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Barry Bonds and
Alex Rodriguez
The
talibanization
of the US media
By Jean Damu
With the Barry
Bonds trial
beginning next
week and the US
media’s recent
hauling down of
Alex Rodriguez,
admitted
steroids
“cheat,” from
baseball’s Mount
Rushmore, there
no longer exists
a “great white
hope”—a
non-threatening
personality with
any chance of
breaking the
hated Bonds
career home run
record.
Bonds goes on
trial for
telling a grand
jury he never
knowingly used
steroids.
Furthermore, the
main body of
American sports
journalists and
others appear to
have taken on
all the
moralizing
aspects
Afghanistan’s
rogue opposition
Taliban party,
universally
known for
dynamiting
majestic
representations
of Buddha carved
into the sides
of mountains, as
it detonates
journalistic car
bombs beneath
anyone connected
to the steroids
issue.
These are the
guys (and women)
who delighted
singing in Greek
chorus unison
last year as
Marian Jones, a
black female,
was sentenced to
prison for lying
about steroid
use-the only
person thus far
to receive such
treatment.
Bonds, if we
must be
reminded, has
been vilified
almost
universally in
the media and
booed and
threatened in
stadiums
throughout the
US, for
allegations that
he used steroids
on his way to
breaking
baseball’s most
cherished
record.
The problem for
much of the
media now is,
how should they
treat their
beloved Alex
Rodriguez, a
supreme athlete
without doubt,
who has never
snarled at
anyone, who has
pretended to be
white in
America, now
that he has
admitted using
steroids?
A small part of
the problem with
America’s
journalistic
fixation on
athletes who use
steroids is that
electronic
technology has
provided us with
24-7 sports
coverage, all
day, everyday.
Journalists,
especially
electronic
journalists,
need to fill the
time slots and
what better way
to do that than
fixate on and
cultivate
interest in
issues that used
to generate no
news interest at
all?
Before cable
television who
really cared
that baseball
players were
using
amphetamines or
that football
players were
using steroids
or shooting up
cortisone?
Another problem
that generates
the steroids
issue is that US
morality hasn’t
caught up to the
technology of
sports
medicines. To
take this a step
further, how
will the
baseball and
track and field
establishments,
the two sports
that most rely
on the setting
and breaking of
records, respond
to stem cell
research and
other computer
generated
sciences, the
birth of which
we are just now
witnessing?
What has played
out to date, in
regards to
performance
enhancing drugs
in sports, does
not portend well
for the future.
Just for a
moment let’s put
the Barry Bonds
saga in
historical
perspective.
During the
course of the
last one hundred
years, three
athletes in
particular have
been nailed to
the cross of
public
self-righteousness
by the US press.
Shockingly, all
three were males
and all three
were black. But
the similarities
do not end
there.
Jack Johnson,
Muhammad Ali and
Barry Bonds—all
highly
intelligent,
arrogant and
unrepentant in
opinions and
actions that
made white folks
uncomfortable.
[The case of
Michael Vick,
the former NFL
quarterback who
was imprisoned
for
participating in
dog fighting,
was also the
victim of white
racist
self-righteousness
whipped up by
the media, but
thankfully his
case passed from
the scene rather
quickly.
However it
hasn’t escaped
our attention
the animal
rights group
PETA, that led
the charge
against Vick,
recently
demonstrated
against dog show
promoters
dressed as white
sheeted Klansmen
thereby
demonstrating,
they said, that
dog breeders are
attempting to
create a master
class of dogs
and that
therefore they
were just as
criminal as
Klansmen
promoting a
master race of
humans. The only
thing PETA
demonstrated was
their stupidity
and racism.]
But back to
Barry Bonds, et
al.
Johnson, Ali,
and Bonds have
all generated
within the
sports media
industry a
wishful yearning
for someone
white to
supplant the
uppity black
man; or if not a
white person, a
person of color
white folks
found to be not
threatening.
If there is one
journalist at
whose feet the
Great White Hope
movement can be
laid, the
movement to
encourage and
promote any
white person to
emerge from the
woodwork of life
and defeat Jack
Johnson and
restore the
world heavy
weight boxing
championship to
its rightful
owners, white
people, it is
America’s
foremost working
class oriented
novelist and
journalist, two
time Oakland
mayoral
candidate, Jack
London.
It was London
who traveled to
Australia for
the 1908 Jack
Johnson-Tommy
Burns world
heavyweight
title fight and
wrote at the
fight’s
conclusion,
while Burns was
still flat on
his back,
“Jim Jeffries
(retired and
undefeated
heavyweight
champion) must
now emerge from
his alfalfa farm
and remove that
golden smile
from Jack
Johnson’s
face…Jeff it’s
up to you. The
White Man must
be rescued.”
