Notes from the Shadows of Cooperstown
Observations From Outside the Lines |
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374
NOTES FROM THE SHADOWS OF COOPERSTOWN
Observations from Outside the Lines
By Two Finger Carney (carneya6@adelphia.net)
#375 JUNE 17, 2006
COMING EVENTS:
Tuesday, June 20, 6:10 PM Eastern, KZNE AM radio with Louie Belina
SABR National Convention, Seattle, June 29 - July 2
Saturday, July 1, 2 PM: Book Signing, Elliott Bay Book Co. (Seattle)
Wednesday, July 26, 7 PM, Cincinnati Reds HOF & Museum
Sunday, July 30, 6 PM: SABR Regional Meeting, Cooperstown
ARE FANS NUMEROLOGISTS?
Of course we are. So when I started to write Notes #373, I at once thought of the win totals for Pete Alexander and Matty. 375 brings to mind Joe Jackson's batting average against a very tough Reds' pitching staff in October of 1919. Many Jackson supporters like to point out that number as proof that he was playing to win. But he could have batted .875, and the number would not prove a thing to those who "know" he was playing to lose.
Personally, I think Jackson was playing to win, but I also doubt that we will ever know for certain. His intentions were just as invisible in 1919 as they are today. His words will never convince those who believe him to be guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors that October. His image has been seared into history by a story, probably apocryphal, in which he was selected as the bearer of the worst news a little boy, representing all Americans who believed baseball was a clean sport, could imagine. Of course we killed the messenger.
I tried hard in Burying the Black Sox to let readers make up their own minds about Jackson. That was not an easy task. I'm not sure how well I succeeded. So far, Bud Selig has not called a special commission together, to look into the issue of Jackson's eligibility for Cooperstown, based on my book. But I would not be surprised if someday, someone reads Burying with that issue in mind, and then gives Bud a call.
Another book came out the past spring, putting into the spotlight a different left fielder with Cooperstown credentials. Barry Bonds has been ambushed by leaked grand jury testimony, just like Jackson. Game of Shadows, by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams (I will refer to them hereafter as MFW/LW to save space) has made a lot of money for Gotham Books, and has prompted Selig to start up an investigation. I recently read Shadows, and this is my review.
It has been going on fifteen years since I first publicly offered Barry Bonds some words of consolation. "Bonds' Fall From Grace Not Unique" appeared in USA Today's Baseball Weekly in the December 20, 1991 - Jan 2, 1992 issue, page 21. In case you were not following baseball closely in those days, the Pittsburgh Pirates had repeated as champions of the NL East Division, but lost a second Playoff series. (They would win again in 1992, and be shut out of the World Series a third time, thanks to a last-ditch ninth inning Game 7 rally by the Atlanta Braves, when the sluggish Sid Bream hobbled home ahead of Barry's Bonds' off-line peg.)
That Bonds' fall from grace was not unique was easy to demonstrate. I simply recalled the playoff "power outages" of Willie Stargell, Dave Parker, and even of Mr October, Reggie Jackson, who is lifetime .227 in playoff games (by which I mean the post-season games leading up to the World Series). And I suggested that Bonds could redeem himself and make everyone forget about his woes in Octobers 1990 and 1991 (0 HR, 1 RBI) -- What is best remembered is not the worst performances, but the quality of the career.
Since then, the career of Barry Bonds can be summed up in a single word: Ruthian. They might as well name the MVP award after him. By almost any formula you use, Bonds has turned in some of the best seasons ever. Ever. I don't think I need to recall the numbers here. Trust me, they are Ruthian.
But a funny thing happened to Barry Bonds on the way to Cooperstown. And that is the subject of MFW/LW's Game of Shadows. His triumphs on the field are mentioned, too, but they are present as suspicious seasons, like Joe Jackson's .375. Amazing, incredible, dazzling -- but.
Because I know how hard it is to present things in a book, in a truly "fair and balanced" way (I hate the phrase, but it fits best), I was looking for that effort in Game of Shadows. I didn't find it.
Let me say a couple things about the book, before getting into things a little deeper.
