Archive for July 22nd, 2007

Spanish Grease - Willie Bobo
Blacks and Blues - Bobbi Humphrey
Kashmir - Led Zeppelin
Walk Tall - Cannonball Adderley
Four On Six - Wes Montgomery
Brand New Funk - DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince
Don’t It Drive You Crazy - Pointer Sisters
Holy Thursday - David Axelrod
Blues Etude - Oscar Peterson
Spinning Wheel - Lonnie Liston Smith
Mister C - Ray Charles
I Got Plenty O’ Nothin’ - Louis Armstrong, f. Ella Fitzgerald
All That Meat And No Potatoes - Fats Waller
Allure - Jay-Z
Glooty-Us-Maximus - Digital Underground
Funky Women - Maceo & All The King’s Men
Bold Soul Sister - Ike & Tina Turner

Soon and very soon, Barry Bonds is going to hit his 756th career home run. It could be tomorrow, it could be some time next week. I’m really not seeing it going any further than that, provided he plays every game for the next couple weeks. Especially since the Giants are about to start a homestand. If there’s a right time and place, it’s coming up now. Of course, when he does surpass Hank Aaron’s total, all the conjecture on how much Barry’s steroid use contributed to his total will begin anew, as will the sportswirters’ hatefest. The Bonds situation is interesting to me for a variety of reasons. First, it gives me a reason to challenge some of the assumptions that I think many people in general, and sportswriters specifically, have. Second, it’s a chance to think about the way the media, and increasingly, fans are becoming a part of the sports action. Then there’s some more stuff. But that can be a little surprise.

That Barry Bonds is one of the more reviled sports figures of today is beyond question. But if you ask why, the answer gets a little dicey. Certainly, he’s never been particularly friendly to reporters, and he’s never ever been the “aw-shucks” type of player. He’s good and he knows he’s good and he doesn’t mind if you know that he knows he’s good. If he does see playing baseball as a privilege, it seems that he also believes that we’re privileged to see him play. In a way, I can’t even argue with that. Thing is, he’s not the first one to have that type of attitude. Not even close. So why is he such an outcast? The media has a lot to do with it. It would be a fallacy to lay all the blame at the feet of the media, however. I think Barry is in the position he’s in today because he sits at some weird confluence of arrogance on his part, resentment by the people who cover him, and yes, race. Oh. And then there’s the whole ‘he may not have been caught cheatin’, but he sho’ did somethin!’ factor.

Taking the items in reverse order, if Barry did use ‘roids, and the evidence does seem to be stacked against him, he’s not the only one. A certain pitcher, whose name I won’t call, but had the temerity to request to not-travel on days when he’s not playing (and actually got that request granted!) seems to have had as freakish an upswing in production in his 40’s as Mr. Bonds, but outside of certain circles, there’s not the cry that something must be amiss. It’s just amazing. There certainly wasn’t the same level of back chatter when Mark McGwire was chasing Roger Maris’ single season record. We knew something was up; McGwire didn’t swell up like that just by eating spinach. But baseball needed a hero and McGwire was the red-haired, freckle-faced “aw-shucks” guy to play the role. Course now, if we’re being fair, we can’t scrutinize Barry and let Mark ride. But the difference is that while people may be pooh-pooing McGwire’s (then) record now, it’s years after the fact. He got to shine in his moment. For Barry, on the other hand, every time he hits another home run, some sports writer tries to cast aspersions on his achievement talkin’ about some, “… but does it deserve an asterisk?”

The other three elements kinda blend into each other in such a way that for me, at least, it’s hard to distinguish them. To a degree. I think that first and foremost, many sportswriters resent Barry Bonds because he doesn’t play the media game that they want him to play. He talks when he’s ready, not when they are. And to an extent, I do feel sympathetic for them, because they’re just trying to do their job, but at the same time, their incessant sniping makes me think of jilted lovers who keep some kind of nonsense going because the object of their affection pays them no mind. Not to be sexist, but some sportswriters act like high school girls. Why try to make a villain of the man because he won’t talk when you want him to?

But there’s more to it than that. In Muhammad Ali: His Life And Times, sportswriter Mike Katz says this: “I guess it’s common for sportswriters– and I put myself in the group — to lull ourselves into thinking we’re smarter than the athletes we cover. It was true then, and I think it’s true now. But then that takes us back to the question of intelligence, or at least the perception thereof.

In this culture, our assessment of intelligence is based primarily on a person’s facility with words and numbers. If a person can speak well, write well, or perform mathematical computations with little or no problems, they get to be regarded as intelligent. And yeah, those are definitely markers of intelligence, but by no means the only ones. Without going too far into Gardner territory, suffice it to say that there is a strong argument to be made that the ability to excel in sports to the degree required to be a professional athlete requires not just skill or talent, but kinesthetic intelligence. Only thing is, who’s gonna give up that power? It’s one thing to concede that a person is a better athlete while retaining the air of intellectual superiority. If athletic skill IS intelligence, however, then where does that leave the sportswriter? So what we have, then, is a group of people who, because their strengths place them closer to the center of what’s commonly regarded as being intelligent, get to act as gatekeepers. As a friend of mine once said, “the media don’t tell us what to think, they tell us what to think about.” But even more than that, if we’re not careful, they can frame the manner in which we think about whatever it is that they’re telling us is important. Obviously, this has implications beyond sports, but that’s as far as I’m taking it right now. A couple weeks ago, I asked why Stephon Marbury is not as highly regarded for his off-the-court actions as he could be. Well part of it is that we have gatekeepers who, for one reason or another (maybe something pernicious, maybe not), don’t think that story is important enough to feature, and certainly not important enough to repeat on a daily basis.

But let’s bring this back to Mr. Bonds. Being the son of a great baseball player and having had the opportunity to observe things first-hand, Barry developed a high degree of media literacy. Unfortunately for him, and perhaps for all of us, that literacy fostered skepticism and mistrust. He viewed the media as more of a threat than an ally and now it has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Having said that, I think that race is not the primary factor in his treatment by the media, but I think that it may exacerbate the situation. It’s all conjecture, but I think that the picture of Barry that we get in the press has more to do with his treatment of the press than anything else. Otherwise, he’d be in the Ken Griffey Jr. category.

I wonder how the steroid story would’ve played out if he were a media favorite.