Saturday, July 21, 2007
Barry Bonds
There is a real despair in the spectacle of Barry Bonds coming to bat to the sounds of loud booing. Bonds is at the convergence of issues larger than baseball and so what should be a moment of triumph becomes a sad journey's end. The public's mindless demand for false sports heroes (Charles Barkley: “I am not a role model”), an athlete's desire to satisfy that demand in any way possible (narcissism and unethical ambition), the lusting after records (numbers rather than values), the feeling among athletes that to keep up they have to “do what everyone else does” (conformist, situational morality, making excuses), the focus on a single individual when there is a larger problem (public shallowness and mob mind)…it keeps going.
Bonds is not the only one to have (allegedly) taken performance enhancing drugs (Mark McGuire looked like Bluto as he made his run for the home run record); but Bonds is about to break a sanctified record and the public expresses its ambivalence by rejection — they don't want to think about it — it is just easier to target Bonds. The perfect storm of discord is completed by Bonds' own contribution: his surly personality, which makes people just loathe him. How this privileged, gifted athlete got the idea that his nasty demeanor should be accommodated suggests a dissociated, infantile personality. A sad spectacle.