Write On Sports LLC - "Watching (and hating) Barry Bonds" by Jake Lloyd

Watching (and hating) Barry Bonds

2007-07-06 19:30:06 | By: Jake Lloyd

A few questions to consider:

Have you ever enjoyed watching a movie despite despising the main actor/actress?

Have you ever laughed uncontrollably at a comedian's jokes despite detesting the man or woman's morals?

Have you ever made sure to watch a political journalist's partisan show despite disagreeing with every word they speak?

I bet most of you would respond "yes" to one of the above questions, which may help to explain why Barry Bonds was voted into the All-Star Game by the fans despite the smothering of boos he receives whenever he plays away from San Francisco.

Simply put, millions of baseball fans may hate, abhor, detest Bonds, but that doesn't mean they'd rather watch Alfonso Soriano start in the outfield come Tuesday night.

It's easy (yet completely unrealistic) to come to the conclusion that Bonds got the majority of his 2,325,391 votes from fans in the Bay Area. C'mon, people. I've never been there, but I've heard that the Bay Area is an absolutely gorgeous, cosmopolitan part of the country. People there don't spend their afternoons clicking for Bonds — then clicking again.

Rather, I'm sure Bonds received plenty of votes from baseball fans in cities where he's booed when he plays. Sure, the fans can't stand his enlarged head and his unruly attitude, but is their greater drama during the summer than seeing Bonds at the plate? I think not.

And the fans shouldn't feel bad about this, either. It's perfectly all right to love watching a hated figure. I despise the Yankees more than rotten tomatoes and hope they never win another World Series, but I still root for them to make the playoffs because their presence during October makes the action that much more exciting.

Think about it — would baseball fans in, say, Atlanta even know there is a baseball team in San Francisco if not for Bonds? The Giants are terrible. Even if Bonds wasn't selected to start the All-Star Game, he would have likely been picked as the team's representative because no one else is having a good season. Barry Zito, who signed an enormous contract to become a Giant, is 6-8 with a 4.65 ERA. And there are guys performing even worse than him.

Bonds had to be an All-Star. And no one — except a few bitter columnists — is picking their hair out over his selection.

After reading "The Game of Shadows," I'm more than convinced Bonds used steroids during his best home-run-hitting years. There's no doubt that he wouldn't be closing in on Hank Aaron's holistic record of 755 HRs if not for drugs by the names of EPO, HGH, the Clear and the Cream. He's a cheat. He's a bad person. He has an ego larger in circumference than his dome.

Yet those unsettling facts didn't keep me from purchasing a ticket for the Giants' July 21 game in Milwaukee, and they certainly haven't held me back from hoping that Bonds will be on the brink of history on that Saturday night inside Miller Park.

I want to witness history, even if I'm not happy that a certain player is making it.

And if I somehow emerge from a scrum with No. 756, then I can take out my anger toward Bonds for his part in dirtying the beautiful game of baseball that I adored as a kid.

I won't sell him the ball. I won't sell Cooperstown the ball.

Instead, I'll sell it for a fortune on ebay, and not regret it for a second.

Just like I'll watch hundreds of Keanu Reeves movies, but never ask him for his autograph.