think you’ve gotta be a first class moron to claim as much), how is it the likes of McGwire, Giambi and Lance Fucking Armstrong never received nearly as much grief, at least from Americans?
Last time I checked, Cardinals fans were still fawning over Big Mac and MLB gave Giambi a goddamn Comeback Player Of The Year award.