I remember once, when I was younger, watching some soap opera actress complain to Oprah (or was it Maury, or the chick with the red glasses, or the former fat chick – anyhow, somebody) that whenever she went anywhere, people would come up to her and yell at her for being a mean woman, a slut, a man-eater, just because she played a woman like that on TV. They don’t even know who I REALLY am, and they don’t WANNA know, she complained. I’m not a person, just the character. They don’t know MEEEEE…
I think the same is true for ballplayers. We see what cameras show us, we read what reporters tell us, the carefully written stories about their “lives” that their agents teach them to handle the media with. We think – Joe X is a “good guy” and Joe Y is “surly” or cancerous, or whatever.
I’m thinking about this, not just because of the Baggy Saga, where Jeff found himself, for the first time I can remember, actually forgetting to say all those uh-hunh Bull Durham lines because he got mad and forgot, but because I’m remembering that he used to be married to a stripper and go in “mens” clubs and bars, and for all we know, still does. We know he’s always seemed to play hard and play fair and been quiet about it. At least that’s the picture we’ve seen. But we don’t know the man behind the mask.
I’m thinking about this because of Kirby Puckett and Barry Bonds. Yes, I know, not Astros. Two of my favorite players (since I was born) – great players, flawed people in many ways.
Kirby Puckett – the tubby little guy who sure nuff didn’t “look like a ballplayer” or “have the good face” – he grew up in Hell on earth in the Projects in Chicago – a place where very few escape poverty, drugs and crime, as well as an early death. Kirby punched his one way ticket out with his baseball bat and glove, and never looked back.
I don’t really remember him from before the World Series in 87, but I DO remember looking at this little guy who looked like he was too fat to run or jump in center field, of all places, and every time he did anything, he looked like THAT was the happiest moment of his life. A bringer of happiness, my Mama said. Not real too many people in this world have the ability to make other people around them happy just from their own good spirit. Minnesota fans loved him, just LUUUVVVED him – the guy who was just happy to be there, the guy who was the best player on the team, the guy with REAL team spirit, the perfect community guy, the family man devoted to his wife and kids, a true winner. His career tragically cut short by glaucoma, elected to the Hall on his very first try – mostly because he was so popular – his stats really didn’t merit his election, but he was such a happy smiling guy, a loyal team guy who the other ballplayers should try to be like, a guy who would still be out there if it wasn’t for tragedy.
And then
- what’s that old song – “No one knows what goes on behind closed doors…”
the stories appeared – Kirby was mean tempered, hit his wife, abused her, cheated on her, hit on other women, hit other women, and was finally accused of assaulting a woman. He was found not guilty in court, but his reputation took a bad hit. Kirby got a divorce from his wife and from baseball and left Minnesota, where he had been adored like Michael Jordon was adored in Chicago, and went to Arizona, where he proceeded to eat and drink himself to death. The little stubby guy, so happy, so full of life – dead 2 weeks before his 46th birthday, from a massive stroke.
“Smiling faces, smiling faces
sometimes
they don’t tell the truth…
Smiling faces,
sometimes
tell lies
and I got Proof…”
Barry Bonds. I remember him being interviewed by Roy Firestone some years ago – Roy asked him – Barry, what’s your secret? And Barry answered, “there’s no secret, I’m just good. It’s talent and you can’t teach talent.” It was God’s truth and yet Barry caught Hell for it – not humble enough, you see. But the truth is, he WAS just good. In fact, in the decade of the 1990s, he was indisputably the best baseball player. By 1999, he was one of the 25 best baseball players ever.
He couldn’t have been more opposite from Kirby Puckett. Barry grew up in a wealthy neighborhood with the best of everything, a doting family, grew up on the ballfield with Bobby Bonds and Willie Mays to teach him baseball. And Barry was incredibly gifted. And charming. And handsome. It all came so easy to him – baseball, friends, school, adoring females. But one thing did NOT come easy to him – the “humility” (usually fake) that the media demands of athletes. No. He was outstanding – he knew it, he knew everyone knew it and he wanted to hear it without having to jump through media hoops.
But you see, we cling desperately to our stereotypes; Barry Lamar needed to be jolly happy like Kirby, a lil shy like Griffey, hey let’s play two like Ernie. (Certainly not an uppity N like Dick Allen or freaky like Kevin Mitchell or menacing like Albert Belle, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.) And Barry wouldn’t pretend.
In fact, he did just the opposite – irritated people to make them notice him. And so he got notice all right – grudging notice from reporters who tried to find plenty of criticism of SOMEthing to balance the praise for performance he deserved. And Barry did it all and did everything well (except throw hard – ask Sid Bream you disbelieve me…) and yet he didn’t get the recognition and praise he felt he deserved. He said he wanted to be taken for who he was. So true. But you see, who he was wasn’t who the media wanted him to be. Or should I say, he refused to APPEAR to be the man the media wanted him to be.
