Reilly and Bonds

posted by BH

This is long, and Jimmy crack corn.

Rick Reilly was on the Dan Patrick show yesterday. If you've got ESPN Insider, you can go on to Dan Patrick's page and download the segment. Before he got to Bonds, he these things to say about Adam Morrison:

I think he's the most exciting player in the country, I think he's going to be a great pro. He's so interesting, he's like, a Marxist. He drives an '87, like I don't know, crappy car. He's uh, he's got diabetes. There's just a million things right about that guy.

There are about a million things wrong with that statement. But clearly, this demonstrates that Reilly has an open mind. Right? Okay, on to Bonds:

Reilly: (Referring to his column in the current SI) This week, I've got um, I got all the barrybonds.com, um entries because he only talks really to his website, uh for the whole year, for the whole 2006 I've already got what he's going to say.

Patrick: Well give us a sampling.

Reilly: Well it pisses him off when people hang signs in left field saying 'No grazing out here Barry' you know because of the cattle steroids, and things like that.

Funny, funny stuff. Of course, Bonds doesn't really get pissed about stuff like that, and I'm certain Reilly knows this. I get the feeling the column paints Barry as kind of a baby or whiner.

Patrick: Are you going to write a book on Bonds? Everybody else is.

Reilly: (Laughs) No. It's like becoming a diet industry.

Patrick: Woodward and Bernstein I think just came out with a book on Barry Bonds.

Dude, this is dumb. "Ha ha, look how I know about these other guys who broke a story about conspiracy?" Yeah, two books have been written. That certainly constitutes a huge industry, including two guys who broke a story about conspiracy in the White House. It's that huge! Hide your kids!!

Reilly: I know, it's unbelievable. You've got to admit, 'Game of Shadows,' what I've read of it, is really good. And Jeff Pearlman, from what I've read, he just sent it too me, is really good too, so, I don't know. Those two are good.

Let me get this straight. From what Reilly's read, Dan patrick has to admit that the two books are good? Reilly is and always has been an open Bonds hater, writing countless pieces about Bonds' being a bad guy. I 'm pretty sure anything that portrays Bonds in a negative light is going to get a huge thumbs up from Reilly. There is absolutely no objectivity in this guy. It would be like a die-hard liberal panning a Michael Moore book.

Patrick: Okay, what do you do if your the commissioner right now?

Get ready. Here it comes.

Reilly: I absolutely suspend him, I sick John Dowd on the whole thing. There's no way I let my sport be besmirched by a guy we kn...we're 99.999% sure is a cheat. I want this, I don't want this to be a horrible black eyed moment in baseball. He absolutely deserves to be suspended. Isn't it funny though? You know what's funny? If you told me a guy, a superstar guy was caught, he'd been having a relationship with a woman who wasn't his wife, that he was taking baseball card money and giving it to her under the table, that alone would cause a guy to get suspended. But no, that's just the tip of the iceberg with Barry. And yet, Bud Selig, the man who isn't there, the man born somehow without a spine, is just going to sit there and let us all, and have us all watch this.

This is a long set of statements, but I felt it needed to be written in it's entirety.
1. Are we supposed to suspend every guy in baseball who has cheated on his wife? Dude, you just talked about how a guy is cool because among other things he's a Marxist! You can't play moralist and relativist in the same conversation.
2. Are we going to suspend each guy who has ever taken baseball card money and, under the table, given it to someone else? That's probably a lot of players. That he gave it to his mistress is irrelevant, but is meant to make the case look more damning.
3. Let's remember, Bud Selig in the commissioner of baseball, and his powers extend to baseball related activities.
4. Who the hell is the magical John Dowd? Yeah, I know his deal. But what's he going to investigate? Steroids? Sure. Tax evasion? Not really a baseball issue. Adultery? Again, not really in the realm of baseball's authority. What's he going to find? More importantly, what's he going to do once he finds anything out?
5. Finally, Reilly doesn't want the sport to be besmirched by this one guy? What? Wasn't there this little thing last year when a bunch of ballplayers were called in front of congress? Steroids is not only a Bonds issue, and that Reilly acts as though it is, is disingenuous, misleading, and a huge fucking insult to anyone with the ability to use 1/75 of his or her brain.

