Kheli Dube REVS it up @ Gillette

Dube's hat trick was a work of art.

I was on a mission to become soccer savvy.

My day job required that I study the New England Revolution, question being how to bring more Soccer Fans from their homes in Connecticut to see the Rev, a mere 60 to 90 minute drive away.

I wanted, as Jimi might say in this August of Woodstock reprised, to become experienced.

The drive from Hartford was easy.  I-84 to Rt. 90 to Rt. 495.  Check.

The ambiance was immediately festive.  500 were tailgating in the West parking lot with shade, grills and chilled drinks.  Check.

The crowd was small but enthusiastic.  12,000 fans.  Still better than a Pittsburgh Pirates or a KC Royals home game.    Check.

Crowd demos as expected.  30% manic young soccer dudes.  70% families with kids under 12.  Check.

 

Here we were at beautiful, shiny Gillette Stadium, which is literally adjacent to a giant Bass Pro Shop, el grande Christmas Tree Shop, a new Renaissance hotel, a hospital, a multi-screen movie theater, and the bars, shops and restaurants of Patriot Place.

 

Settling into my seat in row 3, sec. 108, behind the REV bench, I felt the optimistic mood of eternal youth that summer brings.  Scented sun block wafted everywhere.  The sun melted the well-tanned Mom seated in front of me.  Everyone grooved to an unknown techo rapper.  We watched warm ups, and faded blissfully into one mass of soccer-loving humanity.

The 22 oz. Sam Adams didn’t hurt, either.

The REVS did crazy footwork warm ups that looked exhausting before the game, a game in which the players would run unabatedly for two 45 minute periods with only 3 TOTAL substitutions.

The fellow seated next to me, a soccer veteran named Jason, explained that without the intense warm ups, the players would tank 15 minutes into the game.  The warm ups crank  the release of endorphins that would tide them until they could slip into a freezing halftime ice-bath.

What does Jason like about Soccer ? 

“It’s AWESOME”, said the 26-year-old Dad from Somerville.  “Other Sports have athletes that are specialized.  Kickers in the NFL.  Relief pitchers and Designated Hitters in Baseball. Soccer Players are much better athletes.  They play the entire 90 minutes.   And after you watch Soccer for a while, you start to appreciate how they play together, you see the entire field and understand how a play is supposed to evolve, where the passes should go.  When the play works, it is fantastic.  When it fails, it’s like seeing a flower stepped on.”

Nine minutes into the game, the Rev scored.  Lightening fast, a defensive midfielder stole, passed to a striker who almost goaled, and then REV #11, Kheli Dube, stole and goaled in a heart-racing split second.

The crowd exploded.  Fireworks erupted.  New England militia men in 3-cornered hats fired their black powder muskets.  It was T-H-U-N-D-E-R-O-U-S.

Kheli Dube, formerly of Zimbabwe, gave the crowd a remarkable treat this day.  He scored at 9 minutes, 29 minutes, and 66 minutes, pulling off a rare soccer hat trick.

Jason said we were getting our money’s worth.

********

Kheli Dube is a star on the rise.  Quick and skillful, he was a scoring leader scorer at Coastal Carolina.  He’s a diaper dandy, in just his second professional season.  In 2008, he led all MLS rookies in goals and assists.   After all five of his goals in 2008, he conducted a traditional Zulu dance toward the closest corner flag.  After performing the dance for the first time, he noted that it was an homage to his mother’s South African roots, the Zulu tribe’s homeland.  Dube was one of three finalists for 2008 MLS Gatorade Rookie of the Year

********

I learned a few things this day.  “A breakaway is the equivalent of a haymaker.”

I heard some new expressions.  “You’re a traffic cone, a traffic cone !!!”

I puzzled over the eccentricities.  “The officials have determined that 4 minutes will be added to the first period.”

And, at one point, my eyes popped over the unthinkable, when I saw that the game clock runs backwards.