So then, what’s the Rest Of The Story? Is it true that he saw people worshipping Sosa and McGwire – both inferior to him, no doubt about it – and decided that if he had to do drugs to get ahead when no one could respect him for his being a superior player? Is it true that after getting screwed out of the MVP he deserved in 2000 AND it going to a man he (and darn near everybody else in baseball) hated that he finally decided – OK, I see all yall care about is power and HRs and you gonna get what you want?
Well, seems he did – at least according to anonymous witnesses and a rejected alleged girlfriend and alleged grand jury transcripts and alleged confessions that were never recorded and were subsequently denied by the people who were supposed to have confessed. He’s never had a positive drug test, or been arrested for any of the many crimes he’s accused of committing (for which there’s supposed to be all this evidence), but he’s sure nuff been convicted and sentenced by plenty of folks, a lot of whom want him to quit baseball and, I guess, confess and go cheerfully to prison for, for, um, well, for being Barry Bonds Himself. Cheating, they say, but you don’t hear them demanding that anyone with a POSITIVE TEST be thrown out of baseball or their statistics erased – just suspects who they don’t like (guys who hit home runs, ESPECIALLY guys who approached/erased Ruth…)
So, you say, where’s the pity?
Well, the pity is that can’t none of us seem to understand that baseball players are just men, and when it comes to men, you gotta take the good with the bad, as my Mama says. It’s true that the good doesn’t always equal the bad, but somehow, we refuse to agree that people who say or do what we like or don’t like in front of the public aren’t robots.
Kirby wasn’t all good and Barry isn’t all bad. In Kirby, the bad was all hidden away and in Barry, seems the good is all hidden away.
The pity is that Kirby never learned to deal with his dark side and when there was no baseball to balance it for him, finally drowned himself in food and drink.
And Barry never learned to deal with his good side. In my opinion, I think he thought it was weakness and if he ever didn’t push or irritate people, he would be swamped by them and would never be able to be himself. One sided love never works. The pity is Barry found out he didn’t mean it when he said he wanted to be loved for who he was, because he didn’t get the love he wanted when he WAS who he was. And so he sold out. And that STILL didn’t get him the love that he wanted – in fact got him the opposite and endangered his life and health as well. You reap what you sow…
Kirby has passed, so we forget his sorrows and his suffering and the rest of the dark and remember the guy we thought he was, the guy we loved to watch.
Barry WON’T pass away, so we throw stones and forget that there is more to him than roids and angry rejected alleged girlfriends and arrogance and fits of temper.
Such a waste, a man who forgot about all the good he was and a man who can’t never believe he’s good enough…
Ah well,
next time, I PROMISE, it’s gonna be Astros…
Tags: MLB
I luv the ‘stros and have for 40 years, but i’ve been living out here in SF for the past 25 and i’ve gone to see Barry many times. i gotta say that it’s breathtaking to watch him in person. ‘roids or not, i don’t care, that guy is so good that he’s a thing of beauty.
it’s “quick bat, quick bat” but none quicker than bonds. if you luv baseball and respect the game, then ya gotta just sit back and admire barry’s play. i don’t think i’ll ever again see someone as great as he is. maybe he did ‘roids, and maybe it added to his stats, but i’ve seen him the last 13 years out here and he was so damn good before sammy and big mac and roids that even if he did them, all they did was take his normal HRs and turn them into laser guided moon shots into mccovey cove.
i’ll miss him when he quits. the ‘stros are out here in four weeks; i hope barry’s not in the zone by then. maybe we can catch him when he’s still cooled off.
i think the whole roids thing is really all about the HR record. and barry being too big for his britches (giggle)
you KNOW there wouldn’t be all this hoo hah if it turned out some no account reliever or utility guy who had been in the bigs for 18 years was the one who was caught.
to me it’s all about who people see barry as and they see him as someone who is putting himself above everyone else and gotta be brought down. and he does NOT act the way people want black star athletes to act and talk. they luuuvvv kirby and dontrelle and michael jordan and tiger woods – all jolly happy, not prideful. NOT menacing, especially.
fact is, i’ve been watching barry since he came up and he’s the best player i’ve ever seen. my mama sez the same and so do most people who not into babe ruth worship – or the fantasy that the game used to be “pure” (barf) forgetting all about what ty cobb said about a hard game for hard men. the fantasy that barry only became barry because of drugs is the saddest thing to me. i’m beginning to think that people really just can’t stand that he’s that freaking good at everything and was for so long – or that the obsession/worship of the steroid HR gods drove barry to do it too.
