First, a "goodly portion of the San Diego crowd" were SF fans.

robinred - I'm not sure how it looked on TV, but there actually weren't that many Giants fans at the game from my vantage point in left field seat by the WMB. There were definitely three times as many Red Sox and Cubs fans when they visited earlier in the year, so much so that the stands were awash in red or Cubbie blue and they appeared to outnumber Padre fans, and I was actually really surprised that more Giants fans didn't make it to the game considering how many usually turn out when SF is in town (who knows, maybe they were there, just not wearing the orange and black). Most of the people cheering for the home run, and applauding Bonds later, were definitely Padres fans, decked out in retro brown and gold, wearing the blue and orange hat, etc.

robinred - I'm not sure how it looked on TV, but there actually weren't that many Giants fans at the game from my vantage point in left field seat by the WMB. There were definitely three times as many Red Sox and Cubs fans when they visited earlier in the year, so much so that the stands were awash in red or Cubbie blue and they appeared to outnumber Padre fans, and I was actually really surprised that more Giants fans didn't make it to the game considering how many usually turn out when SF is in town (who knows, maybe they were there, just not wearing the orange and black). Most of the people cheering for the home run, and applauding Bonds later, were definitely Padres fans, decked out in retro brown and gold, wearing the blue and orange hat, etc.

You may be right. I didn't see it on TV--I am going on the word of a guy who was there. He is a good dude, but has some Bonds animus, so may have seen what he wanted to see. I am glad the fans in LF were apparently cool to you and about it, BTW. I am also glad the Pads won the damn game. And I avoid Cubs games now for the reason you mention.

Indeed he was:


In April 2005, Hensley was one of four Padres farmhands who were suspended for 15 games for using performance-enhancing substances, either steroids or steroid precursors.


Would have been an interesting angle to play up during the broadcast, no?

Amazingly, Leitner apparently neglected to mention this. I was kinda hoping Hensley would be the one for this reason. I am going to ask some fans on Monday about it; see if they know. If Bonds retires without a positive for steroids, this will be a nice trivia question.

I haven't seen Kevin in this thread, so I can only assume that he tore himself in two in a fit of rage, like Rumplestiltskin.

I'm sure some famous scientist said something like 'by observing, we influence what we observe.'

Hawthorne effect and I don't think that has much relevance here although it would be cool if we could affect Barry in some way. In any case, the contrasting accounts are pretty interesting even when controlling for fan location (at the park or watching on the tube). I know some criminologists argue that eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable. I knew a professor who used to stage a theft in class. A "robber" would bolt into class, take a purse and then run out of the classroom. Sort of like the crowd descriptions here, the descriptions of the robber would vary enormously. In other words, there is no there there.

hey, maybe the asterisks were for hensley - the dirty cheat!!!

Link didn't work.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Brian Johnson said it's "hard to dispute" that former teammate Barry Bonds cheated by using performance-enhancing drugs.

Johnson, appearing Sunday on ESPN's "Outside the Lines," recounted what he told the staff of baseball steroids investigator George Mitchell. Johnson, a catcher with Bonds' San Francisco Giants in 1997 and 1998, also was asked by ESPN about Bonds, who tied Hank Aaron's career home run record on Saturday night.

"You can make a fair argument that he may have been cheating," Johnson said. "Based on what has been documented, it's hard to dispute that argument."

Johnson played with six major league teams from 1994-01 and said he spoke with the Mitchell investigators about his knowledge of steroids use.

"It was kind of a cloak-and-dagger society. Guys that were taking knew of each other and talked about things among themselves," Johnson said. "What I saw was that guys who were taking would never admit it, would never allow anybody to see. But it was pretty obvious to all of us that they were taking. ... Some people sold their soul to the devil and other people didn't."

Johnson hopes the investigation does more than document users.

"We need to do more than just find out who did it, crucify them, sweep them aside, and move forward," he said. "We need to do more than that."

Wow. Wonder what "more" is.

Wow. Wonder what "more" is.

Give them a very dirty look.

"hard to dispute"

really? and WHAT documentation? that piece of crap by the san fran reporters??? johnson obviously has got exactly NONE.

and MLB is going to do WHAT to all the guys who used BEFORE it was against the rules?

after they finish documenting ALL the users, THEN what?

or is it more of no one cares about anyone but barry lamar Himself

or is it more of no one cares about anyone but barry lamar Himself

Andy and I and a couple of others had a long discussion about this on the recent Feller/Bonds/HoFers thread.

Thanks for the account, robinred.

