Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Barry Bonds

[Music] hi everybody I'm Brian Kenny and welcome to ESPN classics top five reasons you can't blame there's no doubt Barry Bonds is one of the best baseball players ever but in recent years fans and media types have ripped into the MVP for alleged steroid use and his assault on Henry Aaron's homerun record the Fuhrer is just the latest chapter in what has been a strained relationship with the fans his fellow players and the media in this show we'll give you the top 5 reasons why you can't blame Barry Bonds for being Barry Bonds but first let's take a look at his career and how he alienated so many people over the years when Barry Bonds gets up to the plate you stop what you're doing you watch the guy back because you never know when you're gonna be seeing history two things about Barry Bonds are astounding number one he never swings and misses number two every bully hits he hits hard [Applause] Barry Bonds this is mother top five players just ever played this game there's nothing on the ball field that this guy couldn't do he's really is essentially a genius he played the game as hard as anybody that I've ever seen you look at the stolen bases you look at the run scored the walks the RBIs the way he's played Gold Glove defense we're looking at one of the greatest players to ever play the game no question in my mind that he's the greatest baseball player of my time the statistics back up the claim with seven MVPs eight fold gloves two batting titles and more home runs than anyone in Major League history Bonds has been in a league of his own his crowning summer was 2001 when he set fire to the record book his 863 slugging average was the highest in history and so were his seventy three home runs it was one of the greatest years anybody ever had not just the home runs look at the RBI's look at the batting average to add it up [Applause] despite his mammoth accomplishments bonds has left a trail of burned bridges across the landscape of the American game from Pittsburgh to San Francisco and just about every major league stop along the way respect for his ability is clouded by resentment Barry Bonds has offended a lot of baseball people and baseball fans on his shoulder and I think his relationship with the media reflected that yeah I mean you know what he's a jerk he's condescending he intimidates the hell out of you when your closets clean and come clean somebody else I have heard and seen moments where I thought he should be slapped nobody should treat anybody like that I don't care who you are I remember seeing bonds talking to about 30 reporters and at one point he looked up at all of us and said you know what you guys have you got something then write it otherwise shut the bleep up and that was pretty much his attitude and that's the thing about him there's there's no joy and how can there not be joy you're playing baseball and you're making amazing amounts of money what's the problem in 1991 bonds hurled his abuse beyond the media to his manager Pittsburgh's Jim Leyland in 2002 TV cameras caught him trading punches with Giants teammate Jeff Kent he wasn't the best teammate he was a guy that would be off on his own and in his old for for performance was one that cast him over in the corner away from the team even if it was a ninth-inning victory Barry Bonds has never lifted a team to a higher level never ever ever a lot of guys I interview for the book said that he was a negative because he has his dark Vador presents in a corner of the club host for all his swagger and smack bonds usually delivered except when it counted most he would talk a lot about everything he's going to do in the postseason then he wouldn't do it you know really be honest I feel more confident this year than I did last year in the previous years [Applause] he sucked in the playoffs he was horrible there was always some excuse for why he's it wasn't producing him again it was another thing that's his drove his teammates crazy because there's nothing worse than a superstar without accountability continue through the series but slump same thing that happened last year who's your slump you're betting on us I'll have a slump he was abusive to fans abusive to teammates Yussef to his manager he didn't perform in the postseason he had a very very bad attitude it was hard to like and all that was tough enough the San Francisco Chronicle sent shockwaves through the sports world on Tuesday when it reported that Barry Bonds received steroids and human growth hormones from BALCO some of the things he accomplished should not have been accomplished that is the cross he'll have to bear now for a long long time even when faced with well-documented steroid allegations Bonds has remained true to his antagonistic self by blaming the messengers for the bad news all you guys lied all of y'all you guys wanted to hurt me bad enough he finally got there what testing do you welcome in baseball they've test me every day if they choose to he'd take zero responsibility he pinpoints a media's the targets I am convinced that he's convinced himself that he's done nothing wrong I can't imagine what it must be like being a PR director for the San Francisco Giants the cloud that's hung over bonds for the past couple of years will hang over his head for the rest of his life everybody in baseball may not say this on camera but they're they're counting the minutes till he goes away you've seen the case against bonds and how he has repeatedly rubbed people the wrong way but before we give you our top five reasons why you can't blame him here are a few reasons that didn't make the shortlist we call them the best of the rest found his whole career and Pittsburgh can be defined in many ways by his jealousy of any event site they