[JohnV]

I'm currently reading "A Sense of the World" by Jason Roberts.  It is the story of James Holman who traveled the world and wrote about it extensively in the early 1800s.  What makes it amazing is that Holman was blind and traveled on his own.  The subtitle is "How a Blind Man Became History's Greatest Traveler."

I've got lots of other books I've started, but I recently decided to try and focus on one at a time for a while just to get caught up.

[Jim Franklin]

I will agree that Bonds should not be in 'Hall of Fame" if Mark McGwire also never makes it [though his records do not even approach Bonds. But I have not forgotten we KNEW he was taking performance enhancing drugs and treated him like a hero until we found that even Black Men were taking them.

Yes, I DO INDEED percieve racism there. Sorry, if you don't qualify for it. Go to the Devil if you do.

NOW: How bout we go back to book you are reading, eh?  

Doug

Doug -

Because I read this book and think Bonds doesn't belong in the Hall of Fame and he cheated, then I am a racist. Is that what you are saying? Why don't YOU read the book and then tell me I am a racist. I don't hate Barry because he is black, I hate Barry because he is an asshole.

[Tim Pitner]

I'm not calling anyone a racist, but it is interesting how people fly into a frenzy about Bonds but don't seem to be that bothered by the likes of McGwire, Sosa, Palmeiro, etc.  It is a double standard.  

Re: books, I just finished Dissolution by C.J. Sansom and am now starting Arthur and George by Julian Barnes.  For recommendations, I would suggest anything written by William Boyd or Alan Furst.  

[Bill Shamleffer]

I will agree that Bonds should not be in 'Hall of Fame" if Mark McGwire also never makes it [though his records do not even approach Bonds. But I have not forgotten we KNEW he was taking performance enhancing drugs and treated him like a hero until we found that even Black Men were taking them.

Yes, I DO INDEED percieve racism there. Sorry, if you don't qualify for it. Go to the Devil if you do.

NOW: How bout we go back to book you are reading, eh?  

Doug

Doug,

I have to call you on this one.

I grew-up in St. Louis, lived there until 2001, and saw many of McGwire's HRs.

There was no actual knowledge that McGwire ever used any illegal substances.  He did admit to taking androstenedione, an over-the-counter muscle enhancement product.

Now first, should we (the fans and the press) have been more inquisitive into McGwire’s use of androstenedione and if he used anything else?  Most likely yes.  Why did we seem to give him a pass?  Because he was exciting to watch, because he loves baseball, because he was a great teammate, and because he really is a fine and decent human being.

Bonds, is not always a good teammate, he really can be a jerk, and he often appears to place himself above baseball.

Now why do I not think this is about Bonds being black and McGwire being white?  My answer is Willie McGee and Keith Hernandez.  They both were on the 1982 World Series Champion Cardinals.  Willie McGee is a GOD in St. Louis.  Even in his last year, when he had lost most of his effectiveness, he still received a standing ovation at EVERY at-bat.  Keith Hernandez was respected but never loved, even before he went to New York.  Why?  Because Willie McGee is a fine and decent person, he loves baseball, and he is a great teammate.  While Hernandez could sometimes appear arrogant and into himself.

St. Louis does not have a great history on racial relations, and the Cardinals were slow at accepting integration into baseball.  But by the 1960s and ever since, the Cardinals owners and fans have been very race neutral per those who played for and against the Cardinals.

I have seen Cardinals fans only boo a couple of Cardinals players, JD. Drew and Tino Martinez, whereas I have seen Cardinals fans give big ovations to a slumping Ray Lankford.

So to call the backlash against Bonds a racial think I really do think is 100% wrong.  Bonds really is a jerk.  If someone is a jerk, but a very good player and plays by the rules, the fans will give that person a pass for being a jerk.  If someone is an upstanding person, but makes a big mistake, the fans will be willing to give that person a chance at redemption.  But if someone combines being a jerk and playing against the rules; it will be highly likely the fans will turn quickly against that person.

[George Pazin]

Pretty sad when someone supporting the integrity of the game is accused of racism for it.

Wouldn't it make sense to at least ask Jim how he feels about McGwire first?

[Rick Shefchik]

We create our own reputations. If Bonds had been an easier person to like -- a Kirby Puckett (I know, he had off-the-field demons, too), or a Hank Aaron, or a Tony Gwynn -- he wouldn't have faced as much criticism. But he was despised in his own clubhouse and in his own home. Finding people who like the guy is next to impossible.