Near the end of the game, I walked to the top of the lower bowl, a coveted seating section in Gillette that most of us will never access during a Patriots game, and headed to the Sam Adams stand where I bought my beer.  The stand was manned by the same two attractive ladies who had told me 30 minutes before the game that I was their “first  and best” beer customer of the day.  Before I could reach their kiosk, one of these gals sprinted up to me and apologized for putting too much of a head on the beer they sold me earlier.   She asked me if I still had my cup, because she would make up for the bad pour with a freebie.

Pinch me.

********

Great customer service.  $20, $30 & $40 tickets.  Wonderful sporting experience.  Home team on a streak.  A rare hat trick.  Fireworks.  Black powder musket fire.

What more could you want ?

********

Jason recommends that you watch international Soccer action on www.eplmatches.com

The REVS next home game is Saturday, August 29 vs. the San Jose Earthquakes.

For tickets or more information, go to  www.revolutionsoccer.net

REVs and kids take the field pre-game.

Michael Bowden impresses with Win #1

Aug. 30, 2008

Fenway Park

 

All of this on Ted Williams’ birthday.

 

 

Michael Bowden took the mound today for his first MLB start backed by a makeshift Sox line-up featuring the “strongest 160-pound man in Baseball” batting cleanup.

 

Ellsbury (CF), Lowrie (3rd), Ortiz (DH), Pedroia (2nd), Kotsay (RF), Bay (LF), Tek (C), Bailey (1b) and Cora (ss).

 

Pedroia would reach safely for the 10^th AB in a row and hear the MVP chant. 

 

 

Bowden did not have it easy.

 

He faced a ChiSox starting 9 that already poled 185 HR this year. 

 

The 3-4-5 hitters, Quentin, Dye and Thome, have 96 HR between them. 

 

Add to that the sensational rookie Alexei Ramirez (.310/15/60), a still potent 38-yr-old Junior Griffey, and a few other clutch performers, and this was no team of pushovers facing Mr. Bowden.

 

Bowden was as advertised in terms of a powerful, condensed pitching motion.  After walking Cabrera on 5 pitches to start the game, he fired four 92 MPH fastballs to Pierzynski, inducing a 1-3 double play.  5 fastballs later, he grounded Quentin out to third to record his first MLB inning, facing the minimum 3 batters.

 

Bowden would put up only 5 innings this night.   He wouldn’t go unmolested.  But he limited the damage, showing great character and composure in tight spots.

 

In the second, he worked his fastball and a 77 mph cutter to get 2 strikes on Jermaine Dye, but with the crowd calling for the rookie’s first MLB strikeout, Dye smashed the ball 390 ft. to the Garage Door area in dead center.  It had HR distance but hit the CF wall 10 ft below the fans in Bleacher 36.  Two batters later, Bowden gave up his first run in the majors when Alexei Ramirez stroked a 2-2 fastball on a line before Bay in left and turned on the speed to register a double and an RBI.

 

With the crowd still waiting for his first K, Mr. Bowden then fed Nick Swisher a fastball and three 78 mph Cutters, striking Swisher out on a cutter in the dirt.   Swisher, a very good player, looked like a bad one.

 

The 2^nd inning damage was 1 run.  Ramirez was stranded on second.  Bowden kept his cool.

 

Bowden gave up one more run this day.  That run almost never scored because Joe Crede, the runner, almost produced an out instead of a triple.  Crede led off the 3^rd by smacking the 8^th pitch Bowden hurled 379 ft to the base of the left center wall. There, Ellsbury caught up with it, and on the ball’s descent, tipped the fly up not once but twice before it fell for a triple.  He stuck his glove out at the end and just missed it.  Not an easy catch potentially.  A great try by the centerfielder.

 

Crede, who could have been out, trotted in two batters later on Pierzynski’s ground out to Pedroia.  1 run.

 

Bowden fired fastball after fastball over the course of his outing.  He threw about 60 fastballs out of 89 total pitches. 

 

Power Against Power

 

Bowden disarmed Carlos Quentin, holding the MVP candidate to personal O-for-three before leaving. 

