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BullFrog Dad
02-21-2005, 12:34 PM
...Major League Baseball. That's probably when Bonds passes the Babe.

onfirebball05mustang
02-21-2005, 12:35 PM
Originally posted by BullFrog Dad
...Major League Baseball. That's probably when Bonds passes the Babe.

that truly will be a sad day:( :weeping: :crying:

AggieJohn
02-21-2005, 06:42 PM
if he would just retire right now i think all of us old history buffs would contribute money to give him a hefty pension

rockdale80
02-21-2005, 07:10 PM
Originally posted by AggieJohn
if he would just retire right now i think all of us old history buffs would contribute money to give him a hefty pension

and you can contribute money to me for every time i read a post of yours that makes no sense whatsoever.:D

BullFrog Dad
02-23-2005, 09:21 AM
WHAT A JERK!

BY CHUCK CULPEPPER
STAFF CORRESPONDENT

February 23, 2005

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- In piqued contrast to Jason Giambi's apologetic sheepishness of two weeks ago, Barry Bonds ran pretty much the gamut from mildly surly to decidedly surly yesterday in his welcome-back news conference.

Irked with the 100 or so reporters assembled at the San Francisco Giants spring-training complex, Bonds rambled through turns as media critic, sociologist, sports historian, fervent proponent of strict drug-testing policies, even baseball player.

The list did not include apologist. "What did I do?" he said. As a reporter tried sharpening a question, he said, "Yeah, but what did I do?"

Grand-jury testimony from Giambi and Bonds in the BALCO case, leaked to the San Francisco Chronicle in December, indicated that Giambi said he knowingly took performance-enhancing drugs while Bonds said he did so while mistakenly presuming the substance was flaxseed oil.

And though Giambi repeatedly apologized without quite saying what for in a Yankee Stadium news conference, Bonds played a different game: offense.

"I'm just sorry there's this fictional stuff, maybe facts, who knows?" he said.

Before blasting away, he attributed the remarkable late-30s improvement of his physique and statistics to, "Hard work. That's about it. That's it." Then he set about repeatedly chiding the media for "reruns," likening the continuing drug coverage to reruns of the 1970s TV program "Sanford and Son."

"Stop watching Redd Foxx and rerun shows," he said at one point, citing the show's lead actor shortly after saying, "I look for the day you guys stop being a rerun show and this thing will blow over."

As a media critic, he rambled from oddly congenial - "I think you guys are good people" - to accusatory - "All of y'all, in a story or whatever, have lied . . . When your closet's clean, come clean somebody else's closet. Clean yours first."

He said he never watched sports channels, but said, "It's become 'Hard Copy' all day long. Are you guys jealous? Upset? What? You guys don't bother me. You're professional at what you do."

Then, in response to a question about whether he has used performance-enhancing drugs: "Why do you keep asking me the same question? I'm not a child, OK?"

At one point, he had a barbed exchange with Henry Schulman, the San Francisco Chronicle Giants beat writer, after Schulman asked if Bonds' recovery from two offseason knee surgeries would finish in time for part of spring training.

Asking who had told Schulman that, Bonds said, "Who? Name. Name. Name. Name."

When Schulman supplied the name from an official Giants statement, Bonds said, "See, you lied."

"I didn't even ask you a BALCO question!" Schulman said.

The horrid noise around him this offseason, he said, stems from his longstanding unwillingness to share himself with the media and the world -- or, as he said his late father, Bobby, put it, "Nobody knows you and they're -- off."

"I just think it's because I haven't given you guys what you wanted," he said. "That's all. I chose that route. It wasn't for any bad reason. It was for my own personal reason, my own safety net."

Veering to other commentary, he twice referred to alcohol and tobacco as major societal issues that remain legalized. "There's a lot worse things going on in our world," he said at one point. "A lot more worse things. Focus on those first."

Then, fielding a question about passing Babe Ruth for the No. 2 spot in career home runs - Bonds trails 714-703 - he proclaimed it exciting, "Because Babe Ruth is one of the greatest baseball players ever."

Pause.

"Babe Ruth ain't black. I'm black. Black, we go through a little bit more. That's the truth." Moments later: "I just sat there and said it's just different. Just different."

Yet he reported a marked uptick in his reception from fans.

"You know what, I'm gonna tell you, that's one question I was waiting for," he said, and his voice began rising toward a mild boom. "Because I have probably gotten the best relationship with fans through all of this that I have ever gotten in my entire career."

He has gotten "things I've always wanted," he said. "Just coming over to me and shaking my hand . . . I've never had that before."

As a sports historian, he suggested that if we examine the ethics of sports back into the 19th and 18th centuries, "We'll crush a lot of things in a lot of sports if that's what you guys [the media] want. We can go back and basically asterisk a lot of things if that's what you choose and that's what you want."

He once acknowledged feeling the pain of the steroid cloud and praised baseball's commissioner and the players for working out a tougher testing policy.

"I commend Bud Selig and the players' union and all the players to try to put together a testing program to try to satisfy everyone," he said, later imploring, "Allow it to work. Let's go on forward. I truly believe we have to go forward."

A little TV trivia

Barry Bonds, home-run king and TV historian, on several occasions during his news conference yesterday accused the media of "re-running stories ... It's like watching 'Sanford and Son.' ... It's almost comical, basically."

In case you've forgotten, "Sanford and Son" was a comedy that aired 135 episodes on NBC from January 1972 to September 1977. The show chronicled the adventures of Fred G. Sanford (Redd Foxx), a junk dealer and cantankerous widower living with his grown son, Lamont (Demond Wilson), in the Watts section of Los Angeles.

The show ranked second in the Nielsen ratings in 1972-73 and 1974-75.

Barry DP: 'Clear' and the 'cream'

The San Francisco Chronicle has reported that Barry Bonds testified to a federal grand jury in December 2003 that he used a clear substance and a cream given to him by his personal trainer, who was indicted in the steroid-distribution ring. But Bonds testified he didn't know the applications were steroids.

The Chronicle, which broke the steroids story, reported last December that in transcripts of Bonds' testimony given on Dec. 4, 2003, the Giants slugger said the trainer, Greg Anderson, told him the substances he used in 2003 were a nutritional supplement (flaxseed oil) and a rubbing balm for arthritis. Those substances were similar to ones known as "the clear" and "the cream," two steroids from the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO) at the center of the steroid scandal.

During his grand jury testimony prosecutors confronted Bonds with documents indicating he had used steroids and a human growth hormone, but Bonds denied those allegations.

The Quotable Barry Bonds

On why he doesn't watch sports news shows:

"It's become 'Hard Copy' all day long. Are you guys jealous? Upset? What?"

On investigative journalism:

"All of y'all, in a story or whatever, have lied ... When your closet's clean, come clean somebody else's closet. Clean yours first."

On his popularity

vs. Babe Ruth's:

"Babe Ruth ain't black. I'm black. Black, we go through a bit more. That's the truth."