And, above all other baseball players, Bonds' cheating is documented. I've read Game of Shadows. The reporters did exemplary work. We know McGwire took Andro, but Andro was not a banned steroid. He might well have used something else, but we haven't seen the documentation. Palmeiro tested positive, was instantly and thoroughly criticized and retired from baseball, rather than continue to chase some statistical benchmark. Sosa hasn't been caught with anything but cork -- yet.

The case against Bonds is more iron-clad than it is against anyone else. He cheated to break baseball's most cherished record, formerly held by a good, decent, honest man. And Bonds is a prick. Ergo, most fans don't like him.

So where's the racism?

[Tim Pitner]

There was no actual knowledge that McGwire ever used any illegal substances.  He did admit to taking androstenedione, an over-the-counter muscle enhancement product.

Bill, my understanding is that andro is substantially similar to steroids and is now banned in MLB.  The fact that it wasn't banned at the time McGwire was taking it doesn't do much to rehabilitate him in my eyes.  Like Bonds, he was juiced and his numbers are inflated.  So, McGwire is a good guy and Bonds is not--okay.  But, that really doesn't change the fact that McGwire is as tainted as Bonds.  

[PThomas]

Mr. Ralston - not sure if you were referring to me and or Jim F with your comment, but you are WAY off base and should be more careful with such statements, to put it mildly

it's a shame that this interesting thread has been derailed

[Tim Gavrich]

Getting back to the subject of books...

I've just finished reading Plato's *Republic* for my Ancient Philosophy class.  It can be dense and slow-going at times, but much of it is fantastic.

I've just finished Dante's *Inferno* for my English class, and I'm to read T.S. Eliot's poem "The Waste Land" for tomorrow morning.  It's funny that the poem itself comprises only about 15 pages, but the notes on all the references that Eliot makes and all the scholarly material included in our book stretches out to ~200 pages.

I'm a big Bill Bryson fan, and in the evenings I've been reading his first book, *The Lost Continent.*  Having read *A Walk In The Woods,* *A Short History Of Nearly Everything,* and *I'm A Stranger Here Myself,* it's great to read his oldest, most rawly written (IMHO) work.

I really like IASHM, since it comprises a bunch of social commentaries.  Much like short stories and brief essays, the more succinct the work, the more powerful it tends to be when pulled off.

[Brad Tufts]

The Poe Shadow...by Matthew Pearl (who wrote the Dante Club, a really cool book about a serial killer in late 1860's Boston)

On Deck:  The World Without Us by Alan Weisman

Golf Books ongoing:

The Golf Courses of Stanley Thompson
Discover the Old Course (the new one)
Jim Finegan's book on England and Wales

[Bill Shamleffer]

There was no actual knowledge that McGwire ever used any illegal substances.  He did admit to taking androstenedione, an over-the-counter muscle enhancement product.

Bill, my understanding is that andro is substantially similar to steroids and is now banned in MLB.  The fact that it wasn't banned at the time McGwire was taking it doesn't do much to rehabilitate him in my eyes.  Like Bonds, he was juiced and his numbers are inflated.  So, McGwire is a good guy and Bonds is not--okay.  But, that really doesn't change the fact that McGwire is as tainted as Bonds.  

Please note that I also said that McGwire’s actions per use of substances should have been better examined.  I do not know what McGwire used or did not use.  I too look at pictures of the young McGwire and then the McGwire of the Cardinals and think, "that change does not look natural".  If I had the ability to know the TRUTH per what McGwire used or did not use, I think that I would be more surprised if all of his muscle gain was totally natural.  But I do not know the facts per McGwire or per Bonds.

What I was trying to point out is that when athletes disappoint us through some misdeed, we are more willing to forgive their misdeed if they were decent behaving people, but those athletes who both disappoint us through their misdeeds and have come across to the fans as arrogant, or selfish, or as a jerk, are more likely to be the athlete that is rejected by the fans.

So the point I was trying to make is that it is not the color of the skin of McGwire and Bonds that causes Bonds to receive more of a negative reaction from the fans.  Instead it is they way each presented himself to the public.  And I countered this by showing examples of other players who are black and who were treated better by the fans than some white teammates, because of the boorish behavior of the white teammates.

I have no problem with fans viewing McGwire's records and statistics with suspect and viewing his results as possibly tainted.  I made no effort to excuse what he may have done to achieve his results.  I only tried to point out why I think the public's negativity has been stronger against Bonds.

Of course another aspect is that McGwire retired and Bonds is still playing.  So he is there to boo at, and McGwire is not.

If McGwire used illegal substances to become the player he was than I can see an argument that possibly his records should be removed and possibly he should not be considered for Cooperstown.