First, I was bothered by a little thing, and it probably is not even the fault of MFW/LW, but their copy editor. The posessive for Barry's last name, as well as others (like Marion Jones), is consistenly Bonds's (or Jones's). I don't know exactly why this tiny detail bugged me so much.
Second, I was really bothered that so much of the case this book makes rests on leaked grand jury testimony. And I think I know precisely why:
* What the press reported (that Jackson played to lose) about what Joe Jackson told the 1920 grand jury is not found in the transcripts we have. What he did say (that he played the Series to win) was not leaked. Nowhere. When Jackson protested, it was lightly reported, along with statements from Judge MacDonald that Jackson was lying. But he wasn't.
* When the grand jury testimony from 1920 went missing, then turned up for sale (to a NY City newspaper), those in possession of the stolen material were immediately considered crooks. And how dare they try to profit from such a public crime? Apparently Dylan was right, the times, they have a'changed.
* What nagged at me throughout the book was the question, who in hell is going to want to testify before a grand jury, if these guys can do this? I need to abide by strict rules of confidentiality in my day job. I'm not a big fan of what HIPAA has required in many professions, including medicine, but I sure do like my health history being private property. People generally talk to a grand jury with immunity (Joe was politely asked to sign his away), but without lawyers (Barry has a few). Everything is structured so they can be open and honest and teach the grand jury about what they are probing. If what they say today will surely be front-page news tomorrow, they will not likely be open and honest. The grand jury system will have been severely damaged.
By the way, for more on the comparison of Jackson & Bonds, see an article of mine, Is History Repeating? in the archives of The Chicago Sports Review, http://www.chicagosportsreview.com/redesign/inprint/contentview.asp?c=179116
Thirdly, much of the damning information about Bonds comes from a scorned girlfriend. Revenge can affect objectivity, don't you think?
I am not trying to whitewash Barry Bonds. Actually, if you read it a certain way, this book helps Barry, because:
* He was doing what many others were doing. How many? Don't ask, if you really don't want to know. Nobody knows. But to focus on Bonds as if he was uniquely guilty, is clearly (no pun intended) unfair. (Readers get on familiar terms with The Cream and the Clear in this book.)
* Baseball is not uniquely guilty, either. The authors document as much performance-enhancing substance use (or abuse) in track & field, and football gets a couple hits, too.
* He was doing nothing that his team and probably MLB did not know about, and at least tacitly approve of, if not encourage. MLB applauded too hard when the McGwire-Sosa HR parade brought fans back to the sport they had left in the era of the Selig Strike (1994-95; Selig could have stopped it).
So bash Barry all you want, but then please go on to bash everyone else who did what he did. Bash baseball, then find a sport that tests frequently with state-of-the-art precision to keep itself clean. Bash the players, but only if they broke some rules established by their trainers, managers, and the league officials.
What about steroids? When we learned Mark McGwire was taking andro, we were not shocked; it helped explain why this guy, who nearly hit 50 HRs as a rookie, was not spending as much time on the DL, he was finally over the chronic back problems. We saw other players "bulking up" and we saw guys who used to smack 10-20 HRs a season, clout 40 or 50. We were told that they players were into weight-lifting and upper-body-strength exercises. Who cared if they also took stuff that enabled them to work out more often, or made them more muscular? Sure, we worried that these muscle-bound Popeyes would be more prone to injuries. But no one cared what was in the Spinach can.
Turns out, what was in the can for many athletes was steroids. Or human growth hormone. Or insulin. Or Lord knows what else. Ballplayers have always been experimentalists, with a lot of them superstitious as well. Hey, I'm not changing underwear till this hit streak ends. Chicken before every game. Don't talk to me on the day I'm pitching. Let me try your bat -- it's hot. Let me try your brand of chewing tobacco, you're hitting .330. Let me soak my arm in pickle brine after a hard throw, it'll come back faster.