i’m gonna miss him when he’s gone. and so will everyone else…
lisa
Hey, look what Barry’s seen his whole career. He starts off batting leadoff, so even though he hits 24, 25 homers, he doesn’t drive in even 60 runs. So the Pirates use that against him in arbitration. The Pirates have three “offensive guys.” They choose to lock up Andy Van Slyke, doubling his salary after 1991 when he’s clearly on the downside of his career. After 1991, Bobby Bonilla leaves as a free agent to sign with the Mets, earning himself the richest contract in baseball history up to that point. So Barry puts up his best ever numbers the next year, and gets big bucks from the Giants in free agency. He’s just awesome, but he doesn’t get the credit. Never an OPS below 1000, not less than 33 homers in a year, but he’s overshadowed. You see things like Washington Post columnist Tom Boswell calling Ken Griffey Jr. the second-best baseball player ever (when the MLB released its All-Century Team). And of course, Mac and Sosa, on juice (I guarantee you Sammy was juiced), and earning the public eye. Here’s Barry, toiling in greatness but relative obscurity. He may have tried the juice before, but he decides he want the same thing Mac and Sosa are getting. So he goes and looks for it, because he KNOWS he’s a better player than these guys. So he decides to prove it. Home runs don’t become long fly outs, like with most guys in their mid-30′s or older; instead, home runs stay home runs, and doubles become home runs (check out his homers/doubles splits season-by-season). And he gets the fame; people finally recognize just how awesome of a player he is. He goes from a sure-fire, first-ball Hall of Fame player, one of those guys you look back on and realize just how good he was when his career’s been over a few years, to someone who looks like he’s playing a different, much easier game than everybody else. And he does it all without breaking any of baseball’s rules.
And yet, he never gets the love McGwire or Sosa got. Well, I guess he never learned the rules. The rules that allowed for things like Joe DiMaggio to be the “greatest living ballplayer” and get introduced last at Oldtimer’s Games if Ted Williams could be “the greatest hitter there ever was”; he had no peers, nobody to challenge him, perhaps no true companions aside from his father and godfather. I feel for the guy, I really do. He got what he wanted, to be in the select class of one of the greatest baseball players there ever was, the respect, but never the love. Hopefully it’s enough for him.
I’d still like to see him break Ruth’s record; the mark has stood for too long, and I think it’s only fitting, but, no, I think Aaron’s mark will remain intact, probably in part because Barry wants it that way.
Very interesting and very well written, thank you.
I was a little confused about Kirby Puckett after his passing. Not speaking ill of the dead is one of our noblest pieces of etiquette, yet sometimes in an obituary you just want to have the gist of the man there in front of you, and if everyone writes “oh well we just want to remember the “good” Kirby, how does that help us understand the soul of the man?” If you’re going to paint me a picture, paint me a picture of the whole man, not just the part you find easy to frame.
Interesting that you said “he proceeded to eat and drink himself to death.” That seems to be the case, doesn’t it? Puts me in mind of that brutal Nick Cage movie where the former screenwriter goes to Vegas to drink himself to deafh. What kind of man would do that? Two weeks after Puckett’s death, no-one’s told me still–although I get the feeling you’ve come close.
The story that comes out now that Bonds was jealous and hurt by the McGwire-Sosa thing I think could almost be a story concocted by Barry apologists.
It’s certainly convenient, and it’s like to dredge all our pathos up about the poor superstar who just wanted to be loved but didn’t know how.
But for one thing, it now appears that Barry was messing with Andro in early 1997, before even Big Mac was.
Like Puckett’s sloth, pride and arrogance are sins, too. And YES, that is something that we ask from our athletes, although we can forgive over time.
Like most of our baseball players today, Barry’s not the kind of guy who knows much about the game’s history. I guess that even makes sense; he’s too busy making history to read about it. But I wonder what he would have done if he’d known about the strange path that Ted Williams’ popularity took. As good as he was, Williams was frequently reviled in Boston as an arrogant SOB. And he was.
But the guy retires, makes a few noble speeches, and it’s all forgotten. When The Splinter died, it was recongized not only as the death of the Greatest Living Hitter, but also as the passing of someone who was loved within the baseball community.
I wish Barry had taken a second to think about where the two forks in the road of his life might go: the steroid road, and the one I wished he’d taken. Buster Olney had a good column, imagining the speech Willie Mays might have given at Cooperstown in 2010 had Barry stayed clean. It was a speech I honestly enjoyed reading.
But like you say, as ye reap so shall ye sow.
Listen, I never liked Barry Bonds. Because he was never an Astro. Just like I never liked Bret Saberhagen (once he came into the NL) or Ryne Sandberg or Tony Gwynn or anyone else.
