Not everyone happy about Barry Bonds' return
This was written before Bonds actually came back, but hey...
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/brennan/2005-09-07-brennan-bonds-return_x.htm
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Not everyone would be happy if Bonds plays
Christine Brennan
USA Today
Not everyone would be happy if Bonds plays
We interrupt our coverage of the worst natural disaster in the history of the nation to bring you this news from a batting cage in Dodger Stadium: Barry Bonds is hitting home runs in batting practice and is threatening to return to baseball before season's end.
Oh joy. Just what the country needs, a surly, self-absorbed, steroid-using cheater (according to leaked grand jury testimony) to cheer us all in our days of gloom.
If sports play any role at all during a fortnight like the aftermath of Katrina, it is to brighten, even for a moment, the life of a child or adult whose world has been turned upside down by a monumental national tragedy.
The idea is simple. Sports as a sidelight, nothing more, to make someone feel just a little bit better, to allow a poor soul who has lost a home, a business, a way of life, to forget his or her troubles, even for a minute.
During these days, it's a one-way street for sports in this nation. It's all give from sports, all take from the fans. There is no reason at all for sports to exist if they make us feel worse.
But if there's one guy in all of sports who can send us into a deeper funk, it's Barry Bonds. The minute he steps to the plate for the first time, he dredges up every ugly reminder of the continuing steroid saga that has swallowed the national pastime this season.
By simply showing up, Bonds siphons off a sizable portion of the national media's interest in the great races and stories of a long season finally winding down.
He dwarfs the Yankees' quest to not be left out of the playoffs for the first time since 1993. He steals the thunder from the improbable and delightful Washington Nationals. Even if you don't want to turn your head, he will force you to pay attention to him. He's that kind of guy. The White Sox, the Red Sox, the Cardinals and the Angels; they're all second fiddle when this big lug shows up at the plate in San Francisco sometime soon.
How we wish it weren't so. How we wish we could just avoid Bonds once and for all, have him and those muscles, however they were made, fade away, never to return.
How we wish he would do what was best for his game and leave the records of Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron intact. How we wish he would never threaten to take the greatest numbers in sports — Babe's 714 home runs, and Hank's 755 — and make a mockery of them.
How we wish he could be an afterthought, an inconsequential blip on the radar screen, lost in a sea of national perspective and a September sports calendar filled with too many good things to spend one second thinking of a guy like Bonds.
How we wish he played hockey, so he would have been locked out.
But Barry Bonds is too selfish to see what's best for the game, for the season, even for the nation. What's worse, he will think he's right because he will be encouraged by tens of thousands of baseball fans in San Francisco who will cheer him as if he were a relief worker returning from the Gulf Coast. When that happens — and rest assured it will — it will be enough to make anyone outside of San Francisco want to shake his or her head in disbelief.
Bonds' Giants open an 11-game homestand today. If only Bonds were on the road, he would get an idea of what the nation really thinks of him. Imagine Rafael Palmeiro, only worse. Palmeiro, the Ben Johnson of baseball, had to wear earplugs because the booing in visiting ballparks was so vociferous. He had two measly hits in 26 at-bats after returning from his ster oid suspension. Finally, pathetically, he was sent home with "an injured ankle."
His experience was the 21st-century version of being ridden out of town on a rail.
Knowing what Palmeiro went through, Bonds is probably hoping for a 162-game homestand next season.
Right now, though, Bonds, lucky son-of-a-gun that he is, will find himself in the middle of a most unlikely pennant chase. His Giants are just six games behind the San Diego Padres as of Thursday in the awful National League West. Wouldn't it be something if Bonds returns, hits some home runs to draw dangerously close to Ruth and somehow helps the Giants make the playoffs?
It's Major League Baseball's worst nightmare. Within the world of sports, a world that's supposed to make us feel good when so much else is wrong, it's ours too.
I used to be a fan of Dusty Baker, but I think the pressure of not winning a World Series in almost 100 years has gotten to him.
Then when you have Pedro pitching the next day ( and we all know he is a loose cannon ) and the Mets frustrated and pissed how the trip was going that is the last thing the Cardinals wanted to have. The Cardinals never dug in on Pedro. They barely were in the batter's box. They knew the Mets were pissed. As far as putting people in the morgue, how about some of your guys getting off the DL first before threatening to put people in the morgue. The Cubs with Dusty Baker have NO HEART. The Mets, at least, decided to show some character and pound the Cardinals yesterday. But don't tell me that my team couldn't get into a beanball war because Pedro, Aaron Heilman, Juan Padilla, Roberto Hernandez and Braden Looper all throw 92 MPH and over.
