soapbox

Now that I’m watching baseball again, the media circus that surrounds a certain NL slugger out in San Francisco is pretty diffficult to avoid. Most of y’all out there in blogland know that the record he’s chasing is held by a hometown hero from my part of the world, so I’ll go ahead and admit to a potential bias in my analysis.

That being said, I think a cursory review of their Wikipedia bios linked above should yield the mildly attentive reader to the obvious conclusion: any record Bonds breaks in the wake of the the BALCO mess and its fallout must be subject to at least suspicion, if not outright invalidation. Perhaps I’m overly-sensitive to this particular issue, and I know I’m too nostalgic, but, assuming that 50 years from now baseball isn’t played by cybernetically-enhanced dope-fiends, I think history will add a big fat disclaimer to career of Barry Bonds.

Let’s face it: assuming Bonds is guilty of even just the perjury that’s he’s been investigated for, they’re keeping Pete Rose out of the Hall for a way less embarassing offense, so they should at least consider keeping Bonds out in that case, marketing appeal be damned.

Furthermore, Hank is a gracious individual who has consistently proven himself to be the best kind of champion; Bonds is has consistently proven himself to be a spoiled jackass - ’nuff said! Keep on hammerin’, Hank!

Also, the Sox just finished sweeping the Yankees at Fenway - first time that’s happened in 17 years, according to Remy! Let’s Go Red Sox!