signed and events like to a lucrative long-term contract for money not much less than it would have taken to keep barry bond but this guy couldn't run like bonds this guy didn't have bonzes power this guy was not a five-tool player Barry Bonds is a five-tool player after the Pirates signed center fielder Andy Van Slyke to a multi-year contract extension with a significant raise bonds won his first MVP award with a 301 batting average 33 homers and 114 RBIs although he clearly outperformed Van Slyke and everyone else in the league Pittsburgh management refused to extend Fonz's contract it's done Barry gods who certainly weren't able to leave the club is he one he's the core he's the star he's the future hall-of-famer he's a guy he got a hold on to well they made no effort to do that is their justifiable bitterness from Barry Bonds no question about it because they did not take care of their best player and they almost used and events like a little bit to kind of shove it in bonds his face you know will take care of this guy we're not taking care of you another best of the rest the postseason [Applause] throughout his baseball career bonds has been blamed for his team's failures in the big games I think bond shouldered more of the blame for that than other players because people like to rag on him and wanted to see him fail I do think it was unfair that bonds got labeled so negatively in that regard he should not bear the brunt of responsibility because he hasn't won because there were so many elements that go into a winning baseball team he felt this pressure you know he he wanted to be great so badly that it only reminded him that he wasn't reaching the level he expected for himself in 2002 after batting at dismal 196 with one home run in five post seasons bonds exploded [Applause] four of those homers were hit against the Angels in bonds first world series of three games to two the Giants were ahead five nothing entering the bottom of the seventh redemption seemed at head nine outs away in game six up five runs [Applause] and in the next night John Lackey beat them in a seventh game of the World Series that says as much about Barry Bonds his career as anything else wasn't him pitching that night if the Giants had won in seventh we would be still talking about the greatest performance ever by one player in one World Series he was waiting for that World Series celebration to really let go and it never came and I remember afterward he said this whole time I had been praying that I would get to play in a World Series I should have been praying that I could win the World Series certainly it had to be a crusher for Barry Bonds to get that close and to go home bringing up Barry when people say look at Barry Bonds he's a horrible guy I just say what do you expect look at how the guy was raised before you just say oh he's a horrible human being as the son of all-star Giants outfielder Bobby Bonds and the godson of Hall of Famer Willie Mays Barry Bonds learned early that it's okay to abuse the privileges of stardom Barry Bonds was raised watching his dad watching Willie Mays the way they treated people the way if you want a cup of coffee you could get a clubhouse gotta give it to you in five seconds boy if you walk into a store and they say Oh mr. bonds would give you 60 percent off that suit you say I want 80 percent off and you get it you know you learn from this very early age athletic stardom comes with entitlement I think that he was absolutely brought up in the jock culture values of the clubhouse timid a bully that's not enough dominate and leave your enemy in the dust it's so much more playboy than it is Disney he never had someone saying you can't treat people that way there's just the opposite it was you should treat people that way if you want to be great treat people like dirt that's already learned from his dad that's what he learned from Willie Mays there's no denying that did reason number five help convince you if not here's reason number four the pen is mightier than the bat there was a tremendous resentment on his part that he was not part of the national consciousness it's kind of a dirty secret in the media we're not supposed to base our opinions on how players treat us but it's human nature and that's what the media does everyone would just basically leave me alone I just want to play baseball here there's no need to address 18 base parts what I do play baseball bonds unwillingness or perhaps inability to get along with the media has cost him untold credit in the bank of baseball history he's done it he has become the first man in the history of the game to hit as many as 400 home runs and steal as many as 400 bases Bonds is the first player to go 400 400 the feat gets on sports pages 5d 6070 it's from page nowhere he's furious about it and even more glaring medias nub occurred in 1999 people forget when the writers and the fans selected the all-century team ken griffey jr. was on it and Barry Bonds was not sometimes I wonder what bonds must have been thinking there was some outcry that Roberto Clemente and Frank Robinson neither of them made the team but where was the outrage for the omission of bonds where was the outrage through the 90s he doubled the number of stolen bases that Griffey had his home run rate was higher bonds beat him in slugging percentage bonds Peterman on-base percentage I am Barry Bonds I'm gonna be at my end of the rope as far as wondering what I need to do to get the acknowledgment of what I have meant to this game and this is kind of the irony of it all because now everybody said oh my god what's going to happen to all our precious numbers well if he really cared that much about numbers Barry should have been carrying the banner of baseball the whole time so it wasn't a meritocracy