Self-righteous fan angst over Barry Bonds

This week's inductee into the "Overrated Hall of Fame" is ... self-righteous fan angst over Barry Bonds.

You can hate Barry Bonds for being a moody, surly prick, at least according to almost every media report. You can hate Barry Bonds for being a blunt, outspoken athlete who doesn't bore us with pat, meaningless responses to the endless string of tweaking questions he faces every day of the baseball season. Perhaps you prefer your black athletes to be smiling, accommodating non-rockers of the boat, which is why so much of white America loves Hank Aaron. (Believe me, if Bad Henry had played in this era, he wouldn't be the quiet, well-loved icon he has become. Remember, he started just a few years after Jackie broke the barrier, so he still had to mind his uppity self for a watchful white America.

But if you say you hate Bonds because he is a cheater, you're being disingenuous. The Hall of Fame is sprinkled with lovable galoots who cheated during the games they played in, and most of us just wink and smile and say, "Boy, that guy was a character!" Take Gaylord Perry, an admitted spitballer who won over 300 games by throwing an illegal pitch. (Remember, baseball had no steroid rules on the books until just a couple of years ago, so whatever Bonds et al might have done was not against any rules.) What does most of America think about ol' Gaylord? Why, he's seen as a lovable scamp, a mischievous rascal who bent the rules a bit. He's lucky he never bent someone's skull by throwing that nearly uncontrollable illegal spitball.

Don Sutton was another 300-game winner who found entrance into the Hall of Fame. He made a career out of dishing up scuffed baseballs, which are basically dry spitters. He, too, could have ended someone's career - or life - with an errant illegal pitch, but no one seems to call him a cheater. He's just that cute, curly haired guy who cracks wise while announcing Washington Nationals games.

Of course, these two guys were white, which can get you excused for a lot in this country. Do you think Mark McGwire would be facing the same vitriol that Bonds faces if he were the one on the cusp of surpassing Aaron's record? Granted, the fact that he seems to be a decent human being who suffers asshole fans and reporters with boatloads more patience than Bonds counts for something, but I don't think stadiums would be filled with faux witty signs calling him a cheater. It's a lot easier to be a muscle-bound, accommodating redheaded white man than a muscle-bound, frank black man, even in 2007.

Even if Bonds did "cheat" in some people's mind, the way he allegedly cheated should be almost celebrated by baseball fans, because he did it solely to get better at his craft. Major League Baseball is averaging over 32,000 fans per game this year, an all-time high. We are not going to these games to see college-level or even minor-league level ball. We want to see the best players in the world at their best. Why should I come down on all the guys who bulked up on some kind of synthetic supplement (allegedly, of course ... ahem) just so that he could take his already insane level of play to another level? We ought to thank these guys for risking their health just to entertain us more. (And yes, I know, they reap a greater financial reward, but they should make more money for smacking the shit out of that baseball at a rate and distance that surpasses every player in the history of this monumentally difficult game.)

Finally, why is health nut, perfectionist Bonds vilified while someone like Mickey "Pour Me Another, It's Only 3:00 a.m." Mantle is still given almost saint-like status? Barry Bonds took care of his body as well as anyone in the game, and he did this solely to be a better player, or, as most will agree, the best player in the past 25 years and one of the best baseball players ever. Even if he did take some sort of performance enhancing drug, he still had to work his bloated ass off in the weight room, eat the right foods and not eat and drink certain other tasty or mind-altering treats that would have made his life a little less Spartan and a little more fun. Everything he did was done in order to make him better at the sport we pay big money to see.

But boy oh boy, just bring up The Mick, especially around blowhards Bob Costas and Billy Crystal, and after those two phonies are done waxing melodramatic and saying four Hail Mickeys, they and other revisionist fans regale us with stories of how Mantle would stay out drinking until 4 a.m., then show up at a day game still drunk. That's supposed to charming? I find it highly offensive as a ticket-buying fan. Have you heard them tell the story, through glassy eyes, of how one day he could hardly stand up, then proceeded to hit a homerun, then came back to the clubhouse and threw up? This is the man whom many hold up as a standard of baseball's good old days when players had more character and played mainly for the love of the game? I see Mantle as one of the all-time greats who could have perhaps been the all-time great had he not been a womanizing lush who disrespected the game and the fans with his almost complete lack of self control and unmeasurable self-pity. ("Ohhhh ... all the males in my family died young, so I guess this ol' redneck ought to suck the marrow out of every New York minute before I keel over prematurely as well." Not that the dumb hayseed would have used a big word like "prematurely.") And the same goes for that bloated sack of shit Babe Ruth. I love the Bambino, but don't make a joke out of the fact that he got his body by eating a dozen hotdogs a day while Bonds did his through a syringe. (Allegedly, ahem.)

You hate Barry? Fine. But don't say you hate him for his alleged cheating. He's going to be the new all-time homerun champion any day now, and he will have done this by knocking more balls over the fence than any man who's played the game. He did this through work, dedication and sacrifice. For this he should be celebrated, not scorned. So, next time you're watching His Barryness live or on TV, and you feel some self-righteous urge to spew some superior-than-thou hatred his way, take a different tack. Instead of a "fuck you," I think a "thank you" is more in order.

Ned Bitters is, in fact, overrated. You can contact him at teacherslounge@hobotrashcan.com.