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Award-winning columnist Tom Archdeacon — an old-school storyteller in a brand-new venue — writes about sports, the city, southwest Ohio and anything else that catches his fancy… or yours.Home > Blogs > Through the Arch > Archives > 2008 > July > 17 > Entry
BLOG: Racism isn’t why Bonds is out of work
With the All star game finally over, we begin the second half of the Major League baseball season with Barry Bonds on the outside of the game looking in.
An All Star just last season and arguably the greatest home run hitter of modern times — though considering the chemical enhancement cloud over him, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, I’ll give the nod to Ken Griffey Jr. and soon to Alex Rodriguez — Bonds still can’t find a job.
No team seems to want him.
Why is that?
A few weeks ago at the American Baseball Research convention in Cleveland, Bonds aunt — Rosie Bonds-Kreidler — called it racism and said he was being “blacklisted.”
Bonds agent Jeff Burris tells anyone who will listen it’s a “conspiracy.”
And a few days ago, a New York Times columnist suggested Bonds is being “boycotted” and questioned the “owners apparent ungodly conspiracy to keep Bonds out of uniform.”
I’m sure some people’s attitudes toward Bonds often has had something to do with race, but I don’t think that’s the real reason he’s not on a team now.
I think his age, injuries and the boatload of money it’d take to sign him have something to do with it. That’s reason enough to take National League teams out of the equation altogether.
Sure he could still be a designated hitter in the American League, but at what price?
I’m not talking paycheck, I’m talking about the toll he takes on any team once he walks into its dressing quarters. Instantly the clubhouse turns into a circus tent.
Because his numbers are suspect and more so because he’s under indictment for perjury and obstruction of justice, he’s going to draw all kinds of negative attention — and clamoring hordes of media — into the team’s inner sanctum.
Add to the fact he’s never one to mingle with or embrace his fellow teammates — basically, he can be pretty much a self-absorbed jerk — is his presence going to help a ball club down the stretch?
This is not to say baseball hasn’t been poisoned by racism through the years — from the color line that so long was enforced to current complaints by Los Angeles Angels star Tori Hunter to the way Jackie Robinson was treated when he first integrated the big leagues in 1947.
Philadelphia Phillies players taunted him with the n-word. St. Louis players threatened to boycott if he played and in Cincinnati his treatment was the worst.
There was the death threat he got before a game and there was that famous scene recounted by “Boys of Summer” author Roger Kahn.
On May 13, 1947 — as the Dodgers were taking infield practice at Crosley Field — Reds players in the dugout and fans on the other side of the railing began taunting Robinson, calling him “shoe shine boy” and “snowflake.”
That’s when Dodgers shortstop Pee Wee Reese, a white Southerner, walked over to Robinson at first base, put his arm around him and glared into the Reds dugout. Robinson said he never felt alone on the diamond after that.
I didn’t see any of Bonds’ former San Francisco teammates going out of their way to wrap an arm around him. That’s because his trouble — drug enhancement charges aside — wasn’t so much about race, as it was team chemistry.
The guy brings none with him and makes no effort to develop it once he’s there.
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