 

Bowden displayed his intangibles in the fifth.  After yielding two singles to Cabrera and Pierzynski, and with Dye on deck, he fed the power hitting Quentin four 92 mph fastballs, two of them partially over the plate, two of them not. 

 

On the second pitch, with a 1-0 count, two ducks on the pond, Bowden was not afraid to pound another fastball in letter high to the White Sox slugger.

 

Power against power. 

 

Quentin couldn’t catch up to it. 

 

Bowden did not get Quentin to chase the pitches out of the zone, but he did make him fly out to Bay on the last pitch.   Then he stranded two ChiSox when the slugger Dye flew out to Bay on a ball with HR height to the track.

 

Bowden never looked to be in serious trouble.  He surely put runners on base, yielding 4 hits in the 4^th and the 5^th, but no one scored.

 

He was aided by one double play, initiated by him self in the first.

 

 

More than a fastball

 

At the end of the day, Bowden had a fine first outing.  His fastball, 5 or 6 mph slower than Manny Delcarmen’s or Josh Beckett’s, had the movement needed to stay away from the heart of the plate and give the White Sox batters conniptions.  Although heavy on the heater, Bowden mixed in an effective Cutter (77 mph), Curve (78 mph), and a Change (85 mph).  He really made Swisher look bad with the curve in particular.

 

Licking His Chops

 

Young Alexei Ramirez stood on deck while Griffey made the last out in the 9^th.   He was asked what he thought of the kid who started tonight.  Alexei smiled sweetly at the questioner in the second row.  He looked like a cat licking its whiskers after biting the mouse on it’s hind quarter, but somehow letting it get away.  He smirked, but said nothing.

 

Bowden gets an A+ for cool.  He gets an A+ for getting ahead in the count.  He gets an A for controlling the rythym of his outing.    

 

He gets a B- for overall performance though, unable to keep the able ChiSox batters off the bases. 

 

We’ll someday see how he does against the Ginger and Mary Anne’s in Baltimore, Kansas City and Seattle.  

 

Ellsbury, Pedroia & Kotsay win it 8-2

 

Mr. Bowden owes thanks to the self-acknowledged “Strongest 160 pound Man in Baseball”, and a few other mates, for notching his first MLB victory on Ted Williams’  90^th birthday, by a score of 8 – 2.

Beyond the Sixth Game. What’s Happened to Baseball Since The Greatest Game in World Series History. By Peter Gammons. Houghton Mifflin, 1985.

Gammons book a must-read

Do you remember when you first realized that the Size-XXL Dominican Gentleman with the large bat, big smile and the mystical hitting power was a Red Sox ?   

The team that already had Manny, Nomar, ‘Tek, Pedro, Millar, Mueller, Lowe & Faulke ?

 

Felt pretty good, didn’t it ?

 

Those are memories to savor.  For Red Sox fans, every so often things become aligned in rare and special ways.

 

Sox fans (of a certain vintage) got a similar high 33 years ago after looking in the sports section and seeing TWO Red Sox players, both of whom were unkown, right smack in the Baseball’s Top 10 Al Hitters !  Jeesus !  What’s going on here, we all thought.  It soon came to pass that Jim Rice and Fred Lynn were young blue chippers sent by the Baseball Gods, actually by Dick O’Connell, to join Yaz, Rico, Spaceman, and the best Red Sox pitcher ever – Luis Tiant.  

Euphoria set in.   The Sox were LOADED and could win several pennants !

 

If you can relate, or if you just want to dig a little into an intriguing baseball book, Peter Gammons’ Beyond the Sixth Game is for you.  Gammons has well captured the Red Sox of 1975 to 1983, a team history backed up to the late Sixties for perspective.