[Tim Pitner]

Bill,

Fair enough; I don't see racism as a big issue here either.

One point though--we know McGwire took andro because he admits it and we know it's a performance-enhancing substance much like steroids.  This isn't speculation, it's fact.

Sorry to disrupt the already OT thread (I did earlier talk about books).  

[George Pazin]

It might be fact, but you could buy andro at any GNC or other health food store. They only recently banned it from baseball, and I think in general. Calling it a performance enhancer when it was a legal over the counter supplement is like calling protein shakes a performance enhancer.

However, given Mark's testimony before Congress, I'm inclined to believe he did more than andro.

[Jay Flemma]

Isn't ANYONE reading some mindless entertainment?

I mean, how are the descendants of Ian Fleming supposed to make a living with all you highbrows around?

Dan,

I get my fill for that by logging onto GolfClubAtlas.com and hitting the discussion boards..    

Hey!  I just did a whole thread about Ian Fleming!  Its far from mindless.  He was a really good writer.  Crisp and hard hitting.  Sure, its not Umberto Eco, but hey, man cannot live by golf alone, frequently there must be a woman.

For the record, I'm muddling through E.M. Forster's A Passage to India and not liking it all that much...

and yes, I read game of Shadows and recommend it to EVERYONE.  You'll never look at a professional athlete the same way again.

P.S. Yes I also read deathly hallows and remember?  Somebody said I ruined the ending for him when I simply said in passing that Voldemort met his downfall because he didn't learn from his mistakes.

[Dan Smoot]

I am reading:

Golf Architecture in America  by Geo Thomas

Wild at Heart  by John Eldridge

[Jay Flemma]

Right now being in school, most of my reading is for class. I'm in a class on Fin-de-Siècle Europe, which requires a ton of reading.  This week it is:
Émile Zola's Nana
Ann-Louise Shapiro's Breaking the Codes: Female Criminality in Fin-de-Siècle Paris
and for another class:
Alma Guillermopreito's Looking for History: Dispatches from Latin America
and just for fun:
Jay Winik's The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World 1788-1800

I enjoyed Seigenthaler's James K. Polk.

Mr. Huntley, I never finished Hitchins God in not Great, and I'm a big fan of Hitchens. Did you ever read his Why Orwell Matters.

Cheers,
Dan King

Prolonged, indiscriminate reviewing of books is a quite exceptionally thankless, irritating and exhausting job. It not only involves praising trash but constantly inventing reactions towards books about which one has no spontaneous feeling whatever.
 --George Orwell

Dan...make sure you read Zola's Germinal - my fave of his and a book I re-read every two years or so.  Glad to see Zola in the treehouse!

[Doug Ralston]

No! No! No! I will NOT let this pass.

I was a Pirates fan for many years before I became totally bored with baseball. I remember Barry Bonds with Bonilla in their early years. Bonds was a happy, outgoing player and the fans liked him.

No! It was AFTER the McGwire sensation, when Bonds began to challenge his new records, that the press began to bring out many stories, and sports commentators began to 'bust' him that Barry began to withdraw, then became positively sullen.

Look back. I do not believe I said McGwire took 'illegal substances', though I suspect he may have even then. I said he took PERFORMANCE ENHANCING substances. That is what MLB has constantly decried, but they did NOT decry them when McGwire was bringing all the good publicity, high rating, and money!

Black Man cometh! Yes, while I do not accuse any specific person, I think it is fundamentally obvious that race played a part in the assault on Barry Bonds. He became a self fulfilling prophecy of the angry black man. Faulted for the very things McGwire was extolled for, he finally just gave up and said 'leave me alone'. Of course, that is not possible.

Now, back to books!

Tim Gavrich; If you have read Dante's 'Inferno', the by all mean read Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's 'Inferno', an absolutely wonderful modern classic, where a Sci-Fi writer travel's through Hell and finds reasons, filled with thoughtful prose and laughs [believe it or not]. The reason the protagonist gives for Jesus throwing down the Gates of Hell will have you rolling on the floor.

There is so much great lit out there it is impossible to review it all. Keep trying though, I love it.

Doug

[Tim Pitner]

It might be fact, but you could buy andro at any GNC or other health food store. They only recently banned it from baseball, and I think in general. Calling it a performance enhancer when it was a legal over the counter supplement is like calling protein shakes a performance enhancer.

