Episode 5: Hey, Babe. What's happening?

During the past month, I've subjected myself to pay attention to the Bonds hype and his Ruthian chase. Yep, you heard right. I've been brainwashed by ESPN. As much as I hate it, I have to face the facts. It's history in the making. Any San Fran games that'll be on TV, I will try to watch. However, the thing that sickens me about this whole situation are the Bonds sympathizers. They are saying that Bonds is facing what is probably the Curse of the Babe. No, this has nothing to do with the Red Sox. Unfortunately, that curse is broken and a new curse has started where Red Sox fans and Bostonians are more annoying then ever and I'm forced to hear things like "OH THATS MANNY BEING MANNY" or "DAVID OHTIZ IS THE BEST HITTER EVER". No, this is another curse. Anyone who chases Ruth's HR records or milestones face hell for doing so. And if you look back into history, it's pretty on point. The two biggest victims of this "curse" have been Roger Maris and Hank Aaron.

In 1961, The Yankees lineup was nicknamed "Murderer's Row". And with good reason, the lineup was filled with feared hitters like Yogi Berra, Bill Skowron, and Elston Howard. But the two most talked about hitters were batting 3rd and 4th in the lineup that year. Mickey Mantle and the reigning MVP, Roger Maris. By midseason, it was apparent both Mantle and Maris had a shot at Ruth's single season record of 60 HRs. However, there were many baseball traditionalists (also known as Babe Ruth's dickriders) that didn't want to see the record broken by two hicks. "RUTH WAS A LEGEND", they'd say. Many of these traditionalists were just hardcore fans. Also, some of these traditionalists were members and writers of the media. Most of them felt that if the record was to be broken at all, it should be by Mantle, who was considered New York's golden boy. Even though Maris was the reigning MVP, he was the most sleighted superstar of his era. Playing in the shadow of an all time great in the Babe and a Golden Boy in Mantle. He would be cat called and booed by his very own fans in New York during games and he even received death threats. Maris didn't feel safe anywhere. To add insult to injury, the baseball commissioner at the time, Ford Frick, declared that if Ruth's record WAS broken that year, it would have an asterisk. Why? Simply because Ruth set his record in 154 games while Maris and Mantle had the advantage of a 162 game season. Mantle was taken out of the picture in September of that season because of an infection and Maris eventually hit 61 during the last game of the year. Maris went to his grave bitter at all of baseball and rightfully so. He was labeled Public Enemy #1 merely because he was a great player.

That was nothing compared to what Henry Aaron had to go through. Henry Aaron was one of the more underrated players of his era during his prime but his visibility came to an all time high during his chase for Ruth. As you might've guessed, the Ruthian dickriders came out of the woodwork. "He wasn't as good of a hitter as Ruth!" "Ruth spent his first few years as a pitcher. He didn't have as many at bats!" Aaron also received death threats, much like Maris did. However, most of Aaron's letters were racially driven. During the 1973 and '74 seasons, Aaron received about three thousand letters a day. Many of them were much like this one:

"Dear Nigger Henry,
You are (not) going to break this record established by the great Babe Ruth if I can help it. ... Whites are far more superior than jungle bunnies. . My gun is watching your every black move."

and

"Dear Henry Aaron,
How about some sickle cell anemia, Hank?"

The great thing about Hammerin Hank was that he kept every single letter (and he still has them even to this day) and used them as motivation. During the spring of '74, Aaron broke Ruth's record and became a legend. He also became a hero.

Bonds apologists want to paint him the same way. A Hero. Bullshit. All the hate that Bonds receives now is because of his own doing. Barry Bonds has treated fans and media (even though they deserve it) with contempt and disrespect his whole career. If he receives hate because of that, then so be it. He deserves every iota of that hate then. On top of that, there's also this BALCO situation hanging over his head. Alot of what Bonds is doing now and has done for the past 7 years is suspect. Mainly because of his dealings with his trainer, Anderson and Victor Conte, the CEO of BALCO. It has been well documented that Bonds abused steroid during this time. Bonds apologists will say "WELL STEROIDS WEREN'T AGAINST THE RULES AT THE TIME". Well, they WERE against the law. Otherwise, why would there be a federal investigation on BALCO? If it wasn't cheating, why doesn't Bonds come right out and say he used steroids if he didn't do anything wrong? Most of us know that cheating is wrong. However with what they are saying, Bonds' apologists are trying to imply that using steroids, during that time period, was perfectly fine. If it looks like shit and it smells like shit, trust me, it is pretty much shit.

Barry isn't suffering from any curse that Babe Ruth's alcohol saturated corpse could conjure from the grave. Barry Bonds is suffering from himself. And if he or any of his apologists wants to compare himself to Maris or, even worse, Aaron, he should take one look in the mirror and question if he really went through what those two have went through. If what they did was because of their own doing?

So in closing.....Barry Bonds is a bitch.