 

Man, do you get golden nuggets from Gammons.   Remember BoSox pitcher Rick “Tall Boy” Jones ?  His claim to fame came in high school, when he was suspended with 3 members of the soon-to-be Lynard Skynard band by gym teacher Leonard Skinner. (pg. 71)

 

Boy, do you get player portraits,too  –

 

·        Carlton Fisk, small town New England boy who grew up loving the Sox.  He was honest, admitting that Bill Singer threw Pete Rose a spitter in the ’73 All Star Game.  He was critical of management, speaking up about Darell Johnson, perhaps the most dysfunctional of Sox Managers ever.  He was ready to fight; on 8-1-73 Fisk had Gene Michael pinned to the ground with his left hand while pounding Munson repeatedly with his right.

 

·        Dennis Eckersley, a cocky but talented  23 year old, who spoke often in his own language, offering batters “cheese for their kitchen, and a yakker for their kudo.”

 

 

·        Boomer Scott, who, when asked about Biafra, said, “I never faced the muddafuka, but by the 3^rd time, I’ll hit a tater off him.”

 

·        On the collapse of 1978 —  Rick Burleson said, “the abuse we have taken and the abuse we must be prepared to take for the entire winter, we richly deserve.”

 

·        Luis Tiant – while all were crumbling around him in late 1978 – “If we lose today, it will be over my dead body.  They’ll have to leave me face down on the mound. ….Bleep those guys who want to throw in the towel.  Win today, win tomorrow, win the next day….the easiest thing is to give up.”  (Pg. 149)

 

·        Dwight Evans, long after the release of Tiant, just after the Sox allowed California to claim him in 1982, “How could the owners not have understood (what Tiant meant to the team) ?

 

 

 

There are funny & touching details on Yaz through the various stages of his career, and much on how he handled his farewell weekend.  For anyone who was at Fenway on Oct. 1 or 2, 1983, this book is meant for you to read.

 

Why base a book upon this 9-season stretch ?  In that time, the Sox rose.   They promised a dynasty, but failed to adjust to changing times.  They won a pennant, nearly won one more, then slid into mediocrity & their first losing record in 17 years.   

They enjoyed an historic influx of young talent and then released, traded away and otherwise squandered the talent, as the front office lost their way in an ownership battle.

 

There were many factors in the decline.  Not the least of which was Jean Yawkey.  Why would the aging doyen prefer two jokers with $400,000 on hand to businessmen with $14 Million cash-money ?

 

The Yawkey’s  must take the brunt of the criticism for mismanaging the Sox.

 

In 1965, Tom Yawkey replace old drinking pal Pinky Higgins with Dick O’Connell as G.M.

 

Dick O’Connell designed the regeneration of the Sox from ’67 to ’75.

 

And when Jean Yawkey and the Sullivan/LeRoux team fired O’Connell in 1977, a costly series of decisions – stupid, stupid decisions — ensued, resulting in the departure of Fisk, Lynn, Lee, Carbo, and Tiant.  

Dick O

 

The Sox pushed away pitching, said goodbye to their bench strength, and hoped that the salary spiral caused by free agency would correct itself.  Meanwhile, they hung back, stayed out of the bidding, and waited for the market to cool down.

 

They led us into the Valley of Mediocrity.  

 

But where there is pain, there is also JOY.  You can’t go wrong reading BEYOND THE SIXTH GAME.  Get a copy and pop a bottle of Merlot or a ‘Gansett.  Whichever.  And let me know what you think.

 

 

 

Dear Captain, we miss you.

Gammons book a must read

ROGER CLEMENS GOES DOWN !

It wasn’t easy watching the Congressional hearing yesterday. The man was a near lock for the HOF before he went to the needle.  The man struck out 20 in a game  — twice !  The Man won multiple Cy Youngs.  The Man was a hoss.   And now, the hoss is at a loss for a ticket to Cooperstown.  Permanently.

It wasn’t MacNamee who landed the telling blow, though.  It was Andy Pettitte and his wife.

The hearings resonated with prior scandals.  I couldn’t help but think that Brian MacNamee is to Roger Clemens, as Paul Janszen is to Pete Rose, and as Greg Anderson is to Bobby Bonds.  A self-centered star using an enabler to break the rules.   