For years, ballplayers could inject or ingest just about anything they could find, and no one cared. There were no rules against it, except the rules of common sense -- and that is not as common as ... well, as commonly thought. Nolan Ryan hawked Advil, and no one complained, because we could all go out and buy it at our local pharmacy. It helped that the FDA approved this drug, but Americans buy a lot of stuff they do not approve. And some of the stuff they do approve, turns out to be not so healthy for us.
Then there's Viagra. A performance-enhancing drug. Restricted, but legal, and if we learned that it also helped ballplayers hit home runs, would we ban it for them? The fact is, Americans love performance-enhancers, and you can find ads in the newspapers of long ago to prove it's no new fad.
OK, partly personal note. Since bypass surgery in 1992, I have been asked by my doctors to take more pills per day than I want to. If I had my way, I'd take none. My blood pressure and cholesterol are just fine, but I cannot get a doctor to take me OFF the pills that probably help control both. OK, here's my point. Am I cheating (death) by taking this stuff? I hope so. Do I know what all six or seven pills do? No, not exactly. I read up on them some, and they all have scary potential side-effects. They are all legal, and they are all helping the pharmaceutical guys and my doctors lead very comfortable lives. Not unlike the comfortable lives of Big Tobacco execs, but they can wear white hats in our society, the Tobacco guys wear black.
I do not ask, by the way, if the stuff I take can be detected in blood or urine tests. In Game of Shadows, the adjective "undetectable" is used a lot, as if athletes took this stuff because it was undetectable. That may be an important quality for a substance to have, if you are an Olympic sprinter who is routinely tested, or a ballplayer who might be tested annually. But let's be honest, athletes try it and see if it works for them. If it does, and it's legal, fine. If it's not legal -- well, with their salaries, they should start up campaigns to legalize it. But it's easier finding someone to design stuff that will fly under the current radar.
Enter Victor Conte and BALCO, the Bay Area Lab Co-Op. In Game of Shadows, he comes across like the character in Miss Saigon, whose line of work is selling The American Dream. You get the feeling that he is one terrific con artist, who has literally capitalized by supplying the demand. I have no doubt in my mind that he would have reeled in Babe Ruth in a minute. Hank Aaron, maybe not, I recall Hank as more of a natural -- like Shoeless Joe.
But Babe Ruth! Here's a guy who would likely fail a blood alcohol test every day of the year, and maybe every hour. Yes, even during Prohibition, about which I learned a little, while visiting 1919 so often in recent years. What does Prohibition show us, if not America's ambivalence about what should and should not be regulated? Banning the sale of alcoholic beverages not only forced the beer brewers to convert to soft drinks (or go under), it also made instant millionairres of those who figured out how to supply the demand for gin, whiskey, and whatever else people wanted. Folks like Victor Conte.
Prohibition was a hard pill to swallow when it was phased in, but it was, in the end, a law that was repealed. Reading Game of Shadows, it is not at all clear what laws are in place regarding the dozens of substances mentioned, or exactly when these laws were enacted. We know different countries have different laws, and that's a problem, because athletes from Mexico or the Dominican Republic (for example) might be given drugs that are very legal there -- prescribed by physicians? -- but which will not be allowed to cross our borders. I can't wait for an athlete with cancer to be given a prescription of (medicinal) marijuana. Might not enhance performance, but it just might permit performance. (This is just an example.)
At the end of Game of Shadows I was reminded of an old Peanuts cartoon. Linus has started patting birds on their heads. For this, he earns the scorn of Lucy (of course) and others. But he asks why -- "I like it, the birds like it." And the answer? "Nobody else does it."
But that cannot be said of Barry Bonds.
When Maris chased Ruth in 1961, he was not a popular guy. No one was supposed to exceed The Bambino, and if anyone did, it should be Mantle. As a result of the stress, clumps of Maris' hair fell out. We don't know if Hank Aaron lost any har when he passed the Babe's 714, but he received lots of hate mail, including death threats. McGwire and Sosa, not so much. Bizarre, that two guys should be pushing 70 HRs, the same summer. Shut up and cheer.
Why are Americans shocked to hear that athletes take "greenies" (amphetamines) while it's OK for truckers or night watchmen to take stuff to stay awake and alert?
