Baseball Players Say The Darndest Things.

David Wells is talking ish about Roger Clemens and his non-travel clauses in his contracts that he's had ever since he went to Houston:

"I don't think I would ever do it because of the fact I personally think it would disrespect the team and your teammates," Wells said, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. "You look at the other players. How are they going to respect you? What are they going to think if you're not there pulling for the team?"

Boomer has a tendency to spout off a lot, but that doesn't make him wrong -- and teammate Greg Maddux is backing him up.

"I can't imagine doing that," Maddux said, according to the Sun-Sentinel. "I like the game. I like the atmosphere. I appreciate what it has to offer. I want to play the whole year."

The problem with the Rocket's precedent is that it reeks of the baseball equivalent of Shaq taking about half of the regular season off last year for the Heat, and look how well that turned out. What's worse is the implication, in this Buster Olney piece on how Clemens returned to the Bronx, that making the Clemens exception would have caused trouble if they'd kept Randy Johnson around:

And when the Yankees traded Randy Johnson to the Diamondbacks, they felt as if they were setting themselves up in two ways to lure Clemens: First, by clearing Johnson's $16 million salary from their books, they would have the cash to bid aggressively on Clemens, and secondly, they would no longer have second thoughts about giving Clemens special treatment, like leaving the team on days between his starts. They would not have wanted to create that precedent if Johnson was still on the team.

There will be another 40+ year old pitcher who is dominant enough to use this as a precedent down the line, and it's not a good one to follow.

Now, we get to a much more controversial name -- two Red Sox players have now chipped in on the whole Barry Bonds/steroids/breaking the HR record bit. David Ortiz isn't really convinced that Bonds took steroids, mostly on the grounds of not knowing whether that actually affects the hand-eye coordination necessary to hit like Bonds does, and to an extent, Ortiz does. However, Ortiz isn't crazy about commissioner Bud Selig possibly skipping out on #756:

"He's just making things worse," Ortiz told the Herald. "He's the commissioner, there's nothing you can do about it. You can't be saying that. What are people going to think about the game? They'll be like, 'This game is a joke.' He should come, even if he doesn't want to."

Bosox pitcher Curt Schilling also weighed in to WEEI radio:

"Hank Aaron not being there. [Selig] trying to figure out where to be. It's sad," Schilling said, according to the [Boston Globe]. "And I don't care that [Bonds is] black, or green, or purple, or yellow, or whatever. It's unfortunate ... there's good people and bad people. It's unfortunate that it's happening the way it's happening."

Didn't end there, though, as #38 ripped Bonds for being an admitted tax cheat, adulterer, and steroid user -- even though Bonds has never admitted to that in public, I believe.

Selig has to live with the mess he's made. Any concrete proof we have on Barry is limited to leaked grand jury testimony, which he hasn't been charged or convicted on yet. Baseball can't and shouldn't be allowed to think that ignoring Bonds will make him the easy scapegoat, letting it off the hook.

Two Different Stories, The Poll And The Narratives.

By now, you have either heard of the ESPN/ABC poll on Barry Bonds on Baseball Tonight prior to the start of the Phillies-Giants game (which, oddly enough, Bonds will not be starting in), or have read it online, and Jayson Stark's companion column. For a quick summary: more blacks than whites polled want to see Bonds break Hank Aaron's record, and more blacks than whites think Bonds is getting a raw deal from the press and baseball.

Conflict, though -- Bonds is breaking a record held by a black man. Why should that perception of race feed into this? It would be easier to explain if Hank Aaron were white. However, let me throw a few things out there that might give some insight into the difference, and maybe why that is quite so stark. I can't say these are authoritative in any sense; these are, at best, educated guesses, and I would like to see what you all think in comments, if you're so inclined.

1) The legend of Henry Aaron is unimpeachable. Hardscrabble success story, one of the last links to segregation in baseball, and the trials he had to go through in order to reach the peak, never mind the death threats for breaking Babe Ruth's record back then. Barry Bonds' story is colored (pardon the accidental pun) by several issues, that do not fall in line with the preferred stories in athletes:

a. He is the son of a major league ballplayer. He watched his father Bobby get savaged by the press, and he is likely to know first-hand what this game is like as a profession. Thus, he may treat it as we treat our 9-to-5s, despite the fact that most athletes, in public, espouse the view of the fan -- they are lucky to be doing this for a living. Barry rarely looks as if he enjoys his work.
b. Bonds has always lacked tact with the press, for the above reasons with his father, and refused the humility a lot of fans and media like to see in pro athletes. This whole animosity did not start when the increase in muscle mass began -- that perception only fueled the contentious relationship.
c. Aaron's story is the American Dream writ large; to have his record go to what seems like a bratty, rich black man is off-putting.

