Well, Barry Bonds finally got home run #714. An awful lot has been said about him, mostly bad. Some good, but the majority of the talk is about steroids, and that stuff. I’m not entirely sure what to make of all of it. I’d be lying if I said I knew all the facts (unlike all the hotheads on sports talk radio who seem to know everything and aren’t afraid to tell you about it). Is he totally innocent? Probably not. Is he completely guilty of everything he’s been accused of? Probably not.
I’ll say this about him. Even if he was a roid freak, you don’t gain skill from that. You don’t get to where you are even if you took more steroids than anyone else in history. He’s accomplished a lot, and has been one of the greatest hitters of all time. So congratulations to Barry for tying Babe Ruth. It’s a great milestone, and I hope someday we can talk about baseball with him again as opposed to what went in his arm. I heard someone on XM within the last week say something that’s quite interesting. All the guys who have been accused of doing steroids the last few years who are still playing all seem to have “slimmed down”. Bonds hasn’t. He’s still the bulky dude he’s been the last few years, if he was on Roids and came off, he’d be skinnier than he is now. Not like he was in Pittsburgh, mind you, but still smaller than he was recently.
Speaking of Pittsburgh, I wanted to get my wife to tell a story here that she’s told me a few times about Barry Bonds refusing to pay for cookies he ordered from my wife when she was working at a mall cookie store many years ago. This is a cool story, thanks to my wife for letting me post it here:
Back in 1987, I worked at a gourmet cookie store in a local mall in the Pittsburgh area. One of my semi regular customers was Barry Bonds’ wife who worked at a clothing store in the mall. I don’t remember her name, and don’t know if she is still married to him, but she was extremely nice and would chat with me when I waited on her.
One day, Barry came into the store with her, and ordered 2 oatmeal raisin cookies and a carton of milk. The bill came to around $2.00, but he wouldn’t pay. He thought it was beneath him to pay that much for cookies, and the fact that he was Barry Bonds. He walked out of the store without paying, and his mortified wife quietly slipped me the money. I felt so bad for her, as it was obvious that she was embarassed, but mad at Barry, as he snubbed me personally, and almost got me into trouble. This happened very early in Barry’s career as a Pittsburgh Pirate, but it showed me the type of person he was. I never cheered for him at Pirate games, even when he was doing well. In fact, at the first interleague game with the Texas Rangers, I was probably the only person loudly booing him.
Now, at this job I waited on Steeler players including Franco Harris that I could barely talk to as I was so nervous, and NONE of them treated me like dirt. Barry Bonds did, and I have never forgotten that.
I looked it up while posting this story. Barry Bonds made $100,000 in 1987 according to this page. $100k in 1987 and couldn’t afford $2 for a couple cookies and milk? No comment.
Barry Bonds the word “douche” are synomous these days. :)