The baseball ethicist: Episode 1--The Random Menace...

Well, after having this article (Why Nobody Signed Barry Bonds) passed along to me multiple times (thanks to all that did so), I guess I should offer a comment or two since Mr. Marshall mentioned yours truly by name.

Obviously, I think it was collusion but I’m willing to change my mind if an independent arbitrator looks at the evidence and says that teams didn’t (collude).

I’m not that crazy about Barry Lamar—it is, as I’ve said too many times to mention, not about Bonds for me; it’s about collusion and hypocrisy.

I’ll probably do a rebuttal on THT in the New Year so this post can serves as its genesis. To state the obvious—I disagree but don’t expect a rip job or a snark-fest. He has a good-faith opinion that he has put some thought into and it will be treated as such and not the ill-informed, error-riddled vitriol we read in the media about Bonds that I love to drop the gloves when replying to it.

Marshall also discussed his article on Ball-Hype and I’ll address some of his points made there as well.

Probably my biggest difficulty with what he wrote was the implication that as a symbol, Bonds warranted different treatment than the multitude of steroid abusers received. Lady Justice is pictured as blindfolded for a reason—ideally she treats everyone the same. Further, when you turn people into symbols you dehumanize them and some of history’s greatest atrocities occurred when people became symbols of society’s ills and treated accordingly. In recent history we’ve seen what occurred within the United States regarding African Americans and Germany with Jews (did I just invoke Godwin’s Law?) when people became symbols of a given problem rather than, well…people.

The easiest way to inflict massive injustice on a person is to turn them into a symbol of a given scourge (of society)--after all, it's just a symbol...it's not like it is human being or anything, right? Plus, it serves a greater good does it not?

Not.

For true justice, the blindfold cannot be lifted for a nanosecond to see who is involved. Put another way—even Osama bin Laden deserves a fair trial. It may not be a popular stance or a particularly efficient one but then again, the expedient solution generally leaves a lot more problems in its wake.

Another implication is that the sport needs to move on from the steroid era.

Baseball also needs to move on from the spitball era but guess what?

Sadly, the genie is out of the bottle and to think that the game is now steroid-free (or close to it) is naïve—its use of detectable steroids is down and that’s about it. What Marshall is suggesting is that the game allows the public to think that the steroid era is over; to pretend that the game is now clean and pure when it is clearly not. What Marshall is saying is that Bonds is keeping MLB from creating an illusion it can sell to the public.

I cannot see how converting a man to a symbol so different rules can be applied to him in order to create a false front is somehow of benefit to anyone. Is he advocating that MLB be allowed to move on from a problem it never solved?

Who benefits from such a situation? What does that teach the public about values if that's the big issue?

On Ballhype, Marshall stated:

“A sport ignores its image, built by its stars, at great peril. Do you think the decline of pro boxing was accelerated by having a "champion" like Mike Tyson? At one time, boxing's peak, the heaveyweight champion was supposed to be a national hero and role model. Once that had been obliterated, the public interest in the sport waned.”

Boxing was on the wane long before Tyson—what eroded the sport’s popularity was Pay-Per-View. It used to be you could watch big bouts on free TV and it had a larger audience that created fans. When it took all of its big events out of the public eye it marginalized the sport and the next generation of fans were never cultivated. I used to be a big boxing fan but after a time there was little boxing on the tube and it was hard to follow; toss in the splintering of organizations where several different men could lay claim to a world title (WBA, WBC, IBF, WBO etc.) and it began to be even harder. A sports fan knows that the New York Giants are champions of their sport, as are the Detroit Red Wings, L.A. Lakers and of course the Philadelphia Phillies—the line is clearly defined but in boxing the era of “the champ” is over.

We follow sports and derive a satisfaction of determining the best among them but that beast no longer exists in the pugilistic world.

This is why boxing is where it is and not the fact that Mike Tyson once wore the belt.

Another point from Ballhype:

“Yes, lots of players have cheated, but the vast majority of players have not, and a cheating player who rises to the pinnacle of the sport like Bonds threatens to make cheating the norm rather than the exception.”

I’m not sure what to make of this statement—Bonds didn’t invent cheating; to take this point to its logical conclusion is that it appears Bonds should be made an example of because of his natural talent and work ethic. He should be penalized for being born with natural gifts and the willingness to fully develop (or over-develop if you will) them. Maybe I’m misinformed, but cheating is the norm—it’s just that the bulk of it occurs unnoticed and unremarked upon. At the same time, he has little difficulty with the barons of the sport cheating whether it’s defrauding municipalities of public dollars, the pre-1947 collusion against African Americans, the collusion under Peter Ueberroth, their complicity in the steroid scandal etc.

No sanction for these crimes—not even the flagship franchises' participation in them; is it O.K. for teams that reach the pinnacle of their sport to cheat but not players? Isn’t that a bit of a double standard—the best of management can cheat and participate in the steroid problem but not the player? No sanction for the Yankees for removing every mention of steroids from Jason Giambi’s contract so they could sign the best hitter on the market in order to try and win the World Series and increase revenues but at the same time Bonds deserves to be punished with extreme prejudice?

Marshall seems to be concerned about protecting a sanctity that the sport never had—he’s protecting a myth that doesn’t hold up to critical examination and taking the blindfold off of Lady Justice in order to accomplish that.

I cannot go along with such a stance.

Anyway—that’s a start; I will follow up with more as times goes on. There’s just too much to cover in one post or article.

The latest…

I’ve been negligent of late in posting my SMSN (Chin Music) links:

The 2008 Toronto Boo Jays part 1

(Part 2 should be up in a day or two.)

Great expectations

Best Regards

John