really had to do with kissing butt and kissing the butt the sportswriters the summer of 98 Barry Bonds sat on the sidelines in 98 and watch McGwire and Sosa go after it game by game home run by marking 70 home runs and lifting his son up at home plate they stopped the game in a game a car or whatever that game when they prayed him around the field and it was just like the greatest moment I'll never forget them we come out of the summer of 1998 the most spectacular baseball summer in our lifetime here was Barry Bonds you know in a shadow in a corner he watches the 98 season unfold and his perhaps disillusioned by seeing the choir hailed as the savior of the game bonds never got that kind of attention I think part of it was his rage mark and Sammy Sosa McGuire Sosa McGwire there was never so some acquiring bonds I think he felt that there was a motivation I'm gonna get to that level I'm gonna show people that I'm as good or I'm the best ever I'm better than McGwire I'm better than so soon [Applause] denied for years the headlines he had earned on the field bonds emerged in the years after the summer of 98 as a new player bent on breaking down the barriers that had kept him from his rightful place at the top of baseball's pantheon of greatness I can understand what Barry Bonds was thinking at the end of the 1998 season here are these two guys clearly inferior players to him are getting this attention getting this credit for having to save baseball Barry Bonds got cheated he deserved the hike McGwire and Sosa are going crazy bond is seeing this after he's a furious about it and raised about it Barry Bonds was simply angry about what was going on how he must have felt betrayed by the game how could they have let this redheaded meatball become mr. baseball when he for so many years had been toiling so hard and being so great with three strong reasons in the books here now is reason number two the intentional walk intentionally walked for the fifty first time this season I'm not letting Barry Bonds beat me I'll pitch to everybody else I'm not pitching the Barry as bonds drew ever closer to the blessed homerun Trinity of Aaron Rutten and Mays he received more walks for at bat than any player in any season in the history of the game I mean they just wanted to come in and just say you know what the game plan stars was walking Barry Bonds we don't want to put you pitched or we don't even want to deal with it to me it's not the essence of competition the essence of competition is we got a challenger if he hits a homerun hits a homerun that's what happens with great players 200 intentional walks it's ridiculous and his daughters and his fan please pitch to my daddy it's almost as if they've invented something new for baseball it's called the bonds you know the guy got a bonds last night oh what was that well the buns is when the catcher goes like this Barry Bonds was going into the clubhouse in between bats Willie Mays is in there saying what is going on here and he said I have to hit so much in the cage because I never swing I take intentional walks I never swing and because he had to hit so much during the game when he wasn't at the plate he got a bad back I okay you walk somebody when first base is open but they walk in with bases loaded I just thought that that violated the spirit of competition in a way that I found offensive there was just no excuse for not pitching Devon and they're just doing it because out of spite they don't want to see a guy swing the bat there were opposing managers who hate him who say I can't stand the guy it's cruel welcome said you know what I used to hate to come the ballpark you think I just gonna walk me tonight you know and I think the point that would be very frustrated robots should be frustrated by the intentional walks it would drive you crazy you get paid to hit you love to hit the guy loves to hit he told Maddux he said you know he said if you pitch to me I won't steal he said but if you walk me under this deal Lance Armstrong plants Armstrong in France is accused every single year of doping he is probably as suspected in that country of cheating as barriers in our country yet the media and the public measure bonds and Armstrong by different yardsticks plants aren't strong American icon Barry Bonds American villain Americans respond without rage whenever we read another report by a French newspaper that Lance Armstrong was caught doping and we say well you know wait till he tests positive first the same rules don't seem to apply here for Barry Bonds if you were Barry Bonds you do have to look around a little bit and say why only me I do think there has been a difference in the in the covers and Barry Bonds could point to that to some degree this difference in coverage has only added to bonzes frustration all of y'all in a story or whatever have lied should you have asterisk behind your name as we and the media wrote about this more that we felt like we were trying to take something away from him to have him be the focal point and draw the disdain of so much of this controversy it really is not fair and I think that's angered him because it has not been proven in a court of law it has not been proven through a drug test we have to look at him and we have to assume that he's innocent of using steroids because that's how the legal system in our country works I think it would be a very dangerous thing to overlook that you know sometimes we have a slam-dunk case other times it's an uphill climb but everyone deserves a defense hopefully we've challenged you to take a look at Barry Bonds in a different light I'm Brian Kenny thanks for watching [Music]

Channel: Expos Classics

Views: 198,742

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Length: 21min 4sec (1264 seconds)

Published: Sat May 05 2018