BONDS TAKES A LOT OF HEAT

Before we continue, let me say this: I am in NO way, shape or form a Barry Bonds fan. I think he's bad for the sport, and his demeanor and attitude drive me crazy. I hope he goes 0-189 from this point and then retires. BUT in his defense....

Bonds plays baseball in a very interesting time period. He is performing in a time when the media can say whatever it wants, whenever it wants and hardly ever faces consequences for false or erroneous reporting. We, as baseball fans, know everything about every player in the game. We know about players personal lives, if they're womanizers or abuse their children. We can open up any sports page across America and read about professional athletes and all the stupid decisions they make: drugs they try to smuggle in and out of airports, speed limits they ignore, driving under the influence and if they're bad family men.

In 1920 that was not the case. Reporters and players were friends. If a reporter wrote something controversial or something the team didn't want printed, they were outcast. Chicago Bears owner/coach and co-founder of the NFL George Halas sent many reporters to different beats when he didn't like what they wrote. That was the norm. Reporters followed players to training camp and stayed with them throughout the year. They traveled with the team, spent many hours in the clubhouse and were seen socially with the players. If a reporter printed a story about a crazy night of a player he was covering, that player would simply shut the reporter out.

The relationship was very different between professional athlete and reporter back then than it is today. Had Joe DiMaggio, Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb played today, they would be seen very differently than they are in a historical concept. DiMaggio was in contract disputes nearly every off-season with the Yankees. Ruth spent countless hours on the road away from the team hotel doing whatever it was Ruth did. You can speculate on the specifics. Cobb was a ruthless, vicious competitor who found a way around rules and constantly lashed out in violent episodes on and off the field. Yet we remember these players and other players from the past with fondness and selectivity. With the much more limited coverage of yesteryear, history remembers what history wants to remember.

So, in Barry Bonds defense, he's in the wrong place at the wrong time to break the Babe's record. Ruth is remembered as a hero, and I'm not saying he shouldn't be, but Bonds will always be remembered for his attitude, steroids and cold relationship with the media. I'm not a Bonds fan, but I think many of us need to reconsider how we feel about him and his chase for history. Only time will really tell how history will remember him. The next few weeks will play a large role in the story. Soak it in. Sports fans will remember this time (good or bad) for the rest of their lives.