Inasmuch as I have never been comfortable with the characterization of Barry Bonds as a fraud because of his steroid use (prior posts here), this Skip Sauer/Sports Economist post comparing Bonds’ situation to that of former heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson caught my eye:
This week’s Chronicle of Higher Education has a piece worth reading by historian Warren Goldstein, on the simmering feud between Barry Bonds and his critics in baseball and the media. Goldstein sees an analogy between Bonds and the black superstars who were run out of sport in the 19th and 20th Century as racism became institutionalized in American society. The list, borrowing from William Rhoden’s recent book, $40 Million Dollar Slaves, includes Isaac Murphy, a three-time winner of the Kentucky Derby, Major Taylor, the top cyclist exiled to France, and boxer Jack Johnson. Since watching Ken Burns’ documentary on Johnson a few years ago, I’ve viewed Bonds and Johnson as soul mates of a sort. So I am predisposed to both Goldstein and Rhoden’s take on this.
Bonds plays in an era where overt racism is much diminished, and banishment akin to his predecessors seems unlikely. But he is caught front and center in the anti-drug witch-hunt, and he — like just about every other player of his cohort — is unapologetic. Indeed, I sometimes wonder if Bonds would not mind being immortalized in a manner similar to Murphy, Taylor, and Johnson. Just as Bud Selig and various members of the media shrink from celebrating Bond’s pending achievement, it is likely that Bonds finds the prospect of sharing the moment with his detractors to be repulsive. For reasons both valid and perhaps a bit petulant, he’d rather figuratively hang with his homies Murphy, Taylor, and Johnson. I can see his point: they’re an accomplished group.
A hypothesis of Bonds as suffering prejudice against blacks (not misuing the word ‘racism’ which) would have to answer these questions”
1. Did Issac Taylor use EPO, anabolic steroids, HGH, insulin and modafanil to win races in his cycling career?
2. Did Major Taylor dope his horse with bolderone, pain killers, and EPO to win?
3. Did Jack Jones use a PED to schieve the heaveyweight boxing championship?
If none of the above is true then that leaves a major hole in the hypothesis to be filled: rather than a sympathetic figure suffering the prejudices of fans as he overtakes another African-American in the career home run race, perhaps fans dislike a drug-cheat who has artifically inflated his numbers.
That leads to Q4:
4. Where is the prejudice in calling out Bonds, a player of African descent as he overtakes Aaron, a player of….African decent?
Which leads us to Q5:
5. Is not Mark McGwire a caucasian? Yes, and he has been called out for his use of PEDs, essentially given the largest snub in HOF voting history.
One might argue that Bonds has never used PEDs, which as futile as saying Ty Cobb never spiked anyone, or that Gaylord Perry never threw a doctored pitch, just ‘hard sliders’.
A better question might be ‘how much did PEDs contribute to Bond’s stat’s. Without Bonds’ late career enhancement, his stats would be similar to Willie Mays. Good enough for the Hall of Fame. Would Bonds without PEDs be good enough to make a run at Aaron’s record?
Bonds is responsible in large part for ‘The anti-drug witch-hunt’; if there was no pervasive use of PEDs there would be no anti-drug witch-hunt (better known as ‘maintaining fairness in sport’). Those witches known as PEDs are real and are powerful.
Frankly, the answers to each of your first three questions is “I don’t know,” but I’m not sure it matters. The answer to your fourth is a bit more complicated and, as to your fifth, to suggest that McGwire has endured anywhere near the societal animosity that Bonds has is absurd as the suggestion that Bonds never used steroids.
The better question is this: What part of the societal hatred that Bonds endures is a result of his steroid use and what part is attributable to the fact that he is a not particularly likable black man who is unquestionably the best ballplayer of his era?
Drugs have been a part of baseball’s culture for decades. Is Aaron going to submit himself to a lie detector test that he never used the amphetamines that players commonly used during the era in which he played? And, as you know, baseball clubs have often forced players to use drugs to play while injured, often to the detriment of the player’s career. How ironic it is that, within such a pathologically competitive environment, players such as Bonds, who have taken drugs in an effort to strengthen their bodies to be able to endure the physical hardships of the game better, are the subject of scorn, while players and clubs who have commonly used other drugs to enhance performance are hardly noticed.
There appears to be a race component to the Bonds reaction. It is unstudied by a true sociologist, thus the associations with race, temperament, ‘roids etc. are unknown.
The reaction (for instance at Boston this weekend) is clearly overdone, and hypocritical. I believe (without data, the overdone crowd reaction is do to:
1. Group hysteria
2. Media fuel
3. Concern about baseball integrity
4. Reaction against Bonds’ media portrayal (as not many fans have actually met Barry Bonds)
5. Just plain opposition to anyone achieving anything
One could ask the same about Sammy Sosa.
I think that there are fewer concerns about a Hispanic player, or a black player breaking records than the cheating component. There better be, because very soon, A-Rod, Ken Griffey Jr. will join Bonds, Aaron, and Ruth as the best home run hitters of all time.
Of course right now Aaron, Bonds, Ruth, Mays and Sosa also feature 3 black hitter, and a Latino and White hitter on the Top 5.
Do not underestimate the fans feelings for McGwire. McGwire was given a huge snub at the HOF voting. Huge. And McGwire never faced crowds as a ‘juicer’; he had retired before the proliferation of juice stories surfaced.
White players are jeered all the time. Ted Williams received the Barry Bonds jeers of his time…
I can’t spell, ‘due’ would work better than ‘do’; ‘hitters’ is better than ‘hitter’ and oh well….I need a relief speller…..