When you listen to sports talk and read the various sports columns, you soon feel the undercurrent of hostility that exists between the athletes and the reporters.
Sports commentators seem to have a well-masked resentment against professional athletes. Perhaps most sports reporters are envious athletes at heart who just did not make the grade. It’s subtle, but it is there.
Why else would sports reporters turn so quickly against the players when they do not play up to expectations. And, they do turn quickly. With the exceptions of politicians, is there any group who goes from greatness to misfits faster than high paid professional athletes? (Maybe managers of baseball teams.)
And, if they are very high paid athletes, watch out, the harangues are without end.
Included in the things that send a reporter for the verbal scalpel is anything that violates their concept of the “the good guy, or the club house buddy.”
Barry Bonds figured this out a long time ago and his integrity never allowed him to play the game of trying to please. It should be said; however, he was so talented he did not have to play the game other than on the field. And to his credit, did anyone play the game better?
Some might say his alleged use of steroids contradicts the above statement, but steroids were as common to baseball players as was batting practice – and everyone from the top down knew it.
Therefore, when Bonds was accused of alleged steroid use, why did anyone expect him to act any differently? He was true to his course here, as he has been in everything else in his baseball career.
As for Barry Bonds the baseball player, Wow! I had the pleasure of watching Bonds play before and after the so-called steroid era. He was great in either venue. In my experience, you are hard pressed to find any other player who dominated the game so completely.
Barry Bonds, despite the storm swirling around him, has been true to himself from the start. He saw the hypocrisy around him and stared it down.
I wish him well.
Brother Giovanni, for Pizzaonian News Service, Worldonia. PNS