I gotta admit, I jumped a good foot, fists pumped high, the minute I heard the news.
Some dude next to me made a spiteful comment, and I just turned stared him down for a good 20 seconds, straight in the eyes. I sensed fear in him, so I walked away clapping .. "loud and proud."

All while performing fellatio? Wow -- that puts walking & chewing gum at the same time in the shade.

Really, gef, tell us how you feel about Bonds breaking the record?

Wow. Wonder what "more" is.

Notice that he said nothing about anyone's children being taken away.

I watched on the San Francisco feed and I didn't hear any booing. Whenever they showed the crowd, everyone was cheering and clapping. When he walked out to left field after the half-inning ended, all I heard was cheering -- although the SF announcers did say there was some booing, so maybe it just didn't come through on the audio as well.

I was at the game. Barry was booed loudly when he was announced, when he took his position in the 1st, when he came out on deck in the 2nd, and then when he came to the plate (though there were cheers mixed in each time).

After hitting the HR, there was mostly cheering, but there was definitely still a large amount of booing, mostly drowned out by the cheers. When he took his position in the 2nd, he was cheered pretty heavily.

Then for the rest of the game, he was booed at each plate appearance, with a lot of the usual heckling from the crowd (chants of "Barry Balco", etc.). When he came out for the PR, he was cheered one last time.

It seemed that the crowd behind the Giants' dugout was most supportive of Barry. I don't know if there was a large contingent of Giants fans there, or if there was just a lot of energy there for being in the middle of it all.

it was complete pandemonium out there when he hit the home run, people jumping up and down screaming excitedly, yelling "we just saw history" with huge smiles on their faces, etc., etc. We missed basically the rest of the inning, and most of the next because people were standing and talking about how much of the home run, trot and post-touching-home celebration they saw, taking and making phone calls, snapping pictures of Barry in left with their cell phones, etc. Every single at bat Barry had (and this had been true the night before), was accompanied by as many flashbulbs going off as I had ever seen at a baseball game (including the WBC, Barry's chase for the single season record, etc.). People booed while laughing, took a picture while he was batting and then cheered like crazy when he hit the home run (at least, the people around me and from what I could gauge around the stadium from my seats).

Yeah, that's pretty much what it was like where I was in the upper deck behind 1B. Despite most people there disliking Barry, there was an appreciation that we were present for a historic occasion.

BTW, the flashbulbs might've been the coolest part of the night. It was really incredible to see. After the first pitch or two, rather than try to capture his swing with a picture, I just captured the whole experience using video.

I was at the game. Barry was booed loudly when he was announced, when he took his position in the 1st, when he came out on deck in the 2nd, and then when he came to the plate (though there were cheers mixed in each time).

After hitting the HR, there was mostly cheering, but there was definitely still a large amount of booing, mostly drowned out by the cheers. When he took his position in the 2nd, he was cheered pretty heavily.

Then for the rest of the game, he was booed at each plate appearance, with a lot of the usual heckling from the crowd (chants of "Barry Balco", etc.). When he came out for the PR, he was cheered one last time.

This is similar to how the guy I know who was there described it.

robin,

it is like i said - fact is the "crime" barry supposedly committted is the EXACT same crime that ryan franklin actually DID committ. it doesn't matter if barry is great and franklin is whatever... same. exact. thing.

fact is that i disbelieve for one second that 99% of all this crap is about any supposed steroid using. it is all about barry lamar Himself.

like i said a long time ago, if i take a gun and shoot down 2 people in the street, it's 2 cases of murder. it isn't more/less than murder if it turns out that one of the people was mother teresa and the other was a serial baby raper. SAME EXACT CRIME

and i for one gotta give barry props for handling all the stuff like he done this year. i don't bet that even saint murphy would hold up under all that pressure and the kabillions of media all over him. and the media haven't gotten barry to say so much as ONE bad thing.

and barry don't look real too "estranged from his kids" like pearlman sez...

robin,

it is like i said - fact is the "crime" barry supposedly committted is the EXACT same crime that ryan franklin actually DID committ. it doesn't matter if barry is great and franklin is whatever... same. exact. thing.

fact is that i disbelieve for one second that 99% of all this crap is about any supposed steroid using. it is all about barry lamar Himself.

like i said a long time ago, if i take a gun and shoot down 2 people in the street, it's 2 cases of murder. it isn't more/less than murder if it turns out that one of the people was mother teresa and the other was a serial baby raper. SAME EXACT CRIME

and i for one gotta give barry props for handling all the stuff like he done this year. i don't bet that even saint murphy would hold up under all that pressure and the kabillions of media all over him. and the media haven't gotten barry to say so much as ONE bad thing.

and barry don't look real too "estranged from his kids" like pearlman sez...

