Bonds is Feel Good Story of the Summer, Ironically
It has been a tough summer for sports, to say the least. Between the sickening Vick dogfighting indictment and the horrifying details coming out surrounding that situation and the NBA referee scandal, I can’t remember a time when horrid sports stories dominated the sports universe and mainstream world news (closest would be the “Malice in the Palace” a few years back.)
Thankfully, those stories have fallen off of the front page, off of the sports talk shows and off of the Sportscenter loop for now. And the story which seems to have been the catalyst for stealing the attention from the dregs of sports and bringing it back onto on-the-field play? Ironically, the divisive Bonds owns that distinction with his record breaking home run, as the hit and the reaction have been the sole talk of the sports world for 36 hours now.
Obviously, Bonds is not the most likely figure to bring peace and order to the sports world. Certainly, the event brought with it both celebrations and talk of steroids and conspiracies, but I’ll take that over discussing dog corpses and cheating to pay back mobsters. There may be a lot of people that dislike Bonds, or even claim to hate him, but I think it is safe to say that no one hates Bonds as much as people hate those who execute dogs who won’t fight by dousing them with water and then electrocuting them.
I feel that the sports media as a whole has fallen into a depressing trend of copying the other 24 hour news stations: taking sordid, lurid stories and talking about them endlessly for weeks at a time, running them into the ground until we are sick and tired of hearing about it. It is a mentality that prizes flashy controversy over substantial sports news. Perhaps I’m alone in this sentiment but I pay attention to sports media in order to escape from the problems of the outside, normal world. I want highlights and scores, not court cases and animal abuse, and I feel the sports reporting world has their priorities reversed.
Thankfully, Bonds has seemed to wipe the awful stories away from the forefront of the sports consciousness to the back page. Certainly the stories haven’t gone away permanently, and will sadly return when new developments occur. But for now, we can bask in the comparatively simple (yet admittedly divisive) Bonds story. Love him or hate him, it’s difficult to argue that this isn’t one of the feel good stories of the summer so far, as ironic and sad as that is.
It has also given us reason to rally around the one thing most baseball fans can agree on: we hate Bud Selig. I suppose just by pure logistical statistical fact there must be people out there who like Bud Selig, but I’ve never met any of them. Bud’s terrible reaction to 755 and his neutral, PR speak throughout the last two weeks, saying a lot of words but taking a stand on nothing has given us a piñata that we can all enjoy taking shots at.
baseball, Barry Bonds, record, Hank Aaron, home run
