Dropped Third Strike

You may have noticed that we don’t respect too many people here at DTS. There are exceptions (Jon Lester, D-Wright, Mike Piazza’s facial hair), but generally we tend to take the view that, for the most part, the world is made up of fools and tools. So it is particularly important that we give credit where it’s due. In that spirit, we present to you Will from Michigan. Apparently Michigan offers so little in the form of quality entertainment (told you we don’t respect much), that Will decided to take the time to actually write a well-worded and intelligent comment on this site. We’re going to post his comment here because we assume most of you lazy bastards don’t bother to click on the comments section:

When discussing Barry Bonds, the most frustrating part of his career was the 2001 season where he hit 73 home runs. While seeing Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Bonds reach numbers we never thought possible, I actually felt as though I was fully engulfed in baseball history. I thought it was the closest I would ever get to feeling the way the nation felt when DiMaggio was on his hit-streak. They completely robbed me of legitimate childhood memories. As far as I’m concerned, Roger Maris is the single season home run king, and Hammerin’ Hank is the career greatest. Seeing a player like Brett Favre is something we may never witness again, which is why I can’t wait to see him on the field again. Barry Bonds pulled the wool over my eyes for so long that I’m worried I’ll be skeptical of the next baseball great. Thankfully, Favre has taught me that it takes no skill to hustle and has made me keep the faith in the athletes of today.”

Yeah, yeah, OK, “Will,” so you’re right, Bonds, Mac, and Soso did pull the wool over our eyes, and yes we probably should have mentioned that while singing the praise of ol’ Bondsy boy, and yes, pointing out the feeling of historical importance that the home run feats of those three men evoked was apt, and yes the DiMaggio reference was clever and appropriate, and yes Barry’s use of steroids has forced us all to become far too cynical, and yes all this is something we probably should have talked about at least once during our campaign to get the Yankees to sign him, but…well fine we don’t really have a response. When you’re right, you’re right. So perhaps Barry’s exile from baseball is fitting punishment. But we can’t help but feel that Bonds is being treated just a little too harshly. Even now, we’d guess that Bonds is vastly less popular than Roger Clemens, even though Clemens used steroids, lied about using them and on top of that he seduced a teen age girl, cheated on his wife, and gave his kids all names that start with “K” because it stands for strike out. And yet Bonds is still baseball’s number one villain. It doesn’t seem entirely right. Anyway, hopefully you enjoyed your moment in the sun, Will, but keep posting comments that highlight issues we’ve neglected to cover and we’ll ban you from the site. (Who are we kidding, like we can afford to ban ANYONE from the site). 

Anyway, you might be wondering why that picture of A-Rod adorns the top of this post. Well partly we just like to highlight how awkward Tipsy (that’s a comment on his hair style, not his drinking habits) is. But it also has some relevance to Will’s comment about becoming more inclined toward suspicion when it comes to outstanding athletes. We’ve certainly seen that play out during the Olympics, with Michael Phelps being tested over and over for any sort of illegal substance, and it seems to be true in all avenues of sport. Now, other than an unsupported claim by reality-TV star Jose Canseco, very little has been thrown A-Rod’s way in terms of steroid/HGH allegations, but that hasn’t prevented his accomplishments from being greeted with a certain degree of skepticism. It’s not much, just a very low murmur, but expect it to turn into a loud shout as soon as he comes within range of Bonds’ Aaron’s record. Call us naive, but we believe in Rodriguez, and hopefully he’ll turn out squeaky clean and shatter all important  home run records, and we can just put this Bonds ugliness behind us. (Though if the Madonna rumors are true, we won’t have to worry about what will happen when he approaches the home run record, considering her track record of destroying the quality of the work of the men she’s with. Seriously, “Swept Away”? Really? After “Snatch”? Joe Girardi better do something. Soon.)