Walk Barry Bonds

William Li(from Dartmouth) this entry is for you.

I saw Decision to boycott Barry Bonds is not about race and thought that pitchers (or rather, Managers) had decided to Intentionally Walk Barry Bonds for the rest of the season, which is far better than the bean ball that he got from my Astros and vaguely honorable. But that article isn't about that.

I, however, am all about giving BBs to BB for the rest of the reason. It's not without precedent either. In 1985 when Randy Bass came within 1 HR of tying the single-season record of Sadaharu Oh, none of the Japanese pitchers would pitch to him.

"William, they were exhibiting Anti-Gaijin prejudice."

It's true, William, they were and I'm not here to defend Japanese baseball. I nevertheless wonder if the motive was specifically rascist or more a panicked reaction that the unintended consequence of importing MLB players is that the untouchable records of national icons might be broken. I wonder if a Japanese-American MLB player wouldn't have had the same treatment.

"So you admit that Walking Bonds would be prejudice."

Not at all. The parallel which I am making is about the panicked reaction to unintended consequences. Until Bonds threatened Ruth's record, I don't think people woke up to the meaning of steriods use. People were still saying stuff like "these are big boys and it's their body" and not giving any thought to the idea that the game itself might have some integrity. Now that the consequences (in the form of the graceless and self-pitying Barry Bonds) draw near, we see second rate pitchers chucking bean-balls. Intentional Walks aren't ideal, but they are far better and its also more out in the open. Journalists can then question the pitchers and a managers who can then make statements like:

"Baseball has always been more than just about baseball. See those thousands of fans holding up the asterisk sign. That's not just a message to Bonds, that's a message to me. When Baseball Almanac makes the entry with the Asterisk, I don't want to be associated with the record. I don't want to go down in baseball history as the person who served up a fat meatball to the steriod-using cheater."

"We are talking about breaking Babe Ruth's record, not Hank Aaron's. Ruth was a great hitter, and an icon, but he himself is hardly a paragon of virtue."

I was going to do a humorous comparison between Bonds and Ruth saying untrue things like Babe Ruth was a teetotaler and a devoted husband and that he always helped old ladies cross the street, while Bonds always had a chip on his shoulder and even called his mother's obstetrician a rascist after he got spanked on the bottom. But the material wasn't all that funny once I started trying to write it out and I need to shave and go to work, so let me close up.

Because Barry Bonds has never played either for the Yankees or the Astros, I assume that all of the bad things ever said about him are true and to me, it's the best possible argument for walking him for the rest of the year. That said, if he does happen to break Ruth's record, let it be against the Mets. The Mets... ha!