Hey, don't tell me--I was into this with Andy, JC and Joey--and I am in many ways (not all, but many) in agreement with you. Only talk to me like that if you are going to put on the black boots.

robin, it has taken me years to earn the black boots treatment. Get in line.

robin, it has taken me years to earn the black boots treatment. Get in line.

I hope my GF gets back soon. I am getting excited now. Meantime, I'll take a number and it is not surprising an Indians fan is a masochist.

"It was kind of a cloak-and-dagger society. Guys that were taking knew of each other and talked about things among themselves," Johnson said. "What I saw was that guys who were taking would never admit it, would never allow anybody to see. But it was pretty obvious to all of us that they were taking. ... Some people sold their soul to the devil and other people didn't."

In short, Johnson admits that Bonds didn't tell him, and that he didn't see Bonds use; his entire evidence is "it's pretty obvious."

And Brian Johnson's entire experience as a "former teammate" of Bonds was a season and a half in 1997-1998, before anybody claims that Bonds was using.

"It was kind of a cloak-and-dagger society. Guys that were taking knew of each other and talked about things among themselves,"

This is part of why I am skeptical about the "get the info out there to clear the clean players" position, as well as the obvious "proving-a-negative" issue. If Johnson's characterization is accurate, it also complicates the "get-the-info-out-there to nail the dirty guys" approach. I think former users will be very reluctant to finger other former or current users, so, again, people who want this info need to focus on Radomski types who do not have Greg Anderson's types of motivations, whatever those may be.

"What I saw was that guys who were taking would never admit it, would never allow anybody to see. But it was pretty obvious to all of us that they were taking

So if I'm reading this correctly, Johnson knew the guys who were using, which was confirmed by the fact those very guys wouldn't talk about doing it and wouldn't let anyone see them doing it. That's practically a confession.

Thanks for the account, robinred.

I went easy on him. When I found out Hensley was the SP, I knew it would be asking too much of Leitner to mention Hensley's positive test, so I would say Leitner exceeded my very low expectations. About three minutes after Bonds' jack, in talking about Griffey as the original likely 755 guy, an idea which Bonds agreed with, (according to Leitner) Leitner did say, "Bonds averaged 38 HR a year, and then hit 73. I think we all know the rest of that story." It would have taken him ten seconds to also say, "We should note here that Clay Hensley tested positive for steroids in the minors, whereas Barry Bonds has never had a positive test for steroids that we know of" but of course Leitner didn't do that. If he did it at any other point during the game, I'd have missed it, since I was at a movie from the 2nd to the 10th. The fact that Hensley gave it up and Leitner said nothing at the key time added another touch of nice irony.

"It was kind of a cloak-and-dagger society. Guys that were taking knew of each other and talked about things among themselves,"
"What I saw was that guys who were taking would never admit it, would never allow anybody to see. But it was pretty obvious to all of us that they were taking
So if I'm reading this correctly, Johnson knew the guys who were using, which was confirmed by the fact those very guys wouldn't talk about doing it and wouldn't let anyone see them doing it. That's practically a confession.

Maybe there's a more plausible explanation for their eerie, unobservable behavior... maybe they were just dipping their unleavened bread into the blood of kidnaped Christian children? Maybe they were planning to blow up JFK Airport and attack Fort Dix? Or perhaps they're all furries?

The mere fact that Bonds never came out and told Brian Johnson that he was not doing steroids is clear proof that he was doing steroids. I mean JUST LOOK AT HOW BIG HIS HEAD GOT!!!!

robin,

it is like i said - fact is the "crime" barry supposedly committted is the EXACT same crime that ryan franklin actually DID committ. it doesn't matter if barry is great and franklin is whatever... same. exact. thing.

fact is that i disbelieve for one second that 99% of all this crap is about any supposed steroid using. it is all about barry lamar Himself.

like i said a long time ago, if i take a gun and shoot down 2 people in the street, it's 2 cases of murder. it isn't more/less than murder if it turns out that one of the people was mother teresa and the other was a serial baby raper. SAME EXACT CRIME

and i for one gotta give barry props for handling all the stuff like he done this year. i don't bet that even saint murphy would hold up under all that pressure and the kabillions of media all over him. and the media haven't gotten barry to say so much as ONE bad thing.

and barry don't look real too "estranged from his kids" like pearlman sez...

