I've been promising to write about Barry Bonds for a long time.  One of the best Barry Bond articles we've read in a while, a must-read, was this one by Modi over at Cosellout.  He takes a very detailed and well researched look at Sports Illustrated's coverage of Barry Bonds throughout his career.  Key points:

"...what distinguishes Sports Illustrated from other media sources is that this is part of a long series of Bonds-biased coverage that goes back at least 15 years! That’s right. Before the allegations of “performance enhancing drugs”, before BALCO laboratory raids, and long before elaborate government sting operations targeting a man who makes his living hitting a ball of string with a piece of wood, Sports Illustrated most definitely had it in for Barry Bonds. "

Then Modi hits on the well documented source of the media's hatred of Bonds, by quoting Richard Hoffer's 1993 article:

“A writer might spend the first three days just trying to establish the possibility of an interview. Bonds might fail to look up or register any recognition during conversations with the would be interviewer, might pick at imaginary scabs on his arm and repeat “Whatever, dude” over and over. The next phase might be a series of decreasingly vague promises by Bonds as he warms to the idea of the interview. This part of the process also includes actual recognition of the interviewer.  The third, most tantalizing phase includes specific appointments, at first broken and later delayed. … Day Seven: Aw, dude! I forgot about stretching!”… on Day eight Bonds finally sits down, as he promised so long ago.”

Promised so long ago!  8 days is a lifetime for a sportswriter.  And there we get to what has always been the central issue in the media coverage of Barry Bonds.  Let's back it up first and remember what has always been the case against Barry Bonds:  If you have read anything about Bonds from the MSM, the reason he is the most despise man in baseball is two-fold: One, he's a "jerk" - this has been beaten into our heads so much that it doesn't even get an argument from anyone.  Blog writers, such as Deadspin's armies, all accept it as fact that Bonds is a jerk, though none of them have ever had any contact or conversation with Bonds.  But he's a jerk, everyone knows that!

Two, the steroid allegations.  We don't really need to add much to the arguments - we could just quote Modi, D-Wil, and David Zirin all day, as all three have written much well-researched, well-argued articles on this very topic.  But this is our minor contribution, which hopefully will help balance out the heavily lopside coverage of Bonds.

Let's start with one:

Is Barry Bonds Really A Jerk, and If So, Should It Matter?

Modi quotes Bond's former teammate Royce Clayton has calling Bonds a great team player, "one who makes those around him better".  I'm sure Bobby Bonilla and Andy Van Syke would probably have to concur, given how their careers post-Bonds went.  The list of other hitters who have benefitted from Bonds' presence is long - Rich Aurilia, Moises Alou, Jeff Kent, etc. all have had their best years when playing with Bonds. 

Via this TSF post, we found this Cbssportsline article from Gregg Doyel about following Bonds around for a week, and finding reasons to like him.  The highlights:

-Spending time with a U.S. soldier who wanted to see Bonds play in person - "Bonds heard the guy was in town, and soon he was meeting with the soldier and his wife in the dugout before a game.  The media never knew about it."  Or didn't report it if they did.  After all, Bonds has no friends or allies in the media.

-Bonds knows most of his teammates' kids.  "He loves kids," Aurilio says.  "He's great with kids."  When the Giants' families were introduced to the crowd Thursday, Bonds lead the applause."

-For all the talk about what a selfish prick Bonds is, he seems to stand up for teammates quite a bit.  Doyel has several examples, including: "Asked about being the only San Francisco player chosen for the game, Bonds said catcher Bengie Molina also deserved a spot and went on to say, "If we had played better for Matt Cain, he'd be an All-Star, too." Cain was 2-9 at the time, but his ERA was a solid 3.38."

The point being that despite the widespread claims that Bonds is a jerk, let's break it down to what it really means:  "Bonds is a jerk to the media". 

First a disclaimer: Some of ya probably think I'm defending Bonds because I like him, or because he's black, and I "defend" lots of black athletes on my site.  Let's get it straight, though - one, I'm Hispanic, and don't have any preference for blacks or whites.  My goal has always been to be objective, to not be manipulated by rhetoric or propaganda, and to call out those who perpetrate those double-standards in the sports media.  Remember my name?  Two, as a person I can't see why I would instinctively like Bonds.  See, I grew up poor, and in a bad (though not the worst) neighborhood... I can understand the kind of background and places that a Stephon Marbury comes from, a Ron Artest (I've been to those places, at that time), a Gary Sheffield, et al. 

But Bonds ain't one of those people.  He ain't poor folk.  His father was a major league baseball star.  His godfather was Willie Mays.  I'm not saying he grew up rich, but he was born with privilege.  He had a sense of entitlement, no doubt.  If he was white, he would have been a lacrosse-type of player (to make a generalization)... get the picture?  He ain't the type of person I would like, or would want to defend. 

But this piece isn't about defending Bonds anyway.  It's about pointing out the hypocrisy of the press.

I've often said, without hesitation, that I am not a journalist.  I'm just a blogger.  But the saddest thing about the sportsmedia today is that as a blogger, I can say that I think I have more journalistic integrity than most so-call sports journalists.  They lack any sort of objectivity anymore.  They don't report, they spin.  The make 20-second soundbites.

F*ck em.

So the media doesn't like Barry Bonds because he doesn't care for them, and makes that dislike very clear.  For that they labeled him a jerk and set out to report negatively.  That's the fact of the situation.

I don't disagree with the media for disliking Bonds.  Their thought process is probably this: "This guy is a freaking jerk.  We need quotes after every game, and every player is willing to help us out except for this freaking guy, who happens to be the star.  Damn I wished I worked in the Bronx... Jeter is a saint".  While I can sympathize with the anger that comes from someone not allowing you to do your job, I don't care for the sense of entitlement that comes with the media's assumption that Bonds should be helping them.

