The Hardball Times:Discussing the other (phonetically) type of Pujols…
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The Hardball Times found this 5/16/2008 on www.hardballtimes.com [flag] |
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MLB
Barry Bonds
Comments (3)
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hilarie At least in west coast media, one of the most popular versions of the "Bonds is a clubhouse cancer" rationalization is "nobody wants the Bonds circus." Yet the "Bonds circus" is composed entirely of this: One aging, reporter-hating, supreme expert at his craft + all the reporters he hates who "change the clubhouse environment."
A related but different note: How many national news stories whine and express outrage about baseball players other than Bonds who 1) Have more than one locker; 2) Have a Barcalounger in their locker room space; and 3) Get special treatment? Ken Griffey kept a bank of lockers, a Barcalounger, and a video game - flat screen TV assembly when he was with the Mariners. This was before the Bonds-as-supervillain notion was unanimously adopted by offended sportswriters across the land.
I feel a little bitterness (apologies, small-town PA) that my own thesis on media vs. Bonds has been stolen (damn you!) and published. Probably a key logger and room bug. Sadly for me, but happily for the argument, the exposition here is better than I would have come up with and the platform has actual credibility.
You have to think about Tim Russert, Chris Matthews, Wolf Blitzer, et al when you consider the real roots of the truth as told in news, sports, and entertainment media. The most strident and whiniest complainers about "bloggers" -- by which they mean either blog commenters or the tendency of particular blogs to attract inflammatory comments -- are traditional media content providers (so-called "journalists").
What's their beef? Accountability. They'll tell you "bloggers" aren't held accountable for what appears on their sites. Anything can happen! Names will be called! Non-factual allegations will be presented!
What they're really upset about is that they themselves are now being held personality accountable for what they write. They seem to be uncomfortable with people prying into and publishing facts about their lives, personalities, motivations, and writing opinions in public about how all that affects what they write. That's not going to stop. Either they substantiate what they write or they all live and reveal themselves as teeny (and even more pitiful) Rush Limbaugh knock-offs.
The movie "The Natural" did a serviceable job of portraying "journalists." Robert Duvall's Max Mercy is as full of ego-gratification and greed as any politician or athlete. Those are the guys who tell you what to think about the people they "report" on. They want passive acquiescence from their "subjects." They approach athletes and, just like high school and just as Nietzsche said, they use their resentment as a weapon when young stallion millionaires who they want to be don't purr, coo, and oblige.
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hexagram Your comment about race is apt. The tendency to associate hard work and "blue collar" ethic with white athletes is evident in all sports. Last night I heard the Houston Astros announcers describe their white right fielder as a "Rusty Grier type of player" becuase he ran down a fly ball really hard. I bet they never say that about black ballplayers who work just as hard. It's just that those players don't remind them of Grier becuae Grier was white.
Remember Lenny Dykstra? Also a "blue collar " athlete, who worked no harder than many scrappy balck ballplayers. But "scrappy" isn't a term for back athletes.
Of course, the mose egregious example of this is in basketball, where David Lee of my beloved Knicks is lauded for his "blue collar work ethic", somehting the NY media naever said about Oakley or Kurt Thomas or dozens of others who maede a living by hard work and average talent.
Links (2)
TPoSGD: Just thinking out loud...
Published 5/17/2008 by jkbrattain at Baseball Digest Daily
... the last two seasons would have Mahatma Ghandi looking for a high powered rifle and a clock tower. Last year, the Blue Jays had me reassess my views on little ball/manufacturing runs and this year they have me rethinking whether too much emphasis on OBP can cause more harm than good. As I wrote on THT awhile back, I keep finding disconnects between what the numbers tell me and my eyes tell me--the Blue Jays offensive offense have brought it into bold relief. As I discussed yesterday in my THT column I try to look at the reasons why certain things are believed. In the case of ...
Article of the Week for the Week of May 18 - 24
Published 5/27/2008 by Brandon Heikoop (noreply@blogger.com) at The Outsiders Look at the Insides of Baseball
... Brattain is an author who does not beat around the bush. He is an author who admittedly 'goes the opposite way of popular opinion'. This is presumably how he got into baseball being from Ontario, a hockey crazed region. Most importantly, Brattain is attempting to open a dialogue among baseball writers, which seems perfectly rationale to me.
I commend you for getting a shot in at the Blue Jays. Misery does indeed love company.
I have to admit I've always been a closet fan of Barry Bonds (the person, that is). I'm about as mild-mannered as they come, but if I was the best in the world, possibly ever, at anything, you better believe I'd unashamedly stay on that pedestal away from the mere mortals. I'd have my own section in the locker room with nothing but green M&M's, a retractable and inpenetrable wall separating me from the media (like the glass windows in limos), and a different girl every day of the week waiting with a shot of scotch.
Was I making a point there? I got a little lost in thought. Anyway, the guy played the game right, and who cares if he relished in the fact that he could act like a king and get away with it. Kudos to the guy for not pretending he's something he's not.
And yes, he would look good in a Jays uniform right about now. They don't collude in Canada anyway right?