Barry Bonds, Little Old Women, and Astericks

I can’t believe I’m even thinking about approaching this subject…it’s one of those subjects that everyone has an opinion about.  Not just any opinions, either - STRONG opinions.  Add to that the fact that my opinion is incredibly unpopular.  That’s the recipe for disaster.  It’ll do little more than invite mean, snippy little “Are you out of your mind?” e-mails. 

True story:  After an innocent-enough little post about being a fan of Pamela Anderson, I got a furiously angry e-mail from someone so furious she couldn’t even type.  After calling me a crazy botch, she asked if I was out of my minds.  I told her I only had one and that, as far as I knew, I wasn’t out of it.  I signed it Soncerely, Crazy Botch and never heard from her again.

If Pamela got me called misspelled names, what - pray tell - will Barry earn me?  You guessed it, Barry as in Bonds - Mr. Controversy, himself.

First of all, I have absolutely no respect for people who lie.  I probably hate lying as much as I do anything - lying, racism, hate crimes, child abuse - I wish they’d all stayed in hell where they belong.  The fact that a select group of athletes aren’t being 100 percent honest and open causes me to lose respect for them as people.  But I’m not in the market for any sort of stones - especially not the kind to be thrown.

The chances are very good that Barry Bonds took something he doesn’t want everyone to know about.  Everything points in that direction.  And the point that so many other athletes have done the same thing doesn’t make it okay.  However, I’m on the side that says he should have been allowed to keep playing, and I’m on the side that says he deserves the title.  In an ever-dwindling group, I’m even with the ones who think an asterick is ridiculous.  (when I say ever-dwindling, I mean there are three of us……and number two is on the fence) 

I think of it kind of in these terms:  Let’s say John Doe cheated on a lot of final exams in college but was never caught.  Then he went on to make the Dean’s List and graduate with honors.   I don’t think he should be penalized at a later date. 

The school should have watched him more closely then, not now….after the fact. He did what most people with little character do, he got away with what he could get away with.

People do things they shouldn’t do on a regular basis.  What about President Clinton?  He told some whoppers - lies so big they’ve become part of history.  Never inhaled…he didn’t have sexual relations…  He was also elected President of the United States.  Was he the only president to ever lie…give me a break!  Unfortunately (or fortunately?) he just wasn’t very good at it.  He might be worse at lying than anyone I’ve ever seen.

Paris, Britney, Kobe, Mel, Lindsay, Nicole….  They all get away with what they can get away with.  Possibly my favorite female singer of all time, Whitney Houston, has been a pretty bad girl - but if she ever puts out another cd, I’ll run/not walk to buy two copies:  One for my vehicle and one for the house.  I won’t brand them with an asterick, either.  She’s human, like the rest of us. We humans make mistakes - heck, we pile them on top of one another.  All the people named in this post just have the misfortune of having their piles, so to speak, aired in public.

The point is, there are no perfect people - and, sadly, there aren’t very many who even come close. 

I congratulate Barry Bonds on his accomplishments.  He’s a great baseball player and I’ve enjoyed watching him play.  I’ve enjoyed watching his children’s excitement more than anything.  Children who probably don’t understand any of this madness at all.  They must think there are a lot of nasty people out there!  I’m sure they wonder why everyone isn’t happy for “daddy.”

Long before Bonds made history, he had people who didn’t like him.  He comes across as arrogant and cocky - and, probably, because he is!  But that’s just a part of who he is.  It isn’t a crime to love yourself some self.  Mark McGwire once said that he amazed himself.  Maybe I love self confidence a little too much, but it’s one of my favorite quotes from an athlete.  I liked it a heck of a lot better than all of the “I can’t say’s” he said during the hearings.  I just wanted him to once say, “I still amaze myself.”

I’m not going to debate what should or shouldn’t be done with any of these people who’ve done wrong things, with varying degrees of wrongness. I’m very  laid back, often too much so, so I’m very selective about what things I stress over.   Shaky celebs and shady athletes, overall, just don’t register as more than bleeps on my radar.

Some people may not be able to understand that, but I can’t understand getting all worked up over things that don’t affect your daily life.  The people who are “in the right” are probably somewhere between me and the spitting, spewing high-stressers.

All in all, what I’m getting at is this:  There’s very, very little…as in nothing….we can do about people who don’t play by the rules.  There’s little we can do about people who lie, cheat, or don’t play well with others.  We can’t police the world.  We can only take care of ourselves and our own little corner of the world. 

We can’t control how they ACT, but we can control how we REACT.  In the same way that a goldfish becomes so accustomed to being in water that he doesn’t realize there’s life outside of water, people who overreact get so accustomed to it that they don’t realize there’s a happier, healthier existence down on the even keel.  The ones spewing venom all over the place seem to think that their outbursts are going to effect the balance somehow…..if they make enough noise and stir up enough hate, the scales will tip and they’ll change the entire situation.  That’s just not going to happen.  Same way that shaking your fist and calling the little old lady in front of you at the stoplight names isn’t going to make her drive any differently than she’s capable of. 

It’ll just make you look like a bigger fool than the one that got you so worked up in the first place. Sure, you’ll put on a pretty good show, but you’ll be defeating your purpose - you’re taking the attention off of the one you’re so angry at and putting it all on you.  Said another way, you’re making a damned fool of yourself.

I’m, of course, talking about the Nasty Nellies of the world, not the ones calmly giving their opinions.  There was a man on ESPN a few nights ago that almost made me switch my anti-asterick opinion, but I held onto it in the end.  That’s the beauty of opinions, they’re one of the only things in life you can ever hang onto and refuse to give up. Right or wrong, we make them our own and nobody has the right to try to steal them away.

We do, however, an injustice to our opinions when we scream them and throw them in everyone’s lap.  Do we have a right to give ours?  Abso-freakin’-lutely.  We should give them in the manner I used to feed my daughters in when they were babies.  I’d gently put the spoon to their little heart-shaped lips and let them “taste” or “sample” the food in question.  If it was something they liked, they’d open their mouths like little birds and the food would disappear.  If it was something they wanted no part of (like strained green beans), the lips would clamp right shut, right after they spewed green all over their bib, highchair, me, and whatever else was nearby.

If it were something they didn’t like AT ALL, I certainly didn’t pry their little mouths open and force them to eat it. We should be at least as considerate with our opinions.

One more thing, I know that a lot of people are using the argument that Barry Bonds (and the others who are out of the spotlight that Barry’s in the middle of) are hideous role models.  They’ll make kids want to use steroids and other substances, etc.  Barry isn’t raising anyone’s kids except his own.  Putting that kind of shackle on him isn’t fair….no more than saying other athletes will make our kids drink because they do beer commercials, drive beer-sponsored cars, or have their pictures taken while drinking.

A lot of people are beginning to turn into bullies over this situation and they’re hurting whatever cause it is they think they have.  Barry Bonds has the title and will have until Ken Griffey Jr., Albert Pujols, Adam Dunn, or A Rod take it away.  Can’t we just let him and his family have a little peace?  There’s enough nasty in the world - no one should make it their goal each morning to cause more.

Here’s a radical idea, but why not make it our goal to bring more peace into the world instead of less?

Hopefully, that’s not too much of a crazy botch idea.