The Chris Moeller Archives

Being Barry

The national sports media is infatuated with Barry Bonds, and rightly so. He's the greatest baseball player of our time, but has never allowed journalists to get an intimate look at his life and motivations.
These days, as he fights to protect his professional legacy in the wake of the BALCO steroids scandal, he also has to fight harder than ever to guard his privacy. On Tuesday, confronting reporters for the first time this spring, he shifted the blame for his mistakes to the media, and awkwardly played the race card to explain away his nasty reputation. Bay Area sports columnist Ray Ratto called it Bonds' annual "State Of The Press" conference. He was what he always has been-- defiant, evasive, and petty. Something tells me it was easier getting an apology out of Pete Rose than it will be out of Bonds.

You can't win a war with the media, but entering his 20th big league season, Bonds is still taking some wicked hacks. "All of you have lied," he lectured them, "Should you have an asterisk behind your name?" When asked about how he would explain the stories of his reputation to his children, he responded towards the reporter, "None of your business because I wouldn't let you in my house."
We see this behavior all the time in the sports world, but almost always to a lesser extent. The competitive fire and privileged life of the athlete insulates him from the rest of the world and conceals the motives of others. Bonds' confusion is evident by his repeated demands that the reporters "do (their) jobs" and "let (him) do (his) job and go home." He doesn't care about them. Why do they care about him? He's never been able to connect the dots between his large paychecks and the necessity of having to answer for his on-field behavior and conduct during training.
"I'm not going to allow you guys to ruin my joy," he said, as if it was ever evident that Bonds enjoyed his work. Other humans have always been a nuisance to Barry. The BALCO scandal forces him to acknowledge them, while taking away the most important part of his professional life-- his ability to be called the best.
Being the best was his focus for more than two decades. He did everything necessary to achieve perfection, followed by some things that were not illegal- but are considered by most to be unethical or unfair. His actions were unexpectedly exposed, and he now fears those two decades of achievement are flying out the window. That would be a lot to digest for anyone, let alone one of the most competitive people on the planet.
One of the most revealing moments during Tuesday's question-and-answer was Bonds' response when asked about Jose Canseco's steroid claims. "I was better than Jose now and I've been better than Jose his whole career," he said, "For somebody that brags about what he did, I don't see any of your records." This has obviously been Bonds' private assessment of Canseco for the past few years. He feels that after early comparisons with Canseco, he achieved career domination over the former Oakland slugger. (Canseco feels the reverse towards both Bonds and Mark McGwire-- a deep-seeded jealousy over their divergent career paths.) Bonds seems to be arguing that his word should be worth more than Canseco's because he put up better numbers.

Bonds also brought the issue of race into play, something he had already done last summer when he said he was inspired to pass Babe Ruth on the all-time home run list because Ruth was white. Tuesday, he reiterated, "Because Babe Ruth is one of the greatest players ever, and Babe Ruth ain't black, either. I'm black. Blacks, we go through a little more. I'm not a racist, but I live in the real world."
This is something that white people have a difficult time understanding. Speaking as one, it always strikes me as disingenuous for black celebrities to fall back on this-- what I would call-- excuse. I feel as though I'm the typical sports fan in that I spend an inordinate amount of time idolizing athletes of all races and have no reason to wish any of them ill will. Institutional racial biases certainly still abound, but at this point in American history, they're overwhelmingly trumped by the cult of celebrity.
I took no joy in seeing Bonds overtake McGwire as the single-season home run champ, but only because team allegiances were strongly at play. My friends of similar upbringing-- but without my same team loyalties-- didn't seem to be taking sides that summer.
Bonds even attempted to subconsciously inject race, I believe, by referencing "Sanford and Son" as his illustration of how reporters are "re-running" the same stories. (He's obviously never seen the episode in which Grady buys "the cream" and "the clear" for Lamont.) If it's true that the O.J. Simpson verdict exposed white people to an America they hadn't seen before, I can attest that this was something I learned then that was reinforced Tuesday: embattled black celebrities feel their most loyal support lies within the black community.

Like other baseball fans, I've been giving a lot of thought lately to how this era and its sluggers will be assessed. After BALCO, it became difficult to even imagine how the home run chase would play out. A few months later, it's more evident. If Bonds breaks the record in San Francisco, the hometown fans will join in the celebration. Elsewhere, Bonds will be booed, but only up until the time that he ties and breaks Hank Aaron's mark of 755. I think fans in a visiting ballpark would feel so privileged to witness the actual event, they wouldn't have the courage to boo, despite feelings of great ambivalence. (I base these opinions partially on the expectations of my own behavior.)
What I'm not yet sure about is what will be going through Bonds' head as he rounds the bases and greets his teammates at home plate. The rap on him is that he never cared what the fans thought of him, but I can't buy into that. He has always been his father's son, as we all are. I'll never forget the night he hit #71 to pass McGwire in 2001. His father was not at the ballpark. Instead, his godfather, Willie Mays, was there, explaining that Bobby Bonds had a speaking engagement that couldn't be broken. Very odd. Mays even chastised Bobby at the podium set up on the field. Somewhere in that relationship between the ballplaying father and his ballplaying son lies the answer to why Barry could never enjoy his success. Now that circumstances have begun robbing him of his legacy, I have curiously lost some of my ability to hate Bonds for his arrogance and short temper. More and more, all I feel is pity. Not because he's unwilling to ask for forgiveness from his fans, as Jason Giambi did, but because he's obviously been taught or conditioned to believe that that would display weakness. And he's made a hell of a career hiding his weaknesses.

posted by CM @ 10:16 PM