George,

Cocaine used to be legal--that doesn't mean it wasn't f**cking cocaine.  Andro is very similar to steroids.  The fact that it was once available at GNC doesn't mean it wasn't a performance enhancing substance.  MLB and the International Olympic Committee, among others, realized this and banned it.  Equating andro to a protein shake is nonsense.  

[Tim Gavrich]

Tim Gavrich; If you have read Dante's 'Inferno', the by all mean read Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's 'Inferno', an absolutely wonderful modern classic, where a Sci-Fi writer travel's through Hell and finds reasons, filled with thoughtful prose and laughs [believe it or not]. The reason the protagonist gives for Jesus throwing down the Gates of Hell will have you rolling on the floor.

There is so much great lit out there it is impossible to review it all. Keep trying though, I love it.

Doug

Thanks for the recommendation, Doug.  I will certainly keep my eyes peeled.

On a related subject, this summer i read Christopher Moore's book *Lamb: The Gospel According To Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal* (I think that's the after-colon title), a fictional (obviously), uproariously funny account of the "lost years" of Jesus.  It's really one of the funniest books I've read, but I imagine it might be seen as offensive at times by those who are more religious than I.

Other books I can recommend are *Everything Is Illuminated*, by Jonathan Safran Foer, and Milan Kundera's *The Unbearable Lightness Of Being*, for those who like philosophical kinds of mind-trips in their books.

[Eric Pevoto]

Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon.  Dork fun.

[Jim Franklin]

No! No! No! I will NOT let this pass.

I was a Pirates fan for many years before I became totally bored with baseball. I remember Barry Bonds with Bonilla in their early years. Bonds was a happy, outgoing player and the fans liked him.

No! It was AFTER the McGwire sensation, when Bonds began to challenge his new records, that the press began to bring out many stories, and sports commentators began to 'bust' him that Barry began to withdraw, then became positively sullen.

Look back. I do not believe I said McGwire took 'illegal substances', though I suspect he may have even then. I said he took PERFORMANCE ENHANCING substances. That is what MLB has constantly decried, but they did NOT decry them when McGwire was bringing all the good publicity, high rating, and money!

Black Man cometh! Yes, while I do not accuse any specific person, I think it is fundamentally obvious that race played a part in the assault on Barry Bonds. He became a self fulfilling prophecy of the angry black man. Faulted for the very things McGwire was extolled for, he finally just gave up and said 'leave me alone'. Of course, that is not possible.


Doug

Doug -

Read the book. Barry has been an ahole his entire career. Back in college etc... Also, he did not start taking roids until he saw everyone loving McGwire and Sosa. That's when he started. His father was one of my favorite players, but Barroid is a jerk. Whether or not you believe it, he is a steroid popping ahole and should have an asterik next to everything he did. But read the book, it is an eye opener.

[Rick Shefchik]

Doug,

I agree with Jim Franklin. Read the book -- you've got the sequence wrong. Bonds became noticeably, publicly sullen (as opposed to merely self-centered, as he was from the day he set foot in a major league clubhouse) when the sportswriters turned their attention away from his notable accomplishments and became fixated on the homer totals being put up by McGwire and Sosa.

It was jealousy that sent Bonds to the chemists -- and, to be fair, he certainly and perhaps rightly suspected that McGwire and Sosa were doing more than chugging protein shakes from GNC.

Sportswriters tend to be hero-worshipers, despite their supposed cynical detachment. I know; I've been one, and worked with them for thirty years. They will not turn on an incredible athlete unless the athlete fails to show a redeeming human side. As "Game of Shadows" clearly documents, Bonds turned the sporting press against him by his own surliness. "Angry Black Man?" Sportswriters don't like angry men of any color. The most vilified figure in sports over the past 25 years or so has been Bobby Knight. He, too, brought it on himself.

[Dustin Knight]

The Little Red Book! Mind you i do read it once a month! Last month it was "Golf from the inside" by our own Mike Clayton. Play well at Concord this week in the Legends of golf tournament Clayts!!!

[George Pazin]

As someone who has lived in Pittsburgh most of his life, I can say that very very few people would describe Bonds as a happy fun fan favorite. He remains a favorite of local sports talk shows because they know if they mention his name, tons of people will call in with stories of what a jerk he was.

And Tim, you can hardly equate cocaine and andro.

-----

Re: Christopher Moore, I recently read A Dirty Job by him, and it was indeed pretty funny and entertaining.

[Kalen Braley]

Ahhhh Barry...

Ever the Marketing/PR/press genius, making all the right moves to endear himself to all.  The reality may be that in his lifetime he won't have an opportunity to reject a nod to the hall.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ap-bonds-halloffame&prov=ap&type=lgns

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