Let me help you with that asterisk

This post is meant for those who have an opinion of Barry Bonds and his HR record who know little about baseball and/or Barry yet have decided to vocalize their opinion of him.


Barry Bonds:
757 HRs (1st)
1983 RBIs
514 SBs
2916 Hits
.608 SLG
7 MVPs (1st)
14 All-Star Games
8 Gold Gloves
12 Silver Sluggers
73 HR in a single season (1st)
.863 SLG in a single season (1st)
.609 OBP in a single season (1st)
13 consecutive seasons w/ 30+ HRs (tied for 1st)
400/400 only player
500/500 only player
40/40 one of four

3 Grand Juries
0 Indictments


If you do not even know half of what that all means - don't take this personally - but shut the hell up about what you think of Barry Bonds.

Barry Bonds has been playing in MLB since 1986; that is 22 seasons (including this one). He is 43 years old, has been playing on the Giants for 15 seasons, 7 seasons with Pittsburgh before that. If you only just heard about him in 2003 when BALCO got raided, again - shut the hell up.

If all you know about Barry Bonds is what you read in 'Game of Shadows,' chew on this. The grand jury testimonies included in that book were illegally leaked by Ellerman, who is serving jail time for that. So you read parts of a grand jury testimony that were first picked out by a disbarred lawyer serving time and then by two journalists on a hunt for a story. There are countless other pages of testimony and evidence that remain sealed and unpublicized. Aka: the evidence that makes multiple grand juries not indict him or the boring stuff that does not make a good story.

If you think 'Game of Shadows' is all about Barry Bonds then you obviously only read the excerpts in Sports Illustrated. That was some great marketing by the way, put Barry on the cover of the book because people recognize him and then as a pre-release teaser publish a section of the book that is about him.

If you think they are trying to indict Barry Bonds for steroid use - you get your news from Fox Noise and it is in your best interest that you never mention this to me in person. They want to indict him for perjury, not steroid use. He has already admitted to using topical steroids, what is under investigation is whether he was telling the truth when he said he did not know they were steroids.

If you think the only thing keeping Barry from being indicted is that Anderson won't testify you are so dumb you are now dead to me. First, Anderson can not testify against any of the players he worked with, it was part of his plea deal. That means he talks and his plea deal is off and he can be tried for dealing illegal drugs, so you can bet your little asterisks he has no problem sitting in jail for the length of a grand jury. It is not because of some sort of loyalty or pay off, it is a simple comparison of maybe 1 year in jail to 10 or so. Second, if the case against Barry, with all the 200 sources and 1000 documents used just to write 'Game of Shadows', hinges on the testimony of one drug dealer, well then this whole thing has been one big expensive show.

That's right, while the sports networks and writers have been happily racking in the profits of high ratings and the money spent on magazines and book sales, we have also been paying for this investigation. Woo hoo right? Have you enjoyed the show?

Moving on...

Most of those awards you see listed above, he received prior to 2000 (that would be the year Anderson became his trainer). And do you think he racked up all those HRs, Hits, RBIs and stolen bases just in this decade? No. He was and has been an awesome player long before the media frenzy. In 1993, his first season with the Giants (or the skinny pictures for the rest of you), he had 46 HRs, 123 RBIs, 29 SBs, a .336 AVG, .458 OBP and .677 SLG!

It is mostly because of Barry Bonds that the Giants still remain in SF, made it through the mid-90s and reemerged as a contending team with a brand new baseball park.

It is mostly because Barry Bonds was on the Giants that most people did not know of him even though he was considered one of, if not the best, active player at the time (I am still talking about the 90's by the way).

I grew up watching Barry Bonds. I remember when he was really the only thing to watch at a game. I remember a home run he hit in the bottom of the 9th to win the game just before the July 4th fireworks show at Candlestick. I remember the first time I saw him up close. I remember trying to decide whether to get left field bleacher seats so we could heckle Henderson or right field so we might catch a ball during batting practice. All of these memories were before he even hit his 500th home run.

So as I am sure you meant no offense by your loudly proclaimed proclamation based on little knowledge and blind faith following of mainstream media, you will then understand that I too mean no offense when I tell you to shove your asterisk where the sun don't shine and shut the hell up.