First off, with regards to whether or not Babe Ruth should hold any accountability for MLB's segregation - Babe Ruth didn't speak out about the exclusion of players of color. He didn't use his clout, which was quite powerful at the time of his stardom, to help change things. This doesn't make him a coward; it makes him normal for his time period. No one, as far as I know, was speaking out for the excluded players.
But it also illustrates why you shouldn't put too much stock into the hero-worshiping of old athletes. Modi pointed out the example of Michael Jordan; you can also point the finger at modern guys like LeBron James (who took some heat for not signing a letter protesting the Chinese government's role in Sudan), Tiger Woods. They are all mostly apolitical, superstar athletes scared to speak out for social issues. Babe Ruth was no different. You need to keep in mind what kind personalities we are talking about here - these are guys that are super-competitive, driven to be the best - no one, no one, becomes as successful as these men have in their respective fields, without being focused, driven, and competitive. They worked hard to get to the top of their field, and none of them wanted to risk it for an ideal, for a cause. Stevie Wonder: "Who's more of a man than a man with a reason that's worth dying for"
That's totally fine with me. Babe Ruth was a man, just like every other man in his time. Not a glorified hero, just a man with flaws. If this proves anything to me, it's that stars like Muhammad Ali are really once-in-a-lifetime. Rather than smile and "play the game" with the media, they were willing to risk everything for their ideals, risk everything to do it their way.
If surveyed I would bet most people, most sports fans, given a choice between hanging out with Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, or Barry Bonds, would choose Ruth the most. And Bonds the least. Based simply on the perception they have gotten from the media... "Babe Ruth - hot dogs and beer! Hell yeah, that guy is cool." Barry Bonds? "That guy is steroids, cheating... and he's a jerk. So surly all the time".
Never mind that Babe Ruth is probably not the happy jolly figure. Of the three Ruth is most certainly the gully-est. He grew up an orphan in Baltimore! He was the street life. He was the original contract holdout, the original Gary Sheffield "get as much as you can get". Don't believe me? Babe Ruth once told the Sporting News "a player is worth just as much as he can get". He held out for more money in Boston, and threatened to fight Ty Cobb (!) because Ty Cobb spoke out against Ruth, calling him a "contract violator". He was from a different era, where a guy like Cobb could go into the stands and fight a handicapped fan (with no hand!). You think Ruth would be the fun guy in the bunch? 80% of reporters today would get a bat cracked over their head if they tried to pull a Pedro Gomez on Babe Ruth!
The point of all this? Babe Ruth ain't any different than really any other athlete that has come by. He did "illegal" things (like drinking beer during Prohibition - no different than an athlete now smoking weed, right?), and looked for advantages wherever he could find them. Shooting sheep testicles? Check. Look the other way while playing watered down competition? Check.
For all the talk about how Barry Bonds has hit home runs in a watered-down expansion era, there are probably more of the world's best athletes in baseball right now than ever before. When Ruth played there might have been 10 fewer teams, but there were no international players, no black players. Even back in the days, international players were good - the Cuban were known for having talent. Baseball first got to the Caribbean in the 1860's. The first Cuban player in MLB was Esteban Bellan in 1871 (also the first Latino).
The Cubans spread baseball to the rest of the Caribbean 100 years ago - to PR, DR, Venezuela and Mexico. There were Cuban teams and tons of Latino players in the Negro Leagues.
Okay, too many random thoughts that are probably not tying in well because this post is rushed, but: All three of MLB's HR Kings are great competitors in their own right. Making a big deal about who holds the "real" record is beyond silly. Grown men - reporters (the hell if I'll call any of them "journalists") - acting like Bonds holding the record takes something away from the others. It doesn't.These "reporters" act this way because they want to take something away from Bonds. They won't, either. In 30 years Bonds will be as revered as Aaron and Ruth. You know why? Because once these insignificant gnats fade away, retire, poof-vamoose - their replacements will come in with a fresh perspective, with none of their biases towards Bonds. They won't see Bonds the jerk. They'll just see Bonds, another misunderstood giant of the game.
