"*"

1. My synthetic warrior? Clearly you've skipped the lede, anonymous.

2. breaking the biggest record in sport is just cause for pausing a game between the gyros and the nats. they paused it in '74 too.

3. nice job staying on topic

the topic was the commish, commish
you even suck at the internet

You're right that Selig isn't the appropriate individual to be the Commissioner of Baseball. The Commissioner shouldn't be a (former) small market team owner; s/he should be somebody who has nothing at stake in the game but the integrity to maintain an overall balance in the public view of the sport and how the sport is played. That being said, if Bart Giamatti (a Harvard law professor before becoming Commish) didn't keel over, would he have taken a stand against the Andro, and the Cream and Clear, during the much needed good publicity of the sport that those apparent faker homeruns brought it? Then again, Bart Giamatti might not have cancelled the 1994 baseball season due to a labor strike.

Selig isn't a racist. Such an accusation calls into question his much publicized close friendship with Hank Aaron, and by an extension, Hank Aaron's close friendship with Bud Selig. Selig is old and confused, however, into thinking that times don't change, and that records won't fall, and that the modernity of our times will somehow avoid infiltrating the (ideally) pure sport of baseball.

I still have my 2 unused tickets from the end of the 1994 season. Dodger Stadium, reserve level seats, row D, aisle 4. That's four rows up the third level just behind home plate. The cost printed on them? $9 each. It seems that Barry's head and shoe size aren't the only factors in baseball that has increased an abnormal volatile mass since that strike shortened season.

The only color that matters in baseball is green.

I cringe every time someone throws out the race card.

Barry Bonds is a douche bag; Mark McGwire wasn't. It's much easier to support a likeable cheater.

I don't think Selig is racist. I just think he hated Bonds (which still isn't an excuse to miss last night's game).

The Selig=racist argument is a weak one. The Selig=douchebag argument is spot on. Whether Bonds cheated or not will be a matter of debate for the decade or so it takes us to forget about it alltogether. (who but the most extreme "purist" remembers why Maris had an asterisk?) What won't be debated was that history has been made, and the so-called leader of baseball wasn't there to see it. Selig didn't give a damn about the juice when Mr. Fifth Amendment was helping the game recover from its mid-'90s greed injections. He was forced to take an interest in it at all, and now he's shocked--shocked!--that anyone might have been juicing. (I won't say "cheating," because cheating implies somebody broke a rule, and there weren't any rules against it.)

I say, good job Barry. I hope you're as classy as Hammerin' Hank when A-Rod catches you in a decade or so.

I don't see the racism, I see the steroids! Here's a good take on it all: http://www.suntimes.com/sports/mariotti/501533,mariotti080707.article

You're always treading on dangerous ground whenever you assert racism, especially when the parties involved have flawed characters themselves.

I don't follow baseball enough to challenge Tony's facts, but I do remember the Sosa/McGwire home run chase and it appeared to me -- a casual fan -- that when McGwire was accused of using questionable supplements (creatine?), he skated, but when Sosa was accused of using a tampered bat, he was crucified.

I don't like Barry Bonds, but I understand why he has such a huge chip on his shoulder: it's the siege mentality that many Black men feel when under the scrutiny of the establishment ("The Man").

It doesn't matter whether or not Bonds is justified in feeling like he is under siege: social dynamics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociodynamic) play a part in all of this and unfortunately, we are all culpable.

I think Bonds probably did cheat with steroids or something. I mean, just look at pictures of him from 10 years ago vs. pictures of him today.

But, if Tony's correct and other white players probably cheated and used steroids (McGwire, Clemens), then it does make you question why the commisioner was MIA at last night's game.

At the time of Mark McG (Sammy Sosa & Bonds as well), steroid use was not out in the open. Also, Mark McG was not breaking Hank A's record at the time. There is much more scrutiny attached to breaking an all-time home run record. As a fan, I put Mark McG, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, etc in the same shame place. Most fans have the same neg attitude towards Mark McG as Barry Bonds. It has nothing to do with race! Selig did nothing to address the steroid issues over the years and now it has blown up in his face.

"McGwire in 1998 was held in just as much suspicion for juicing up as Bonds is today"

That's flat-out false.

So from what I gather from the consensus of these comments is - it's perfectly ok to call Barry Bonds a cheater and a steroid user and a fraud even though there's no provable evidence (only questionable behavior), and baseball has never accused him of any of it

But it's not ok to call Bud Selig a racist even though there's no provable evidence (only questionable behavior), and Jesse Jackson hasn't yet accused him of it?

Seems to me to be a double standard here.

And by the way, I worked for the Giants in '97. McGwire was with the A's at the time and he hit a ball in batting practice further than any baseball I've ever seen. It went over the scoreboard at the old Stick, about 575 feet.

Everyone who was there laughed and said Steroids.

So qwerty, i dont know where you were in 97-98, but i was at Candlestick Park almost every day and people were saying it about Bonds and people were saying it about McGwire. The fact that they weren't saying it around you isn't my fault.

LAist is right. That racist Selig should listen more closely to blogs like this. LAist is clearly very comfortable and sophisticated when it comes to issues of race. Look to their recent profile on Watts for a great example.

Jesus Tony, do you ever read through your comments before you post them?

Here is your idiotic sentence once more:

"McGwire in 1998 was held in just as much suspicion for juicing up as Bonds is today"

Now, let me see if I've got this right. Bonds today is headline news. I'm not talking about the sports page, I'm talking about the front page. Everybody in the country has an opinion, and the majority of Americans polled suspect that he cheated. He is under constant investigation, and whenever a journalist speaks to him, the issue of steroids is either touched upon or implied. You rebuttal was that, in 1997, some coworkers of yours at Candlestick thought that McGuire cheated. So somehow, in your mind, a bunch of baseball insiders gossiping about McGuire's steroid use is equal in magnitude to the entire world suspecting Barry cheated. Sorry bro, that's retarded.

And as for Selig being a racist...Well, lets just say that his friendship with Hank Aaron is well documented. Maybe he just doesn't like cheaters.