But I remember back in 2001 when Larry Dierker decided to pitch around him late in the season, I had REAL problems with the decision. So what if he’s the best, was my argument. You empower him–and them–further with your fear. And then Wilfredo Rodriguez gives up number 70, and I’m like, fair enough: he’s fucking good. We knew *that*
Such was respect that I had for Bonds. Now I’ve lost even that. So don’t feel sorry for him–who as you say, has it all, and always has–but feel sorry for me, and those like me, who love the game.
I should be jumping for joy as Bonds approaches Ruth and Aaron; instead, as Pete Gammons suggests, I just want him to go away.
when ken caminiti passed, my husband said – he died from lonlieness (he lost any custody of his daughters and husband kinda fanatical about believing that if a man don’t have his kids he got nothing to live for.) but you could tell cammy WANTED to be alone, but he couldn’t bear to be lonely and he drugged himself so he wouldn’t notice how lonely he was when he was all alone – at least that’s how he seemed to me. the same man, but both sides.
kirby – well, seems to me that he stuffed his anger and violence down inside him with each bite and gulp until it built up inside him so bad his blood exploded in his brain like a volcano. another lonely man, says husband.
and barry – well, he remind me of the time my 2 year old wanted something and i said NO and he threw himself on the floor and started screaming and beating his head on the rug. then suddenly he see i am not paying him no nevermind so he stops, gets up, runs over to me, slaps me on the leg (a no-no and he know that too) waits until i’m looking at him, screams MEEEEE as loud as he can, then runs over and throw hisself back down on the rug and he starts having a fit all over. (which was real tough for me cuz i didn’t know whether or not to laugh meself sick or give him a spanking…)
what’s the point of going to all the trouble of having the best fit ever if don’t nobody care?
and barry needing praise is just part of who he is. just like kirby’s violence and anger beneath the smile was part of who he was, too.
maybe with obits, we feel we need to forgive the bad side of the person, because we know our own faults, and we wanna believe that the bad is a side effect of the good instead of part of who we are…
personally, i believe it’s the difference between forgiveness of sin and understanding the sin. (see what happens when i write right after church.)
- anyhow, i read buster olney’s column – and barry could NOT have done that because he’s just not the type of guy who could act like that. barry couldn’t never have taken a different fork in a road because he couldn’t stand for everyone to not see him as the best. he ain’t the sort of guy who CAN not care what other people think. just like ted williams couldn’t have acted like the sportswriters wanted him to because he wasn’t the kind of guy they wanted him to be and ted couldn’t pretend to be somebody he wasn’t because he wanted whatever praise he got to be for him instead of a fake idol. and in baseball, after you retire, you not a player, so in many ways, it IS like you are dead, and so like at the funeral service, we praise the good and ignore the bad.
- and i was one of the people booing larry dierker. what he did was plain yellow and i wonder if that’s why/when his players lost respect for him. it’s BECAUSE he is the best that he SHOULD be pitched to.
- and as for the opposition – as i explained to my kidsss when they wanted to know why i always boo albert pujols – because he’s great AND he plays for the other side. it’s respect.
but mami you said you boo carlos (beltran) because he stinks. well, i said – that’s a hissing boo.
but mami – they sound the same.
well, you gotta put respect into one kind and the hiss into the other – i said
now when barry comes to the Box, i gotta figure out how to mix my boos.
and to me, records are not sacred so personally, i don’t think any different of barry using roids (if he did – i suspect he did, but i do not KNOW, and to me there is a huge difference between the two) than i do of manny alexander or armando rios or alex sanchez or jc romero or any other crappy 2 bit player who don’t amount to a bucket of warm spit. and if he did use them before testing started, but not after, well then, to me, he didn’t break no rules. i know other people believe different and that is their right. but i would bet that when barry is 80, he will be like ted williams all over again…
lisa
Barry Bonds has the quickest bat and best eye I’ve ever seen. Amazing physical talent.
His personality is twisted. I’ve personally seen him blow off adoring fans and kids. And his bouts with teammates and the media are well documented.
Maybe he’s justified. I’m no shrink, haven’t walked in his shoes, all that. But it doesn’t really matter to me. His behavior is on him. I pity those who seem angry when they are not getting all the love and praise they think they deserve.
Did Bonds break any MLB rules? Nope. Convicted of any federal, state or local laws? Nope. In America, you’re innocent until proven guillty. Even guys bearing down on hallowed records. He’s fighting the “if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, sounds………..” syndrome.
The days ahead will be difficult for Bonds, MLB, Bud, voters to the HOF, and many fans. Bonds has surely contributed to the angst, if not totally created it. And like Lisa says, maybe its because the man is black. I don’t know; I’m a white guy and haven’t experienced that side of the deal. But I think I’d be just as disgusted and turned off by the whole mess if Bonds was white or any other nationality. The skin thing isn’t a factor for me, just his attitude and behavior. If the two (skin and attitude) are tied together for Bonds, so be it, and I’m just ignorant. It still doesn’t serve as an excuse.
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