2. Barry Bonds has never tested positive for steroids or any other performance enhancer. Yet, he is for all intents and purposes (at least to most sports media) a cheat, mostly based on the silence of his trainer Greg Anderson in the BALCO investigation, Book of Shadows, and an increase in muscle mass the likes that had not been viewed at an age where many athletes break down. (let's not forget "the cream and the clear" as well.) He has already been convicted in many media outlets; most are waiting the eventual federal investigation to turn up what they know to be true already. He hasn't been tried or found with a dirty sample. Would you blame anyone for thinking he might be getting ripped for very little?

3. The scapegoating factor: Baseball took a shot in the ribs after the evasion by Mark McGwire testifying before Congress (as well as the hypocrisy of Rafael Palmiero), and in its eagerness to try and forget its own blinders in the late Eighties and Nineties, would prefer to ignore Bonds' mark and play up his negatives, in order to make this less of an issue for the owners and commissioner Bud Selig to acknowledge. When Barry hits 756, that won't change, and even if Alex Rodriguez does own both the single-season and career HR records by the end of his time, that doesn't make it any better. A perception that may fuel the numbers is that the media is trying to pass off the game's indiscretions on the shoulders of one man, to avoid accountability for the steroid mess on both Selig and MLBPA head Don Fehr.

4. Sportswriters have been lousy at separating their perceptions of Bonds as a person, with his background, from analysis of his on-field performance. The steroid questions serve to fill a narrative -- a player whom all decent fans ought to hold in contempt has another chip against him, but let us remember that none of the alleged enhancers were illegal in baseball until after the fact. Narratives are easy to fill in the blanks on, especially when they are adopted more often than not. We can say he's a prick and an asshole, but if you had been made to wear the "villain" label your whole pro career (even in his days with the Pirates), wouldn't you just say, "Fuck you people" and go do your job?

(Cross-sport note: a similar narrative and animosity have worked for Kobe Bryant -- there was something precocious and ambitious about him that wasn't likable prior to the sexual assault trial, and the trial and civil settlement drives the on-court perception to this day.)

5. Bonds cannot be alone in the whole doping enterprise, if he has participated. So, why does he garner all the attention, especially when rumors have swirled around Roger Clemens for years now (more on his return to the Yanks later), for example, and he only faces the scrutiny of what team he will wind up with, as he plays with the media on his fake retirement? Revelations like the Mets' clubhouse manager having to talk as part of a plea deal will tell us more of the scope of this problem. It doesn't start and end with Bonds -- but with the framing of it, it's almost as if it did.

Again, these are impressions, educated guesses at best and completely off the mark at worst, so let me have it.

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.

Barry Bonds punks the Giants.

At least that's what you could imply if you read what his agent says about his new contract, with the clause about termination if Bonds is indicted:

"Although it is not my policy to comment on the specifics of an individual player's contract, the reporting that Barry will allow the Giants to get out of his contract if he is indicted on the federal steroid investigation is inaccurate," [Jeff Borris] said. "The collective bargaining agreement governs the work relationship between the owners and players, not the Giants' unilateral assertions."

The special termination language in Bonds' agreement references two sections of the Uniform Player Contract.

Under 7(b)(1), a team may terminate a contract if the player shall "fail, refuse or neglect to conform his personal conduct to the standards of good citizenship and good sportsmanship or to keep himself in first-class physical condition or to obey the club's training rules."

Section 7(b)(3) gives the team the right to end the deal if a player shall "fail, refuse or neglect to render his services hereunder or in any manner materially breach this contract."

Selig's office has rejected it right now, based on a personal appearance bit in it. If this termination thing comes up later and it turns out to be against the bargaining agreement with MLBPA, his line (if this is true) is probably along the lines of Henry II regarding English archbishop Thomas Becket: "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?"