Pearlman on Bonds via Deadspin

I'm probably just one among millions of sports fans who are silently (and possibly subconsciously) rooting for Barry Bonds' leg to fall apart before he gets home run #755 to tie Aaron's record. I don't wish him dead... but incapacitated would be fine. I've always thought Jeff Pearlman was a very good writer... he always seemed insightful a few years ago during his Sports Illustrated tenure, and now I'm enjoying him at ESPN.com. He probably knows Bonds as well as any writer could, and Deadspin posted an interview with him a couple days ago. Here are some interesting tidbits:

"...the truth of the matter is, Bonds is completely, undeniably 100 percent full of s***. He truly is. I no longer buy his love of baseball history any more than I buy the sanctity of his marriages or the purity of his blood stream. I was at Shea when the Giants came to New York a few weeks ago, and I had to laugh when hundreds of my media peers swarmed around him for comments. I understand why they were there, but it's a waste of time. Nothing he says holds any meaning. He'll say the sky is blue one second and red the next."



"Bonds is a cheater. In presidential history, time tends to shine an accurate light upon administrations. I believe the same goes for baseball. Forty years from now Bonds will be what he truly is--a once-in-a-lifetime talent who gave into greed and jealousy. An asterisk and a big, HGH-bloated head."



"I set out to write a fair, honest, balanced biography of a misunderstood legend. I did my absolute best, and the result is a book that I'm very proud of. I've received strong reviews, in part because I didn't take sides. Now that I'm well beyond the researching and writing; now that I'm beyond the promotional, 20-second soundbite push, I feel liberated to express my conclusion of the whole experience. It is this: Barry Bonds is evil. Alongside Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, he is responsible for the illegal, unethical tattering of the most important page of the baseball record book."



"If we reward and praise the cheaters in sports, what are we saying to the kids who follow the games? What are we saying about decency and integrity? I don't root against Bonds because he's a bad man. I root against him because he's a dishonest one. For me personally, this isn't an issue of race or class or status. It's an issue of someone taking the game I truly love and making a mockery of the whole thing."

By the way, I think Selig is a piece of crap, too. He probably benefited more from the home run surge than anyone.