[Marxism] Tim Wise: Home Runs, Heroes and Hypocrisy (Re: Barry Bonds)

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<http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=249&Itemid=33>


Home Runs, Heroes and Hypocrisy:
Performance Enhancement in Black and White

By Tim Wise

Published in Black Agenda Report, June 13, 2007

Within a matter of several weeks, it is a virtual certainty that 
Barry Bonds will become the all-time home run king of Major League 
Baseball. When this moment arrives, survey data suggests that the 
majority of white baseball fans will yell and scream at their 
televisions and curse the Giants' slugger, having concluded, beyond 
any doubt that Bonds used steroids for at least a few seasons in the 
early 2000s, so as to help obtain the record.

Most blacks, on the other hand, either doubt that Bonds used 
steroids, or at least feel as though the allegations haven't been 
proven. So while most of black America cheers Barry on, an awful lot 
of whites are wishing (often quite openly) for the aging star to be 
injured, or for pitchers to deliberately walk him from now till 
retirement, just to deprive him of the honor, even if it would mean 
walking in the winning run in an important game.

As for me, I have no idea whether or not Barry Bonds used anabolic 
steroids, knowingly or otherwise. Circumstantial evidence suggests he 
did, yet whatever proof exists is apparently too weak to secure an 
indictment for lying to a grand jury about the matter. But having 
concluded that Bonds is guilty, evidence notwithstanding, white 
baseball fans are overwhelmingly demanding that an asterisk be placed 
by Bonds's name in the record books. Yes, he may come to own the 
record, they'll aver, but only because of performance-enhancing 
supplements. As such, he shouldn't be regarded in the same light, or 
spoken of in the same breath as Hank Aaron (the current 
record-holder) or Babe Ruth.

For the time being, let's put aside the issue of whether Bonds is 
guilty of having used steroids. And let's put aside whether or not 
the steroids he's accused of using can really help a batter hit a 
95-mile an hour fastball (possibly thrown by a pitcher who was also 
juiced, given the ubiquity of steroids in the game in the 90s and 
early 2000s, all with the knowledge of team owners). And let's also 
put aside the issue of how many additional home runs Bonds may have 
hit, which he wouldn't have hit anyway, but for the steroids.* While 
all are important matters, there is a more fundamental issue to 
address when it comes to how Bonds is to be viewed in the history 
books. For how can white Americans call for Bonds to have his records 
marred by an asterisk, while continuing to revere the records and 
performances of their white baseball heroes of eras past--folks with 
names like DiMaggio, Williams, Ruth and Cobb--who benefited from a 
much greater "performance enhancement" than that which steroids can 
provide: namely, the racist exclusion of black athletes from the 
major leagues?

Steroids vs. Segregation: Which One Provides More of an Unearned Advantage?

There is no denying that anabolic steroids can enhance athletic 
performance, primarily by allowing athletes to rapidly rebuild 
damaged muscle mass, and recover more quickly from injury. Whether or 
not they can cause batters to hit balls for greater distance is an 
open question, to which no one has provided an answer. Although home 
runs increased across Major League Baseball during the era of 
unregulated steroid use (and have remained high by historical 
standards since the crackdown), there are several factors that could 
have produced that result, even without a single batter being juiced. 
As sports columnist Dave Zirin notes, in his amazing new book, 
Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics and Promise of Sports, 
these alternative explanations include shorter fences in the dozen or 
so new ballparks built during this period; balls that many experts 
believe are being wound more tightly than in the past; better 
training equipment (including computer technology that allows hitters 
to graphically analyze their swings and make corrections quickly), 
and much smaller strike zones. The last of these--imposed on umpires 
by team owners around the same time as the steroid boom--has forced 
pitchers to throw into prime hitting zones, thereby guaranteeing that 
good hitters (and everyone agrees Bonds is one, with or without 
drugs), are going to hit more home runs.

In other words, it is impossible to know whether or not Bonds's home 
run spree in the years from 1999 to 2003 was due to steroid use, or 
whether he may have hit the same number even without them. But we do 
know one thing for certain: from 1887, when blacks were run out of 
white-dominated professional baseball leagues, until 1947, when 
Jackie Robinson first stepped onto a field for the Brooklyn Dodgers, 
every white baseball player for six decades had been protected from 
black competition. And protection from competition is the most 
profound form of artificial performance enhancement imaginable.

It was none other than Joe DiMaggio who said--having once faced Negro 
League great, Satchel Paige in an exhibition game--that Paige was the 
greatest pitcher he'd ever come up against. But of course, in 
DiMaggio's 1941 season, during which he hit in 56 consecutive games 
for the Yankees (still a record), he wouldn't have to face Paige, or 
any other black pitching legends. Though Paige would go on to play in 
the major leagues, it would only be after reaching his 42nd birthday, 
and a full fourteen years after his legendary 31-4 record in 1934, 
during which season he pitched sixty-four consecutive scoreless 
innings and won twenty-one games in a row.

That black players were fully the equals of their white counterparts 
is hard to deny. Throughout several exhibition games, involving each 
league's All-Stars, the two leagues split games roughly fifty-fifty. 
Considering that the Negro League teams had fewer resources to 
develop players, and typically carried smaller rosters (with weaker 
benches), this was no small feat. Had certain players been allowed in 
the majors, there is little doubt but that white record holders, then 
or now, would have faced longer odds when it came to recording their 
feats. Pitchers like Smokey Joe Williams (who shutout the 1915 
National League champion Philadelphia Phillies in an exhibition), or 
Paige (who was able to pitch three shutout innings in the major 
leagues at the age of sixty, in a special 1965 appearance with the 
Kansas City A's), would have wreaked havoc with the bats of white 
players, had they been given the chance.

By the same token, sluggers like Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard and Oscar 
Charleston (who hit .318 with eleven home runs in fifty-three 
exhibitions against white major leaguers, and is considered the 
fourth best player in history by baseball historian Bill James) would 
have easily vied for many of the records set by whites, some of which 
stand to this day. This would have been especially true had they been 
able to play in homer-friendly Yankee stadium, which originally had 
home run fences down the right and left field lines that were less 
than 300 feet from home plate, so as to accommodate the likes of Babe 
Ruth. (As a side note, it's interesting how no one ever suggests 
Ruth's accomplishments should be looked at skeptically because he was 
swinging at fences that I was able to reach routinely at the age of fifteen).

And speedsters like Cool Papa Bell, given the chance, would certainly 
have challenged Ty Cobb's record of stolen bases, long before Lou 
Brock ultimately obliterated it in 1978 (since eclipsed by Rickey 
Henderson). Not to mention, had players like Monte Irvin, Larry Doby, 
Roy Campanella or Don Newcombe--who ultimately played major league 
ball but got their start in the Negro Leagues--been able to start 
their big league careers earlier, who knows what records they might have set?

One thing is certain: all of the records set by white players prior 
to 1947 are tainted. Any time that someone is protected from 
competition (be that someone an athlete or a corporation), the one 
who is protected gets to shine, without having to prove themselves 
against the full range of possible talent. Barry Bonds, on the other 
hand, even if juiced by steroids, had to compete against the best 
(many of whom were no doubt also using such medicinal enhancements), 
and as such, enjoyed far less of a relative boost in his career than 
white players did for nearly half of the twentieth century.**

full:
<http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=249&Itemid=33>
<http://www.lipmagazine.org/~timwise/BarryBonds.html>


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