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Dude I totally agree. I was really pissed when I read Gene Wojo-whatever's article on ESPN. Here is the bottom line: 755+1=756= new HR leader. I'm going to post on this in length soon but if steroids=home runs why didn't an MLB team sign Chris Benoit?
I'm not the biggest Bonds fan on the planet. He is a great player. But this vitrol is out of control.
I'm really surprised at how much love Bonds gets in certain sections of the blogosphere. It's a good thing- what fun is it if we all agree on everythng?- but I find the number of people supporting him fairly shocking. To say that "In 30 years Bonds will be as revered as Aaron and Ruth", i think is just plain wrong. You may be giving journalists a little too much credit for swaying the public opinion of Bonds. Yeah, he's a dick to them, but that isn't the only reason they bash him. I know you are kinda defending Bonds, but seriously, the reason people hate him isn't because they're listening to what reporters feed them, they hate him because he almost certainly took steriods to acheive something that people hold very sacred. How many career homers does he hit without steriods? Well who knows, he might have got hurt at 37 without them and ended up with 650, or maybe he's just that good of a hitter, with maybe the best batters eye in baseball history, and he still hits 800. No one knows so, i agree with you, its dumb to argue about it.
To me, this is alot different then what Aaron went through. People who ddn't want to see Aaron break the record were racist assholes, people who don't want to see Bonds break the record would feel pretty close to the same way if McGuire or Sammy were doing this.
Rick, i believe the "30 year question" is up in the air. I think it all really depends how the era is viewed which can be anybody's guess.
And as far as "defending Bonds goes, I think what you are seeing from bloggers like SML, TSF, and others is a reaction to media injustice than specific love for Bonds. Sure, I will always admire that Bonds is the best player (by FAR) that i ever saw in my life. That is true. But Bonds is the perfect laboratory of everything that is wrong in reporting. No sportswriter could honestly look you in the eye and say that they didn't know about steroids prevalence back in 1998. That is what makes it even doubly hard to listen to a Lupica after he wrote a summer of '98 book that SML pointed out. They have to be a complete liar or the most clueless journalist on the face of the earth. Neither is good.
Modi,
You said it well. I'm not necessarily a Bonds fan, but hate everyone jumping on the 'trash Bonds' brigade. And I don't like these reporters telling me how to think and illegitmatizing the record.
Look at it this way...
I suspect that many of the sports writers were guys who got bullied by jocks in school and are now using their writing as some form of revenge. Superstars today can't punch smartass reporters like they could in Ruth's day without being sued for millions, jailed and suspended, so the weasly reporters have turned into some sort of nerd-bullies.
But put any one of them in a dark deserted alley with Bonds or A-Rod or any of their athlete targets and they'd wet themselves while eating their words.
That might be fun to watch.
actually, No one will remember these athletes. Who remembers the gladiators of Rome? NO ONE. Athletes today are just modern day gladiators. In a few hundred years they shall be forgotten. And there was writing back during gladiator era. So why didn't they record them? They probably were. People just don't care about an old guy who killed stuff. What about ancient Olympics? Who remembers them? Yea you're all gonna troll over to wikipedia and find some guy that you never knew before and post here. If you can find any. Athletics as achievement is overrated any way you slice and dice it.
SML,
Keep up the ideas and independent thinking. Sooner or later, it will catch on with the masses, and people will stop behaving like Lemmings.....
Keep on fightin' the tide of ignorance.
Time tends to soften attitudes and opinions in sports. Ted Williams was considered surly and was disliked during his playing days, yet most of us under the age of 60 wouldn't know that. In his later years, whenever Williams was part of a baseball event, he was revered by fans and players.
So you're absolutely right... someday, Bonds is probably going to be a hero. It would be nice if it happened within his lifetime and when his kids are still around. That's who I felt really bad for, his wife and kids. All this hatred had to effect them.