Patrick: But if you're the commissioner, how can you, I mean, what are you suspending him on? You're suspending him on circumstantial evidence, but you're not suspending him on a failed drug test. If you're the players association, you're going to fight that, till, you know, the cows come home.

Not only is the MLBPA going to fight it. It's going to go to an arbitrator, who never in a million years would hold up a suspension in which no positive drug test was taken.

Reilly: I'm gonna fight with the players association, but I have to do something in the best interest of the game.

Yeah, there was this steroid policy thing announced a little while ago, but go on...

Reilly: That's what I suspend him for. It's in the commissioner's power to suspend a guy if it's in the best interest of the game. Everybody's like, 'Oh you can't ta...you know...steroids weren't illegal when he was ta...' Yes they were!

No, they weren't in baseball. Despite what you say next.

Reilly: Fay Vincent went around to every clubhouse in '92 and said, 'We, you are not allowed to take performance enhancing drugs,' to say nothing of federal law! This guy's taking federal law by taking other people's prescriptions for Winstrol and whatever else he may have took. We know in a grand jury statement he, he admits he took it but unwittingly. So we (groan), so he says, so there's a million reasons to suspend this guy.

A million is probably 999,999 too many. I mean, maybe steroids, but not really. When Selig suspends Bonds at this point, with no failed drug test and a bunch of information from two books, a huge, huge can of worms is opened up. First, what if we, ten years from now, find out it's wrong? Second, what if an ex-teammate of Jeff Bagwell, Roger Clemens, or Albert Pujols comes out with information about their drug use and womanizing? Do we suspend them too. If Selig suspends Bonds, at this point based on what he's got, he has to suspend every single player ever suspected of performance enhancing drug use of any kind.

Patrick: I think the commissioner is probably fighting, you know, the back and forth that this is supposed to be a great season, a monumental season with Bonds, what kind of fight is one your hands? Is it a public relations nightmare? Is it the kind of thing where five years down the road we fully appreciate him going after Bonds, or do we look at it as a futile attempt to try to make things good for things that have transpired a long long time ago?

Clearly, Patrick is pointing out what we already know. Steroids were not against the rules in baseball over the period we're talking about. Does Selig want to make a poster child for all the mistakes baseball made in not having a steroid policy? Is it right to crucify one man for the indiscretions of an entire league?

Reilley: The average fan knows that...CNN did a poll that said 60% of fans said he shouldn't be allowed to continue to play. More than, more than 48% said he shouldn't be allowed in the Hall of Fame. This is not a public relations nightmare. This is the right thing to do. The guy cheated! We have been conned since '98 by this guy, and, and I think McGwire ad I think Sosa, and Palmiero, conned by em all, and somebody's got to step up and do the right thing and say 'Stop. You're not going to break these records that, that were set legally.

60% of fans interviewed in a CNN poll don't know shit. I would estimate the figures were similar regarding letting Pete Rose into the Hall prior to his book coming out. The public is fickle, and exceedingly dumb. At least 60% of people either are shortsighted, don't understand baseball, have let their ill-conceived ideas of Bonds' personality affect their view of his stature in baseball, or quite simply, didn't know what the hell the poll was about. Reilly says that "more than" 48% of people said he shouldn't be allowed in the Hall? How much more? What about the other 52%?

It will be a PR nightmare, because eventually right thinking has to win. Enough people now, and it's the minority, understand what's going on. There are many, many questions regarding Bonds and steroids that aren't being asked by the media; questions they don't want to ask. ESPN and other sports media either choose not to ask them because they require deeper thought and greater understanding, aspects not attractive in today's headline news society, or they are comfortable shaping the views of the sports watching nation by presenting biased information.