I would admonish anybody for doing steroids, and I would admonish anybody breaking records using steroids.

I don't understand why people are stuck on the idea that anybody that dislikes Barry Bonds has some unfair and disproportionate love affair with lesser players who've been caught using performance enhancers. Such is not the case. I'm a Yankee fan, and I have actively wanted Giambi (and previously) Sheffield off the team for many years.

Here is the rub: This is not a court of law, and the burden of proof that George Mitchell has to provide for somebody like, say, Giambi or Bonds, is not the same burden of proof with which a fan should reasonably have to use to pass their judgment. A fan should be able to use the same tools they use for just about every other aspect of the game, from ground-balls to Alex Rodriguez's infamous 2004 slap: observation and perception.

It would be my contention, through my observation and perception, that Barry Bonds probably took steroids to be better at baseball. Knowingly. I don't have proof of this, but as a fan, and not a prosecuting attorney, proof to me is simply in the observation. With that said, my reaction to Bonds tying and eventually breaking Hank Aaron's record is one of complacency: I don't recognize it, and so I simply won't. I didn't watch #755 live, I haven't see a replay, and I don't want to. Fans of the Giants and Padres attending the game should have done the same thing. Not cheered wildly, not booed wildly. Nothing. If they think that the record is valid, then they should cheer it. But booing something like this is only giving it value that the same people are claiming the home-run doesn't have. If it truly doesn't mean anything, in their minds, why would they be so viciously against it?

That said, it is a rather pithy and trite argument to say that sports fans who boo Barry Bonds are booing him while accepting other steroid users back into the baseball ethos. They are booing to admonish the act, just as many team's fans boo to admonish acts when their team is sucking. It is a short-sighted, visceral and useless reaction, but I tend to agree with their reasons, despite their actions. I have seen fans boo Franklin and Rincon and others. It is just that there are far fewer instances in which these players tend to do anything meaningful with which to be booed. Which is also not their fault.

The mere fact that Bonds never came out and told Brian Johnson that he was not doing steroids is clear proof that he was doing steroids. I mean JUST LOOK AT HOW BIG HIS HEAD GOT!!!!

The mere fact that Bonds never came out and told Brian Johnson that he was not doing steroids is clear proof that he was NOT doing steroids. I mean..... OK, I have no idea what I mean..... I mean JUST LOOK AT HOW BIG HIS HEAD GOT!!!

CiC

i have not ONCE hear boos for any player like, say mota, rincon or franklin. every single pitch they throw is meaningful, but no one stands up and screams STEROIDSSSSSSSS at them

because almost nobody really cares because they are not historically great.

it is like i said about barry - if he used to be alex sanchez and then turned into barry lamar Himself, then i would most certainly agree that it was the roids. but i don't believe that roids really did something incredible to barry lamar. and it is simply wrong to insist that in 1998 barry weighed 190 lbs (looked exactly the same as he did in 1986) and in 1999 weighed 40 something lbs more.

and isn't it interesting how much thinner his face looks this year

but i digress...

fact is i am not into the Record Thing. i don't think it is any bigger deal than the All Time Pinch Hits Record. fact is i am a LOT more impressed with him having the all time runs scored record - something i think is a LOT more important to winning a baseball game. i cheer barry just to be contrary. and because he has managed - old as he is - to deal with the incredible pressure with real - gotta find the word here - grace under pressure.

barry is not perfect. Far from it. he is no saint murphy/saint ripken. not by a long shot. but i got even more respect for the un-beloved, the far from perfect when they manage to deal with what barry has to deal with.

Barry Bonds is the greatest baseball player of all time.

He's going to make us lonesome when he goes.

i cheer barry just to be contrary. and because he has managed - old as he is - to deal with the incredible pressure with real - gotta find the word here - grace under pressure.

barry is not perfect. Far from it. he is no saint murphy/saint ripken. not by a long shot. but i got even more respect for the un-beloved, the far from perfect when they manage to deal with what barry has to deal with.

Damn, BBC, Clarence Darrow himself, or at least Orson Welles, would have had to take a back seat to you.

Hawthorne effect and I don't think that has much relevance here although it would be cool if we could affect Barry in some way. In any case, the contrasting accounts are pretty interesting even when controlling for fan location (at the park or watching on the tube). I know some criminologists argue that eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable. I knew a professor who used to stage a theft in class. A "robber" would bolt into class, take a purse and then run out of the classroom. Sort of like the crowd descriptions here, the descriptions of the robber would vary enormously. In other words, there is no there there.

I think differences in first hand accounts are about equal parts explained by where you were sitting and confirmation bias.

