One funny game to play is to look back at coverage of Barry Bonds by the media, and then compare it to coverage of steroid users like Raffy Palmiero, Roger Clemens, and now A-Rod, and laugh. The drinking game version involves reading articles about Barry’s home run chases and taking a shot every time an article doesn’t mention steroids. The reason this game works so well is that with the advent of the internet, we now have RECORD and not just speculation. And the best part is that the media (especially ESPN) would like to fall back on things like “well it’s because Barry is a bad teammate or mean to the media or”… Nope. Sorry. Won’t work.

What is Barry? He

Roger Clemens was a notoriously bad teammate and was notoriously standoffish to the media – especially after poor performances. He also was a horrible opponent, crafting a legacy of head hunting and even going so far as throwing a bat at hitter Mike Piazza in the middle of a World Series game. Legendary Boston sportswriter Will McDonough constantly referred to him as “The Texas Con Man”, and took any chance he could find to tell people about Roger’s true nature.

“If the Texas Con Man was pitching tonight in the World Series, he would have been the lead item in this column. But I wanted to begin by writing about a good guy rather than a slug, so I start with Gary Anderson, one of the best stories in pro football history.

Will McDonough wrote that even when NOT talking directly about Roger. People hated Roger everywhere he had been — not only fans but teammates who couldn’t care less about him leaving despite his great production in places like Toronto. But what happened when an aged Roger went to the Astros and went on an absolutely insane, record-breaking campaign through the National League? In 2003, Roger’s final year with the Yankees, he had a 3.81 ERA, and opponents hit .247 off of him. In 2004 with the Astros (and at age 42!) he dropped that ERA down to 2.98 and opponents only hit .217 off of him. In 2005, at age 43, he amazingly crushed that 2004 season by putting up a 1.87 ERA in over 200 innings with opponents only hitting .198 off of him.

Take that in. He had a full two runs drop off of his ERA in two seasons at age 43. Two full runs.

The media must have been all over this right? An old player, not liked by media or teammates, putting up record breaking numbers near his mid-40’s that dwarfed his previous stats, and doing so without any other notable changes in the rest of the league (significant drop in hitter quality etc.), was guaranteed foundation for widespread media speculation right? After all, Roger also had a clause in his contract that he didn’t have to travel with the team. What a horrible teammate! What about supporting your other teammates when they’re pitching and you’re not? What about mentoring young pitchers? They must have pointed to this as a sign of outright selfishness the way they did when SI covered Barry Bonds right? He must have been shredded.

Nah. He was the greatest comeback story of the year. His not traveling with the team was just good planning!

At 43, pitcher defies years and batters:

Then came five up-and-down years with the Yankees, an announced retirement and an unretirement to join the Astros, who play a 15-minute drive from his house.

He seemed to be making a kind of sentimental goodbye. Instead, he has re-emerged as the game’s top pitcher.

Psychology certainly seems to play some role in the cycles of Clemens’s career. He made it clear that Duquette’s “twilight” line had motivated him in Toronto. In Houston, the team allows him to skip some road games, and Clemens seems more relaxed as a result.

Roger Clemens Enters the Zone – New York Times

Meanwhile Roger would be named 82 times in the Mitchell Report.

Hm.. well clearly, their coverage of Raffy Palmiero, a player who started off as a mediocre Cubs prospect and somehow ended up in the 500 homer/3,000 hit club, must have foretold his steroid abuse, right? The media was all over that! Or was he portrayed as the poster child for a classier mlb, an everyman without a lot of muscle who clearly couldn’t be a cheater? Was his early inability to pile up big power numbers a red flag or a selling point for the tale of his epic, yet humble journey?

Palmeiro a pillar of strength, humility:

He is still just a bit over 200 pounds and his physical stature has never been imposing. When he walks in the Orioles’ clubhouse in jeans and sneakers, he resembles more a weekend warrior more than a future Hall of Famer..

Palmeiro admits that making the adjustment to professional baseball was difficult. The Cubs thought they were getting a power hitter who could be their first baseman of the future, but what they got what a contact hitter who launched just 25 home runs in his first 258 games in Chicago, although he did make the All-Star team in 1988.

“I have always had the ability to hit home runs,” he said. “But when I made the transition to professional baseball, the transition from the aluminum to the wood bat, I wasn’t a big, strong guy, so for me it took a while to make the adjustment. Hitting coaches started tweaking my swing and wanted me to be more of a level type of hitter. I have always been a line-drive type of hitter. Just kind of lost my approach, and that’s what got me here.”

Ahh, humility

The LA times promoted him as a “true gentleman” of the game:

It was a fitting celebration for one of baseball’s true gentlemen: A champagne toast in the clubhouse for Rafael Palmeiro, not some crazy beer-over-the-head soiree.

LA Times Article

Palmiero would be suspended for steroid use after emphatically denying any use in front of Congress less than six months beforehand.

What about A-Rod? If we use Barry as a template, what red flags were there for the media? We probably don’t need to get too extensively into his unprecedented production as a player. But in the way of some interesting details, he hit 57 home runs in 2002.. as a shortstop. That’s an all-time record. He hit 52 as a third basemen in 2007 with the Yankees. That’s another record. He’s a member of the exclusive 40/40 club. He’s the fastest player in MLB history to reach 500 home runs. Red flags? Let’s take the example of raving hypocrite Brandon Funston’s analysis:

So Barry Bonds is about to make history with the launching of his 756th career home run, breaking the MLB mark set by Hank Aaron. Whatever. I’m not going to get into the morality behind this whole deal. Those who have major issues with Bonds breaking the record (and, frankly, that’s most everyone outside the Bay area) can take solace in the fact that Alex Rodriguez should take his crown in roughly six or seven seasons from now. Records were meant to be broken, and not always by better men – by “better men,” I’m only referring to the traits that make up a “decent” human being

Nice call, Brandon.

And we can’t use the whole “yeah he was a good guy so we couldn’t tell” argument, because, let’s be honest, nobody likes A-Rod. Not even his former manager apparently.

In an explosive new book called “The Yankee Years,” Torre gets most personal in his attacks against Alex Rodriguez, who he says was called “A-Fraud” by his teammates after he developed a “Single White Female”-like obsession with team captain Derek Jeter and asked for a personal clubhouse assistant to run errands for him.

Torre Book shreds A-Rod

Now that we learn A-Rod has been on steroids, what is the media’s defense for their kid-glove coverage? The only thing they’ve ever pressed him on is his lack of post-season production. Watch any episode of Baseball Tonight on ESPN and you’d see people defending him for “not being on steroids because he’s had the same build since he came into the league” (further proof John Kruk is the dumbest man in ESPN history). Meanwhile he remembers Barry being a “skinny kid when he started.” Well by all means then let’s base our entire coverage on muscle mass.

It’s telling that the same group of people continues to defend their new golden calf, Lance Armstrong, with one hand while writing about every update on Barry’s courtroom adventures with the other. Clemens was loathed, and his production spiked sharply in middle age. Raffy was always a phony. A-Rod is hated by his teammates, and produces astronomical numbers. Lance Armstrong is part of a sport so riddled with steroid and HGH use that anyone in the winner’s circle is automatically assumed to be guilty of doping. None of them have gotten 1/1,000th of the type of criticism Barry has. It’s Barry the public wants to see bleed, it’s Barry the media chased down constantly; whom they wouldn’t allow to enjoy a single moment without mentioning steroids. The reasons seem obvious, and now the disparity is documented. Thanks, internet, now they can’t just call this a conspiracy theory..

Lance Armstrong, you’re on the clock.

Bonds as the Lone Villain

Article by Steve Broome