Bonds has stated his dislike of the media from day one.  It may, in fact most likely does, have little to do with the actual people that cover him.  It has do with his view of the sportsmedia as a concept; his father Bobby Bonds was one of the greatest players of his generation.  A pioneer and baseball stud, the first person to make 30/30 seasons seem routine.  Barry grew up watching the sports media destroy his father with their vicious coverage, and decided that he would punish them when he became a star.  The fact that most of those writers that destroyed his father are not the same ones he had to deal with in Pittsburgh?  Not relevant to Barry. 

My feelings:  I wish Barry had tried a little harder, maybe found an ally or two in the press just so he could keep the coverage of his career balanced.  Maybe then he would have won that MVP he deserved that Terry Pendleton got.  Maybe then this "jerk" characterization that he is saddled with wouldn't have stuck as easily as it did.  But Bonds chose his path, and he knew the likely consequences of his decision.  He knew the media could destroy a player while they played, but that also the legacy of a great player will outlive the hatred of the media (see Ted Williams, for example).

So I have no sympathy for Bonds' predicament.  My problem with the situation is that I find it hypocritical and lacking in integrity that the media set out to destroy his career (way before the steroid allegations) because they hate having to deal with his surliness. Does objectivity in covering players and stories not apply in the sports press?  The argument that Bonds is a jerk, and therefore you should root against him is asanine.  He's a jerk to the sports media.  The sports media was a jerk to his father, and to Ted Williams.  None of this matters in terms of baseball.

The Steroid Allegations and the Media's Coverage of Them.

The most objective writers I've read, by far, on the topic of Barry Bonds are David Zirin and D-Wil of The Starting Five.  They all state the facts, and while some critics would argue that D-Wil interjects "pro-Bonds rhetoric" into his work, I have to laugh at such a comment.  Like every single article ESPN, SI, or any other MSM writer who has written about Bonds hasn't inserted anti-Bonds rhetoric into every story?

It reminds me of the French coverage of Lance Armstrong.  Even as Armstrong kept winning and passing drug test after drug test, doing historically amazing feats, the French media never hesitated to label him a blood doper.  He wasn't "alleged" either; he was a cheater who just hadn't gotten caught. Or worse, he was a cheater who has somehow managed to elude punishment despite all the overwhelming evidence of his doping.  Sound familiar?

Now let's look at the hypocrisy of the sports media.  Here's what they have written about Bonds:

Deadspin posted an interview with sports scribe Jeff Pearlman about Bonds.  Some quotes:

"And the truth of the matter is, Bonds is completely, undeniably 100 percent full of shit."
Thank god for people with integrity like you, Jeff.

"Barry Bonds is evil."
Let's call off the search, I think we have the winner of 2007's Greatest Exaggeration.  By the way, Jeff Pearlman is a baby raper.

If you Google "barry bonds steroids espn", here's what you'll see:

"Book details Barry Bonds' steroid regimen..." (no need to use the word "allegedly", huh?)

"Bonds unknowingly used steroids..." (Note: factually unproven.  Bonds testified that he used the clear and the cream; to this point no one has identified what the cream and the clear's components are - point being they may be steroids, or they may be the flaxseed oil that they were claimed to be.  It's dishonest to state it as definitive fact that they were steroids).

And as bad as ESPN has been, SI has been worse.

Back to the irony of the Armstrong coverage... Deadspin once wrote this about Lance Armstrong:

"The man beat cancer and then won the Tour de France six consecutive times, and if he did engage in a little bit of doping, then he likely beat a lot of other cyclists who were doing the exact same thing. Sure, I'd rather he did it clean, but if he didn't, I'm not going to see him as any less of a bad-ass."

The editors at Deadspin have been pretty apolitical about Bonds and steroids (as opposed to the Vick thing, which they have been very vocal about).  Aside from giving Jeff Pearlman a platform to rant about Bonds, Deaspin hasn't been as critical of Bonds as the other media giants (including ESPN, SI, Foxsports, Cbssportsline and AOL) have been.  But if that's how they felt about Armstrong, then how do they feel about Bonds?  One can infer that they have to feel pretty much the same way about Bonds, right?  And if so, why not put that platform out there for all to read?

It's bad enough being subjected to all the anti-Bonds rhetoric from people with a clear vendetta.  But it makes it worse that people who don't have that same vendetta won't speak out against the hypocrisy of the media.  

Kathleen Hall Jamieson once wrote, on media bias, that "One might hypothesize... would hold that norms of journalism, including `objectivity’ and `balance’ blunt whatever biases exist.”  Apparently not in the sports press.

There are six types of media bias - all six have been utilized again and again in the MSM reporting of Bonds:

Bias by omission: Leaving one side of the story out, like saying Bonds is mean to the media without stating why.

Bias by selection of sources:  Hey, I'll quote the one teammate that hates Bonds, and not the other five who like him, or the 20 that don't care one way or the other.

Bias by story selection: I'll run a bunch of stories about steroids and Bonds, but nothing about Bonds and family day activities, or his participation in charitable events.

Bias by placement: I'll run those steroids stories on the front page, and when I do run a Bonds' charitable event story I'll bury it in the NHL section.

Bias by labeling: I'll make sure not to use "alleged" when talking about steroids, and I'll make sure I mention that Bonds is a jerk as much as possible, even though I won't back it up either with evidence.

Bias by spin:  I'll interpret a joking conversation between a player and Bonds - "hey, why are you warming up, you aren't going to play anyway", and make it seem like another example of Bonds being a jerk. 

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