The fact that a journeyman pitcher, previously busted for steroids, gave up homerun 755 to the anti christ, allegedly, is the story of the year.

One of course the media missed again. Have they gotten even one right in this witch hunt yet? Seriously?

I've got them batting a clean .050 overall, with the only roid story they got right so far ..

"A lot of players are on them."

the rest is a swing and a miss.

It's been comparatively underplayed compared to the "I declare I just don't care" and "it sounded an awful lot like booing" coverage, but CNN.com did have the Clay Hensley steroid angle headlined on its front page.

Overall, though, the media's performance has been truly Neifian.

Something I was going to leave to some of the media members in our midst to mention but which hasn't been addressed that in this particular situation it's VERY likely that a writer for a paper had his Bonds article "in the can". Meaning he or she had the bulk of it written with just a few blanks for key facts like the name of the opposing pitcher, the inning, etc. Since it was conventional wisdom that Bonds would be booed that was part of the article. And the writer(s) in question either didn't notice, thought they had it about right or were too lazy to change their copy to adjust to the actual circumstances.

That has happened for a long time. Which is why the media sometimes gets pegged as trying to "shape the story" or some such. What some claim is a media conspiracy is in fact, sloth.

#135

Maybe THAT explains their coverage; they're guilty themselves?

In January 1999, I was sitting at the control board, ready to put a pre-taped story about Joe Dimaggio's death on the air in the small hours of the morning. There was no one around in case it had to be amended/changed at the last minute.

Of course, he didn't die for nearly two months. But some operator at NBC pushed the button that I never pushed; they prematurely declared the man dead, only to get an angry call from Joltin' Joe himself.

That said, it is a rather pithy and trite argument to say that sports fans who boo Barry Bonds are booing him while accepting other steroid users back into the baseball ethos. They are booing to admonish the act, just as many team's fans boo to admonish acts when their team is sucking. It is a short-sighted, visceral and useless reaction, but I tend to agree with their reasons, despite their actions. I have seen fans boo Franklin and Rincon and others. It is just that there are far fewer instances in which these players tend to do anything meaningful with which to be booed. Which is also not their fault.

As I and others have pointed out, Bonds was booed vociferously in many places long before BALCO and was booed loudly in SD even before he became a Giant. So, the idea they are exclusively "booing the act" is demonstrably false, at least in some venues. There is, however, no question that "the act" has--understandably--added immense amounts of vitriol and focused it.

I have seen Rincon, Mota and Franklin play live--no one booed that I heard or saw, but I will take your word for it in terms of what you saw. I am almost certain, however, that the booing was not anywhere near what Bonds gets. As far as the the idea of "doing anything meaningful" Bonds gets booed when he taps out in one-sided games, when he stands in left field doing nothing, and when he walks to the plate. And, as bbc said, on a basic level, every pitch thrown in the regular season is "meaningful" in that it becomes part of the record and in many cases, the race.

I (and I assume bbc) am realistic enough to understand why Bonds gets so much attention and not to expect there to be "equal time" for low-profile users. Bonds is a huge story, with hot buttons to suit every preoccupation and agenda, and that is not going to change. And, IMO, Bonds brings some of it on himself, and that is the price of his fame, wealth, and personality.

But people, both in the media and among the fans, who claim to care so much about steroids might, one would think, want to mention the fringe-player users occasionally, particularly since that population, based on test reeults, appears to be the main post-testing pool of users. Perhaps Hensley's allowing 755 will provide an angle and lead to some articles. When Ryan Franklin, who has tested positive in the past, and is suddenly performing better at age 34, parlayed that performance into a two-year extension earlier this year, no one brought it up but me in a desultory 19-post thread. I saw no internet articles about it nor did I see any columnists mentioning it.

The reaction here to my (and to some extent, bbc, but she is a lot less obnoxious than I am) bringing this up has been negative, and that it is more or less just a joke to even talk about it. While I am convinced that the hardcore steroidhawks here do care about the game as a whole, and are not just about Bonds-bashing and talking smack about HoF-caliber HR hitters associated with PEDs, I would not give America's baseball fans and media in general that same benefit of the doubt, and I do think that the reaction is telling. Ted Leitner's failure to even mention Hensley's history in the immediate aftermath of 755, which I detailed above, encapsulates the issue quite well.

Bonds hit the tying homer off a former Giants draft pick who was suspended in 2005 for violating baseball's minor league steroids policy.

Barry: Where did you learn to use steroids, Clay?

Clay: You! Allright? I learned it by watching you!