Barry Bonds, The Mets and the Glorious Hypocrisy of Sports
Saturday, March 8th, 2008For anyone who doesnt know, I am a Mets fan. This is the one sport i dont waver on in any way. In basketball I am a born Celtics fan, became a Bulls fan for a while but have since become a Celtics fan again. In football while i am a New York Football Giants fan i do like watching at least a dozen different teams every Sunday and if im engaged in a heated fantasy football battle and the Cowboys are playing the Giants and Terrell Owens catches an Eighty yard touchdown well then i just might jump out my chair a scream for joy while simultaneously acknowledging that my Giants are getting the pants beaten off of them. But when it comes to baseball there is only one team i root for and even care about and those are the New York Mets.
I am a slightly above average sports fan. Im not a crazy but i am also not one of those guys that everyone has running around their office trying to strike up conversations about what they think to be the major sports story of the day without having any real grasp about how the game is played or know anything about the past the present or the future of the team they claim to be such a huge fan of. I know my stuff, i root hard for my teams, when they fail it hurts me some, when they succeed i feel that i was integral to their success and when it comes to steroids in sports i will be the first one to call someone a cheater or a liar, ill be the first one to irrationally advocate that they go to jail and ill be the first one to say an asterisk isnt enough next to their name in Cooperstown. I say lets break out the fat sharpies, cross out the whole name and pretend they never existed.
However, and believe me it kills me to say this, as a Mets fan and a baseball fan, Omar, why havent you signed Barry Bonds yet?
I dont know how closely anyone has been following spring training but the good old Mets being just that, Good and Old, have already been wrecked by injuries and we havent even played a full week of games yet. Our outfield is falling apart, as Im typing this im sure Calros Beltran has pulled some kind of muscle in his back or groin, Endy Chavez was probably in a car accident and it wouldnt shock me to find out that Ryan Church is thinking about retiring or some such nonsense. We have no first baseman, we have a terrible bullpen, we have an unproven end of the rotation and to top it all of our starting out field is falling apart faster than (please insert remark about a failed presidential campaign of your choosing)! So what the hell are we going to do about it?
The answer came to me while i was driving to band practice today listening to the FAN (WFAN). I dont remember who the host was and they made the statement in such a matter of fact way at first i wasnt sure if i had heard them correctly and when they failed to continue the discussion i was sure i had misremembered but after thinking about it a little while longer, in the liquor store buying a case of New Castle, and in Daddy’s buying strings, the thought just would not leave my mind. “That is just too perfect,” I said to myself. “He can still hit and hes a free agent, we can platoon him in left and because it doesnt seem like anybody else wants him we can give him 8-10 million dollars for the one year and if it doesnt work it doesnt work, if it does well then World Series rings for everybody!” But then i caught myself. Hes a steroid user, a cheater and a liar, i dont want this kind of fellow on my beloved New York Mets. But i did and i do and i must. We need Barry Bonds. He is the absolute perfect player to solve the Mets outfield problem. he may not make the problem go away but he makes a large problem smaller and thats really all you’re ever looking for when your team has been plagued by injury.
How though do I justify his steroid laden past with my desire for the Mets to win a World Series? I have been thinking about this all day friends and i dont have an answer. I think the Mets should sign Barry Bonds but i also think they shouldnt. You cant justify behavior like Bonds’ by, when your need is great enough, ignoring the fact that he, along with Roger Clemens, is helping to ruin the game you, me and many other people hold so near and dear. thats what being a fan is. you want your team to win at any cost even if that means employing a liar and a cheat but shouldnt you also want your team to act ethically and morally and in the best interests of the sport?
These are all good questions and i wish i had the answers to them because it would make rooting for the Mets this year a lot less difficult. I think, if they do sign him, I’ll be just as unhappy as i would be if the dont sign him.
Such is the life of a Mets fan. You can never win.
