Barry offers to help
John Shea of the SF Chronicle had the scoop on Memorial Day -- Barry Bonds says he'd like to help the Giants do better. I can't imagine a better idea. Here's a guy who was utterly dedicated to excellence on the baseball field and winning.
Lefty Malo has a fine post about Barry -- here's a large portion of it --
Bonds made the rounds at Mays Field yesterday, as you've probably heard, to press his case for... well, it wasn't exactly clear. He's due on the Hall of Fame ballot for the first time, so it's probably no coincidence he's out pressing the flesh with those who might vote for him. He also made noise about rejoining the Giants in some instructional capacity, which is a great idea if he has a repeatable knack for translating his talent into lessons -- no guarantee, that -- and if he doesn't become a distraction to the people he's trying to instruct. I suppose there are ways to avoid TMZ-style gawking or media scrums every time Bonds shows up at the Scottsdale minor-league complex, or at San Jose Muni for pre-game BP with the Little Giants, or wherever his wisdom is best put to use.
The rest of this post is for those of you reading -- if any -- who don't feel Barry Bonds should be in the Hall of Fame. It's an old argument that I've posited on this blog in various forms; forgive me if it feels stale, but I've held this conviction for quite some time. It's quite simple, really, and it can be summed up in a few sentences:
Everyone in baseball used to have access to performance enhancing drugs called amphetamines. "Greenies" were available in every clubhouse for decades, and there's no way to know how many extra hits, home runs, strikeouts, or games played were collected by current Hall of Famers who needed a little extra boost on an endless August road trip, on a 100-degree day in Atlanta or St. Louis, or in the last few achy years of a long career. A lot of hallowed records should probably have asterisks, if you're into that sort of thing.
Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Mark McGwire did nothing that many of their predecessors didn't do, but their actions were magnified by a different era of media scrutiny and Congressional self-righteousness. You might find these men narcissistic, mean-spirited, childish, or aloof. (Many of Bonds' teammates and most of the media would check "all of the above.") Those personality traits certainly haven't helped them in the court of public opinion, but they are not crimes, nor are they disqualifiers for the Hall of Fame.
Doing illegal things could legitimately be grounds for a big Hall of Fame DQ, but in these men's cases, their performance-enhancing crimes would simply put them on par with some of legends whose uniform numbers we've reverently retired and whose plaques we've enshrined.
Which gets back to my first thought about Barry Bonds in this post. Hall of Fame stuff aside, a Barry Bonds who's not helping the Giants win baseball games is a bit of an afterthought for me. But if he helps the Giants win baseball games by showing others how to hit home runs, steal bases, lay off close pitches, and make quick, accurate throws from the outfield, well, that's performance enhancement I can get behind.
Lefty Malo has a fine post about Barry -- here's a large portion of it --
Bonds made the rounds at Mays Field yesterday, as you've probably heard, to press his case for... well, it wasn't exactly clear. He's due on the Hall of Fame ballot for the first time, so it's probably no coincidence he's out pressing the flesh with those who might vote for him. He also made noise about rejoining the Giants in some instructional capacity, which is a great idea if he has a repeatable knack for translating his talent into lessons -- no guarantee, that -- and if he doesn't become a distraction to the people he's trying to instruct. I suppose there are ways to avoid TMZ-style gawking or media scrums every time Bonds shows up at the Scottsdale minor-league complex, or at San Jose Muni for pre-game BP with the Little Giants, or wherever his wisdom is best put to use.
The rest of this post is for those of you reading -- if any -- who don't feel Barry Bonds should be in the Hall of Fame. It's an old argument that I've posited on this blog in various forms; forgive me if it feels stale, but I've held this conviction for quite some time. It's quite simple, really, and it can be summed up in a few sentences:
Everyone in baseball used to have access to performance enhancing drugs called amphetamines. "Greenies" were available in every clubhouse for decades, and there's no way to know how many extra hits, home runs, strikeouts, or games played were collected by current Hall of Famers who needed a little extra boost on an endless August road trip, on a 100-degree day in Atlanta or St. Louis, or in the last few achy years of a long career. A lot of hallowed records should probably have asterisks, if you're into that sort of thing.
Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Mark McGwire did nothing that many of their predecessors didn't do, but their actions were magnified by a different era of media scrutiny and Congressional self-righteousness. You might find these men narcissistic, mean-spirited, childish, or aloof. (Many of Bonds' teammates and most of the media would check "all of the above.") Those personality traits certainly haven't helped them in the court of public opinion, but they are not crimes, nor are they disqualifiers for the Hall of Fame.
Doing illegal things could legitimately be grounds for a big Hall of Fame DQ, but in these men's cases, their performance-enhancing crimes would simply put them on par with some of legends whose uniform numbers we've reverently retired and whose plaques we've enshrined.
Which gets back to my first thought about Barry Bonds in this post. Hall of Fame stuff aside, a Barry Bonds who's not helping the Giants win baseball games is a bit of an afterthought for me. But if he helps the Giants win baseball games by showing others how to hit home runs, steal bases, lay off close pitches, and make quick, accurate throws from the outfield, well, that's performance enhancement I can get behind.
posted by Big D at 10:10 PM
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