But London was
no cardboard cut
out of a racist.
He was complex
and wrote many
positive
descriptions of
Johnson. But in
the end, his
sense of white
supremacy is
unmistakable.
His 1904 essay,
“The Yellow
Peril,” is
another example
of London’s
white supremacy,
a weakness that
has hampered US
progressive and
labor movements,
with which
London is often
associated,
since their
inceptions up to
this very day.
For those too
young to
remember, the
racist vitriol
spewed against
Muhammad Ali by
the US media
exceeded even
the treatment
Bonds is
currently
receiving. In
this writer’s
lifetime, the
viciousness Ali
received as an
athlete at the
hands of the US
media remains
unprecedented.
The single
electronic
journalist who
came to Ali’s
defense after
the federal
government
attempted to
imprison Ali for
his refusal to
participate in
the war against
Viet Nam was
Howard Cosell.
Cosell himself
was vilified for
defending Ali
and letters sent
to Cosells’s
employer urging
the network to,
“get that
nigger-loving
Jew bastard off
the air" were
not uncommon.
In the world of
sports Howard
Cosell was the
anti-Jack
London.
One wonders what
Cosell would
have to say
about the
steroids scandal
today. Cosell
was the first to
try and focus
attention on the
owners’
promotion of
drug abuse in
professional
football back in
the day when no
one was
interested.
Typically
Cosell’s
interest was to
protect the
athlete and
expose the
owner’s
hypocrisy.
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In
the
age
of
Barry
Bonds
and
Alex
Rodriguez
the
Howard
Cosell’s
are
few
and
far
between.
Jack
London’s
abound
however.
The
Taliban
of
the
US
journalism
corps
display
little
regard
for
the
well
fare
of
the
players.
Their
concern
is
that
the
sanctity
of
the
records
within
baseball’s
Hall
of
Fame
be
maintained.
Historically
the
sports
media
has
taken
by
the
hand
members
of
the
Ku
Klux
Klan
(Ty
Cobb)
and
other
assorted
racists
(Judge
Kennesaw
Landis,
baseball’s
first
commissioner
who
said,
“As
long
as
I’m
commissioner
no
niggers
will
ever
play
in
the
major
leagues,”
and
proudly
escorted
them
into
baseball’s
pantheon
of
heroes.
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But athletes who
used performance
enhancing drugs
with the
knowledge,
encouragement
and cooperation
of management,
and do not admit
doing so, they
want to
imprison.
This is a
moralizing
hypocrisy only
the Taliban
could
appreciate.
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Jean Damu is
an educator, journalist, trade unionist and political
activist. In his capacity as a former member of the
National Committee of the Venceremos Brigade and as a
private citizen he has traveled to Cuba 18 times (and
counting), Africa, Asia and Latin America. He is also a
member of N-COBRA (the National Coalition of Blacks for
Reparations in America) and serves on the steering
committee of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration.
He has written on numerous topics and has a special
interest in Africa.
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News Update
In Aaron’s View
Bonds Is Home
Run King—On
the night in
2007 that
Barry Bonds
broke
Hank Aaron’s
home run record,
Aaron, by way of
video message,
congratulated
Bonds. Aaron
said the feat
required “skill,
longevity and
determination.”
. . .
In an
eye-opening
column by
Terence Moore in
Friday’s
Atlanta
Journal-Constitution,
Aaron repeated
his contention
that Bonds was
the true home
run king. “There
are things out
there besides
worrying about a
home run record
that somebody
now holds,”
Aaron told
Moore. “Barry
has the record,
and I don’t
think anybody
can change
that.” . . .
For those who
consider Aaron
to be the
greatest, who
still consider
him to be the
legitimate king,
listen to what
he says and move
on.
Even if the
government
produced 3,000
witness, Aaron
said that Bonds
would be the
home run
champion. “It’s
probably the
most hallowed
record out
there, as far as
I’m concerned,
but it’s now in
the hands of
somebody else,”
he said. “It
belongs to
Barry.”
NYTimes
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* * *
The U.S. v
Barry Bonds—The
case to prove
that slugger
Barry Bonds
perjured himself
in the Bay Area
Laboratory
Co-operative (BALCO)
steroid
investigation
begins March 2.