There’s an ugly societal dymanic that allows the Superstar to bulldoze the rules while getting the benefit of the doubt.  We could be a bit more careful with our adoration, trying to focus it on the Phil Rizzutto’s, Dustin Pedroia’s, Gene Tenace’s, Jorge Posada’s  and Troy Tulowitzki’s of this world.  Give me a skinny player who can play over his head.  Or a slightly chubbed-out Tony Gwynn look-alike.  I’m starting to look sideways at anybody with an acutely mesomorphic build.  And we’ve got a few on my beloved Red Sox.

May Roger, Debbie and the four K’s accept the truth in short order, admit what has happened, and find peace in the support that will flow.  There’s really no point in being vindictive.

That said — I’m afraid that The Rocket has dishonored the game enough to be permanently barred from the HOF.

 I have complete faith that the BBWAA will never elect Roger.  I am somewhat old school in these matters; I want Clemens, Rose, Bonds & McGwire BARRED from the HOF.  But the BBWAA is way, way beyond old school.  The scribes have memories like elephants.  There’s no chance Roger gets in.

 It’s a sad day for Baseball.  But, we fans will move on and flourish.

I trust that Baeball has not been entirely depleted of its Good Guys.  I believe, as you may, that money has not corrupted every Player and Owner – but, surely has corrupted many.  I believe, as you may, that people that have been raised to have Integrity can earn the bucks and play legit and clean for the love of the game, honoring the life lessons, moved by the remarkable way that Baseball connects us, teaches us.   Folks like you who care about the game deeply are the very proof that Baseball will cleanse itself and survive.

Congrats to the G Men !

No team more deserves their Super Bowl victory than the 2007 NY Giants because they succeeded in doing what everyone knew was the key to beating the Patriots:  They took out Tom Brady.  They hurried him, sacked him, knocked him down and reduced him to a third of his normal  point production.

The Giants do not have a great offense.  But you don’t need one when your defense plays “like a pack of wild dogs”, to borrow a vintage quip from Lawrence Taylor.

God Bless the downtrodden Giants fans who winced all week long when enduring the 38-20 and 52-14 predictions from the sports intelligentsia.  In a poignant coincidence, yesterday’s Catholic Mass featured the Sermon on the Mount, which includes the passage that the meek shall inherit the Earth.  And that, fellow and sister Sports fans, is exactly what happened in Phoenix yesterday.  NY Giant fans were the meek all week, having capped their emotions & expectations, girding against a predicted catastrophe.  But the superior-team-by-consensus looked old, slow, ragged, and disrupted against the brutal NY defense. 

Now Patriots fans must contemplate the downside of their dynastic curve.

Congratulations, Giants fans !  Your boys pulled off a historic stunner. 

Patriots v Giants : Only one way to beat the Pats

Pats fans  have much to be grateful  for.    An unequalled season from Brady.  A receiving corps that is the deepest in NFL history.  The offense may be based on the pass, but Faulk, Maroney & Co. have contributed many of their 1,557 yards just when needed.  

Turnovers are rare.  Records are falling. The Defense is the 4th best in the NFL.

Patriots fans are cranked up and over-the-top.  New England is thinking all-Patriots, all-the-time. 

It’s not going to happen, it’s not going to happen, it’s not going to happen.

That’s what I’ve been repeating for the last 6 weeks.  And with good reason.  If you remember the 1985 Bears, you’ll recall how invinceable they looked before they went down.  The Bears were scary-good in a way the Patriots could never be.  Those Bears had a defense that destroyed everything in its path with style and a smile.

I did not expect the Patriots to get this far.  A little bad luck like a a high ankle sprain to you-know-who is all that it would take to give the Pats their first defeat.   

But they are here.  They win big.  They win the close ones.  They are unlikely to  lose this Sunday against a Giant team that has already clinched a playoff spot.  And once they reach the post-season, they won’t lose because they know they’ll be preparing their place in History next to the ‘72 Dolphins.

 You know they’ll find a way to win it all.  If they get past the Giants.

