Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Zen Bonds?

The amazing thing about Barry Bonds' trek to breaking Hank Aaron's home run record (aside from the stone throwing, Aaron's comments regarding the matter, and every manner of blowhard on the subject) is that Bonds himself is rather sanguine about the whole thing, and given how his chase has been portrayed, I'm not finding it too surprising.

The latest media line in the whole Bonds matter is that even if he breaks the record, the Yankees' Alex Rodriguez will run both the single-season home-run record and the all-time record down and take them from Bonds. Yahoo columnist Tim Brown gives us Barry's response to that possibility: good for A-Rod.

"A-Rod, I'm so happy for him," Bonds said. "It's great. It's phenomenal to watch. I hope he hits a hundred. I really do. … Go on A-Rod, do your thing. Keep that look in your eye."

There's got to be some sort of admiration society between players despised in certain circles for completely different reasons: if you have that media circus upon you at all times, it's a nice chip on the shoulder, and between the two, it's probably a shared experience.

Asked about Aaron, Bud Selig, and the countdown to the record, Bonds' response was this:

"I don't have any thoughts about it," he said. "I have a lot of respect for them and that's how I'll leave it...I don't even want to talk about that anymore," he said. "You guys can count it down on your own."


I find something admirable in that response. It's classier than a lot of people would give him credit for.

4 comments:

Larry Brown said...

Bonds supported Pujols last year (when Albert was on a tear) in the same way he's supporting A-Rod. The quote looks great written, but when you see him say it, it seems a lot more patronizing than anything else. Or maybe that's just the Bonds hater in me coming out.

Signal to Noise said...

I bet it's probably both. He probably doesn't care as much as we're led to think, and he might be a bit patronizing when he says it.

Mevs said...

Bonds is pretty much just the worst human being alive. That said, good write up.

Anonymous said...

yes. bonds is much worse than kim jong il, osama, and everyone on death row. he probably did drugs and is a huge dick. monster. at least chester turner was never connected in any way to steroids.