Yet after seven
years of
investigation,
millions of
dollars in work
hours and
countless ruined
reputations, the
US Attorney's
Office will
arrive in court
with virtually
no leg to stand
on. Judge Susan
Illston struck
down most of the
prosecution's
case, a move
ESPN legal
expert Lester
Munson
called a
"devastating"
setback for
prosecutors. The
ruling was an
indictment of
not only the
government's
case but its
entire approach
toward Bonds
from day one.
John Ashcroft's
Justice
Department
always seemed
irrationally
determined to
prosecute Bonds.
It was as
obsessive as the
fisherman
Santiago
attempting to
bring home the
great marlin in
Hemingway's The
Old Man and the
Sea.
TheNation
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Indefinite delay
in Bonds perjury
trial—
Federal
prosecutors
postponed
indefinitely
Barry Bonds'
trial on perjury
charges Friday
while they
appeal a judge's
ruling that put
alleged positive
steroid tests
and other key
evidence
off-limits. . .
. In a notice to
U.S. District
Judge Susan
Illston,
prosecutors said
they would ask
the Ninth U.S.
Circuit Court of
Appeals in San
Francisco to
reinstate three
steroid tests
and other
evidence she had
banned from the
trial. . . . In
her Feb. 19
ruling, Illston
said the
evidence was
inadmissible
hearsay unless
the government
could persuade
Anderson to
testify. Without
testimony from
the man who
prosecutors
believe
supervised the
steroid tests
and created the
documents, the
evidence cannot
be presented to
the jury, she
ruled. . . .
Bonds was found
to be free of
steroids on the
MLB test.
SFGate
* *
* * *
Alex
Rodriguez
Confirms
Steroids Report—Alex
Rodriguez
acknowledged
today using
steroids while
with the Texas
Rangers, saying
he did so
because of the
pressure to live
up to his $252
million contract
with the Rangers
before the 2001
season.
Rodriguez
admitted using
performance-enhancing
drugs in an
interview with
ESPN's Peter
Gammons which
will air in full
on the sports
network at 6
p.m.Rodriguez
appeared
contrite but
composed, and he
apologized
multiple times.
. . .Gammons
asked whether
Rodriguez was
saying he used
steroids in
2001, 2002 and
2003, and
Rodriguez
answered,
"That's pretty
accurate,
yes."When
Gammons asked
what substances
he used,
Rodriguez said,
"To be quite
honest, I don't
know exactly
what substance I
was guilty of
using." On
Saturday,
Sports
Illustrated
reported that
Rodriguez tested
positive for
steroids in 2003
and was one of
104 players who
tested positive
during
baseball's
survey testing
that season. The
test results
were not subject
to discipline
and were
supposed to
remain
anonymous.WashingtonPost
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People's History of Sports in the United
States
250 Years of
Politics, Protest, People, and Play
By Dave Zirin
Zirin (What's My Name, Fool!), writer of
a politically minded online sports
column, examines the intersection of
sports and politics, chronicling the
struggles of America's oppressed,
starting with Choctaws playing lacrosse
and slaves in the South, and reaching
all the way to a critique of Michael
Jordan as an apolitical athlete. There
are many worthy and deserving stories of
courage and conscience in this vast
canvas; however, the telling suffers
from Zirin's term paper–like prose that
relies far too much on overly long
quotes from source material. For
example, three pages about NFL player
Dave Meggyesy has a short introductory
paragraph by Zirin and then excerpts
Meggyesy's autobiography for the bulk of
the section. This book would have been
more engaging and logically organized as
a reference book with entries on each
athlete or group, rather than a linear
historical narrative of sports.—Amazon |
The Greatest, My Own Story
(Muhammad Ali)
Shrovetide in Old New Orleans (Ishmael
Reed) /
Airing Dirty Laundry (Ishmael Reed)
* * *
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The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball
Leagues
James A. Riley
(Editor), Monte Irvin (Foreword)
EditorRiley is an
accomplished writer and a recognized authority on the
Negro leagues, having published numerous books on the
subject (e.g.,
Too Dark for the Hall, T.K. Pubs., 1991). His
comprehensive reference book documents the careers of
4000 players on teams of major league caliber between
1872 and 1950. Notable Hall of Famers included are Hank
Aaron, Satchel Paige, Ernie Banks, and Jackie Robinson.
Arranged alphabetically, the citations contain a variety
of biographical and statistical information. This
valuable compilation also provides illustrations, team
histories, an appendix on players, plus an exhaustive
bibliography detailing books, periodicals, booklets, and
newpaper articles. Public libraries should purchase
where demand warrants.—L.R. Little,
Penticton P.L., British Columbia, Library Journal |
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posted 3 March
2009
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