Why aren't we clamoring for MLB to ban chewing tobacco, proven to be harmful? Something to do with Big Tobacco, maybe?
Somewhere along the way to Page 332 (the end), Game of Shadows started sounding like Fox News. President Bush mentioning steroids in a State of the Union address, McCain and others making political hay, and showing little concern for whose reputations they tarnish in the process. Why are the feds snooping in BALCO's trash, when there are terrorists at large? OK, that's not fair -- but reading this book does not make me want to play fair.
And in the end, MFW/LW picked an easy target. Maris was scorned for chasing Ruth, even though he was a white guy with short hair in Yankee pinstripes. Much of the heat Aaron took was racial hatred. It was easier to celebrate McGwire-Sosa in 1998 because it wasn't a racial thing.
But Barry Bonds is a guy the media loves to hate. Easy target. His language, gestures, attitude, inaccessibility. So much fuel, for free. That he is black makes it easier, too, because baseball is a sport whose fans are mostly white. And Bonds is a non-conformist. We would rather not give him credit for turning himself into a devastating offensive weapon that any fan would kill to have batting cleanup for their team. Joe Jackson was always a hero in Greenville, and Barry will always have fans wherever he plays. But the guy has been controversial since he wore a Pirate uniform. Always will be.
I don't know what else to say. Game of Shadows is not a fun read. I sensed it was also not a fair read, for the reasons stated above. No one gave a voice to the Eight Men Out after Landis banned them in 1921. Jose Canseco has shown that things are different today. It will be hard to control the spin, to keep the focus on the players. But I count on MLB to try.
Coincidence that the BALCO case dropped out of sight when John Ashcroft retired? Will we ever know? Will we ever know if Roger Clemens' hiatus from baseball was coincidentally about the span of a 50-game suspension? Well, we know how the media might have reacted if Bonds tried doing what Roger did. But people get treated differently, according to where they are coming from (Texas is a good place for that these days, except maybe for the Enron guys), or where they are going. MFW-LW seem to want to prevent Barry Bonds from going to Cooperstown, or maybe just from passing 755. And they might succeed, but I hope not.
755 has become a sacred humber, like 714 was for so long. There will be fans who will defend it blindly. We are numerologists, you know.
I'm going to end this with a quote from Leonard Koppett that I used in my book, because it seems to fit.
This characteristic runs through all baseball affairs: a simple story, however inaccurate, is preferred to a complicated explanation, however true. Perhaps it is a general human characteristic. But it certainly applies to baseball.
From the NOTES Archive: From #168, August 25, 1998
I posted the entire issue of 168 in the NOTES Archive, and I recommend it, for a recollection of the McMania of the Summer of 1998, and more. An "interview" with Bud Selig!
http://baseball1.com/carney/index.php?storyid=295
Amid the hurricane of hype swirling these days around McGwire, the Subject, is the suggestion that he's the kind of guy after which parents want their kids to model themselves: a gentle giant, All American, a pro, a hero with "class," and you can attach your own litany of virtues. I was about to comment, well, let's not get too carried away here; after all, he's a man, not a Superman or superhero. The problem we have when we canonize folks in 1998, is that this is taken as a cue to dig up an affair with the batboy or a fling with the team mascot.
And sure enough, the day after #51, a story (or non-story) appears in which McGwire's chemical intake is questioned. Nothing illegal, but given the lack of standards among major sports and the Olympics, anything on anyone's list of no-no's is a story, even sudafed. Because it's McGwire, and McGwire sells. 1998, summer.
Somewhere in this issue, I wanted to compare Mark to the Incredible Hulk, which was easier when he wore green. Make that Bulk? Or to Popeye, a hero to psychologist Fritz Perls because he simply was what he was. (Why didn't Bluto ever eat spinach?) But in the end, he's not a cartoon character. He's just a man. And I still don't know just how to cheer him.
THANX TO ALL WHO HAVE READ "BURYING THE BLACK SOX" AND SHARED THEIR REACTIONS WITH ME. FEEL FREE TO POST REVIEWS AT AMAZON.COM.