Because He's Black (NYTimes Rhoden on Bonds)

I haven't seen a columnist for a major paper openly take up the race issue in the Bonds trial, in a long time. I wonder why Rhoden does so now. (This might be behind the paywall.)

about 1 year ago shanghaijim 14 comments 2 recs |

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I've never bought this argument

Clemens? A-Rod (ok, not actually white, but in spirit)?

Gigante. Campeón. Andrés Torres.
Dursh nerf darsh narf. Poop.

by GiantPain on Apr 9, 2011 5:14 PM PDT reply actions

Possibly the easiest point in the article to agree with is this one.

People will argue that the perjury trial of Roger Clemens scheduled for July is evidence that Bonds was not being singled out because he was a black star. That’s a topic for another day, but the cases are different.

The government was virtually forced to go after Clemens, who loudly denied allegations of drug use by his former trainer during a Congressional hearing.

by 2X2L on Apr 10, 2011 12:17 PM PDT up reply actions

Well, Bonds has been pursued much differently than the others...

…but by the same token, there are also a number of things that make Bonds’ circumstances different, between him holding the home run record (and home runs being unofficial statistic of steroids), and that Bonds hasn’t admitted to it in one way or another the way most others have.

"The knowledge of the game is inversely proportional to the price of the seat." ---Bill Veeck. •Check out the new look of SFDugout.com•

by BruteSentiment on Apr 9, 2011 7:49 PM PDT reply actions

I don't think it's because he's black

But that’s probably not helping.

Seth Rosin can hit the side of a barn with a baseball. From space.
Giants baseball: We're stupid enough to WIN that (TM)

by quincy0191 on Apr 9, 2011 8:55 PM PDT reply actions

Yeah...

It’s because he is an asshole, but the fact that he is black does not help things.

by Sgt. Dingleberry on Apr 10, 2011 9:55 AM PDT up reply actions

I seem to remember Bill Rhoden playing the race card on other issues before.

Still the father of two-time Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum.
"Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be." - John Wooden

by SFGuy on Apr 9, 2011 11:32 PM PDT reply actions

“In good conscience one could never put Bonds on par with Ali or Robeson and certainly not with the president of the United States.”

I’d put Barry right there with Ali and light years ahead of Robeson and Obama.

Proud father of Barry Bonds.

by Sabertooth on Apr 10, 2011 12:59 AM PDT reply actions

Do not want to start a political discussion here, but negatively comparing Obama to Barry Bonds is ridiculous, no matter your political affiliation.

Buster Posey: Let's enjoy him before he goes to the Yankees because he wants to win the World Series. Wait, what???

by rxmeister on Apr 10, 2011 5:13 AM PDT via mobile up reply actions 1 recs

I put just about any baseball player ahead of just about every politician in terms of moral worth, no matter what their political affiliation.

Proud father of Barry Bonds.

by Sabertooth on Apr 13, 2011 12:44 PM PDT up reply actions

I don't think Rhoden has thought this one through . . .

The first athlete convicted for perjury in BALCO was Tammy Thomas, a white cyclist. The feds have spent so much money going after Bonds because he spent so much money defending himself. Guy had a half-dozen in the courtroom alone, all at $750-$1000 per hour. (Ruby, the lead lawyer, is with a firm based in NYC that is at the top tier of the legal professsion.) Once they decided to take these cases, thanks to Novitsky’s crusade, the feds were not going to lose to the highest profile defendant by being outspent.

by NiceGuysFinishEtc on Apr 10, 2011 5:49 AM PDT reply actions

We'll see...

I think they very well may lose by being outspent. I’m hoping the Feds tell the inside story some day but I’m guessing the real miscalculation, if you can call it that, is that they assumed they would eventually flip Anderson. The kind of loyalty Anderson has shown Barry is exceptional. I have mixed feelings about all this. I think Barry should be acquitted because they haven’t proven the case beyond a reasonable doubt and blacks in our society, even today, are often not given the same full benefit of that strict evidence standard as whites. Racism is not dead. However, if and when he is acquitted it will be nauseating to hear a lot of fans here and elsewhere talk about Barry being “exonerated” as if he was proven innocent instead of not proven guilty.

by NearestNorwich on Apr 10, 2011 12:20 PM PDT up reply actions

There may be reasons to ask

whether the BALCO investigation would have been opened at all if Novitsky hadn’t been jonesing, so to speak, to bring down Bonds. One of the investigators at least, Iran White, has suggested that this is why it all happened. According to that view, everyone else involved, Tammy Thomas included, has merely suffered collateral damage.

Jonathan Littman covered this angle in Playboy years ago. Ben McGrath has an update in a recent issue of The New Yorker.

by 2X2L on Apr 10, 2011 12:29 PM PDT up reply actions

If you've read or heard Rhoden speak

I’m not sure there’s much he’s thought through. He’s basically the Al Sharpton of sports journ-o-lism. No matter what’s happening, he finds a way to interject race in to the conversation. To me he’s like Al Sharpton, in that if people like Rhoden and Sharpton didn’t exist, the US would be much further along in how we view and deal with race.

I'm finally proud of the fact that I went to VCU and fittingly it has nothing to do with academics!
Proud adoptive parent of Brett Bochy, he's my boy now Bruce!

by Giant Torture on Apr 11, 2011 10:40 AM PDT up reply actions

i don't buy the race card, not at all

this has to do with just about everything else but race…the sham it is…
the government should be put on trial for pursuing this farce for 8 years and tens of millions of dollars

Trade Sabean/jk...Overthrow the Ydorks...
I am not a "real" Warriors fan without season tickets-The Lacob Rules
...for the love of Bonds

by Regulus on Apr 10, 2011 7:04 PM PDT reply actions