Coincidence and Baseball
I'm not a terribly old man (43), but I have been privileged to witness the fall of some significant sports hallmarks: the NFL all-time rushing mark, the NBA all-time scoring mark, the NHL all-time scoring mark, and anything belonging to Tiger Woods and scores relative to par in a major championship (not to mention the unofficial but never-to-be-duplicated Tiger Slam).
Why is it, then, that only baseball seems to suffer from such a vile cloud of infamy where its hallowed marks are concerned?
Think about it: the all-time hits mark belongs to Peter Edward Rose, a guy that most of us wouldn't want to be in the same room with...and he took it from Ty Cobb, a guy that would gleefully spike his own grandmother at second base.
Then there's the all-time home run record.
While Babe Ruth was hardly a paragon of virtue, he never broke the unwritten rules of baseball. He played hard and he lived hard and we loved him for it.
Henry Aaron, on the other hand, is everything a mother could want in a son, and a manager could want in a baseball player. While enduring segregation of the vilest sort, and living under the black shadow of death threats, like the John Henry myth from which he picked up his name, he simply picked up his hammer and went to work.
No record was won more honorably.
Which brings us to the lamentable Barry Lamar Bonds.
Up to his 35th birthday, there was no finer player in baseball, perhaps in baseball history. The numbers he put up were much like Aaron's in their metronome consistency. He'd already won three MVP awards and was suffering from Michael Jordan syndrome: sure, you're really the best player, but we really oughtta give it to some other guy.
That was then.
Now, a mammoth imposter wearing Bonds' jersey sits five home runs away from baseball's most hallowed record. Implausibly, his hat size has grown even as he has shaved his head, his jersey size has grown a mere 10 sizes since his first MVP award, and he has managed some 257 home runs since the age of 36, including a single-season record of 73.
Anyone remember Dale Murphy at 36? 2 home runs in 18 games, and none in 26 games the following season.
Mickey Mantle at 37? Retired.
To all this, add Barry Bonds' less-than-sparkling personality (somewhat south of Dave Kingman on a bad day), and we the perfect baseball storm.
Barry Bonds is at least an unrepentant narcissist, concerned only with those things that may happen to affect him on Barry-world, and dismissive of anything he deems beneath his attention...which is the rest of us.
However, given the anecdotal evidence that anyone can amass by doing a little Intergoogling, including what steroid usage will do to a person over time, it appears that Barry Bonds is also at least a criminal (as steroids are still against the law)...and he's about to break the all-time home run record belonging to a man whose class and reputation is beyond impeachment.
I guess my question is this: given that the all-time record holders in the other sports also seem to be exemplary characters in their private lives as well as their public lives, why is it that baseball seems to suffer from idiots at the top of their all-time charts?
No one has accused Dan Marino of anything more heinous than not winning a Super Bowl over his Hall-Of-Fame career, and certainly nothing since. Walter Payton lived and died with his reputation as a man, a father, and a hell of a football player intact. Emmitt Smith remains one of the few Cowboys of the Jimmie Johnson era whose face has not shown up on a police blotter. Wayne Gretzky has cast the kind of glare over his sport that only Tiger Woods has managed to duplicate, and neither of them has been guilty of anything but wanting to win all the time. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar remains the real pillar of the NBA, combining longevity with effectiveness in a way that escaped Wilt Chamberlain (due largely to Chamberlain's rather Ruthian excesses.)
Maybe I've answered my own question. Maybe these things are cyclical. After all, the previous all-time NFL rushing leader, Jim Brown, is a notorious woman beater, despite all of his community efforts. We've already mentioned Babe Ruth. Wilt Chamberlain was at least the narcissist that Barry Bonds currently is, even if Bonds hasn't quite slept with 10,000 women yet. Ty Cobb probably wasn't a serial murderer only because baseball payed better. Steve Carlton was a Fruit Loop escaped from the cereal box.
At any rate, here's hoping that Ichiro and A-Rod play for another twenty years...
Why is it, then, that only baseball seems to suffer from such a vile cloud of infamy where its hallowed marks are concerned?
Think about it: the all-time hits mark belongs to Peter Edward Rose, a guy that most of us wouldn't want to be in the same room with...and he took it from Ty Cobb, a guy that would gleefully spike his own grandmother at second base.
Then there's the all-time home run record.
While Babe Ruth was hardly a paragon of virtue, he never broke the unwritten rules of baseball. He played hard and he lived hard and we loved him for it.
Henry Aaron, on the other hand, is everything a mother could want in a son, and a manager could want in a baseball player. While enduring segregation of the vilest sort, and living under the black shadow of death threats, like the John Henry myth from which he picked up his name, he simply picked up his hammer and went to work.
No record was won more honorably.
Which brings us to the lamentable Barry Lamar Bonds.
Up to his 35th birthday, there was no finer player in baseball, perhaps in baseball history. The numbers he put up were much like Aaron's in their metronome consistency. He'd already won three MVP awards and was suffering from Michael Jordan syndrome: sure, you're really the best player, but we really oughtta give it to some other guy.
That was then.
Now, a mammoth imposter wearing Bonds' jersey sits five home runs away from baseball's most hallowed record. Implausibly, his hat size has grown even as he has shaved his head, his jersey size has grown a mere 10 sizes since his first MVP award, and he has managed some 257 home runs since the age of 36, including a single-season record of 73.
Anyone remember Dale Murphy at 36? 2 home runs in 18 games, and none in 26 games the following season.
Mickey Mantle at 37? Retired.
To all this, add Barry Bonds' less-than-sparkling personality (somewhat south of Dave Kingman on a bad day), and we the perfect baseball storm.
Barry Bonds is at least an unrepentant narcissist, concerned only with those things that may happen to affect him on Barry-world, and dismissive of anything he deems beneath his attention...which is the rest of us.
However, given the anecdotal evidence that anyone can amass by doing a little Intergoogling, including what steroid usage will do to a person over time, it appears that Barry Bonds is also at least a criminal (as steroids are still against the law)...and he's about to break the all-time home run record belonging to a man whose class and reputation is beyond impeachment.
I guess my question is this: given that the all-time record holders in the other sports also seem to be exemplary characters in their private lives as well as their public lives, why is it that baseball seems to suffer from idiots at the top of their all-time charts?
No one has accused Dan Marino of anything more heinous than not winning a Super Bowl over his Hall-Of-Fame career, and certainly nothing since. Walter Payton lived and died with his reputation as a man, a father, and a hell of a football player intact. Emmitt Smith remains one of the few Cowboys of the Jimmie Johnson era whose face has not shown up on a police blotter. Wayne Gretzky has cast the kind of glare over his sport that only Tiger Woods has managed to duplicate, and neither of them has been guilty of anything but wanting to win all the time. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar remains the real pillar of the NBA, combining longevity with effectiveness in a way that escaped Wilt Chamberlain (due largely to Chamberlain's rather Ruthian excesses.)
Maybe I've answered my own question. Maybe these things are cyclical. After all, the previous all-time NFL rushing leader, Jim Brown, is a notorious woman beater, despite all of his community efforts. We've already mentioned Babe Ruth. Wilt Chamberlain was at least the narcissist that Barry Bonds currently is, even if Bonds hasn't quite slept with 10,000 women yet. Ty Cobb probably wasn't a serial murderer only because baseball payed better. Steve Carlton was a Fruit Loop escaped from the cereal box.
At any rate, here's hoping that Ichiro and A-Rod play for another twenty years...
Labels: Barry Bonds, Henry Aaron, MLB, Pete Rose
posted by van walker | 6:09 AM
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