It all comes down to Brady staying in the game.    There is zero depth behind Brady – with Matt Cassel and Matt Gutierrez .  The two Matt’s have garnered nearly no NFL experience since leaving USC and Idaho State, respectively. 

Cassel spent all of his time at USC as a backup behind Heisman Trophy winners Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart. 

Gutierrez led Idaho State to a 1-7 record after transferring from Michigan, where he tore a labrum. 

The ‘72 Dolphins had Earl Morrall.

One head-rattling sack and the Pats could suddenly have the same offensive efficiency as the Chicago Bears.

Tom Brady has missed ZERO games since week #2 of the 2001 season.  ZERO absences in his first 7 seasons.  By comparison, Dan Marino missed 4 games, and Joe Montana missed 9 in their first 7 years.

Is the injury clock ticking on Tom ?    He is almost too good to be true.  Here’s hoping he keeps his streak going and rises above all the physical shots he is taking.   You may have noticed, he’s been getting whacked.   The Giants have 42 sacks and three players high among the league leaders. Brady’s demise is the opposition’s most viable blueprint for victory.  He is the target.

We’ll all be watching for the record breaking touchdown passes.  But the story of the season could be seen by watching how Matt Light, Logan Mankins, Dan Kopen, Stephen Neal, and Nick Kaczur protect their Q.B. against Strahan, Umenyiora and Tuck.

BOOK REVIEW: MR. RED SOX JOHNNY PESKY STORY

THE JOHNNY PESKY STORY, MR. RED SOX, By Bill Nowlin. Rounder, Cambridge, Mass. Published in 2004, written by Bill Nowlin, with a posthumous Foreward by Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky’s 277 page story scores a solid B. 

You never forget Johnny Pesky once you’ve met him.  I have a friend who met Johnny in 1975 when he was  a kid in the Babe Ruth league in Pittsfield.  Johnny told the youngster  he would put a scout on him since the Sox were looking for young talent, just like him.  That comment could raise a kid’s confidence &with his BA.   He will always love Pesky for telling him exactly what he wanted to hear.  You see, Johnny touches people on an emotional level.  No one gets more love when appearing at Fenway.  And no one belonged more on a Duck last week with the ‘07 Champs than Pesky. 

But, this book shares the details of Johnny’s life without charming the reader the same way Pesky charms everyone in real life.  This book is a straight accounting.  Nowlin is very good, but no Baseball Archeologist.  See Tom Adelman or Cait Murphy for that. 

John Paveskovich started from nothing, the son of Croatian immigrants.  His positivism &  grit helped him win the job of clubhouse boy with Portland in the PCL when minor leaguers like Bobby Doerr and Ted Williams came through.  In 1936 Johnny was doing Ted’s laundry in Portland.  Six years later, he was playing with him at Fenway Park.  

Red Sox historians will get a ton of detail on the progression of Johnny’s career – I found this detail essential.  The story of his minor league years fascinates. He shows up to compete with 65 others signed to the Rocky Mount (Piedmont League) bearing their own gloves, shirts, shoes, no coddled players they, playing in a simpler time in small town America. Then Johnny builds a bridge to his manager, Hall of Famer Heinie Manush and his pro career is launched with a .325 season.    A solid performer, a shining teammate, a vital cog who thus ascends while excelling at every level. 

 Johnny’s life endures like a stone house.  65 years after his Fenway debut, he is still with the Sox, having played the roles of shortstop, third baseman, manager, coach, broadcaster, consultant, icon, and link from the past to present. 

He played with Ted Williams and hit balls to Yaz, Rice, Garciaparra and Ramirez.    His marriage to Ruth Hickey lasted 60 years until her passing in 2005.  He still makes appearances at Fenway and throughout New England.  I met him a year ago and asked him how good he thought  Jonathon Papelbon could be. “As good as Roger Clemens”, he said with a wink.  He told me exactly what I wanted to hear.  And I will always remember him for that.

BARRY BONDS: SKIP THE TRIP TO COOPERSTOWN

Barry says he won’t come to Cooperstown.  Are you OK with that ?  I am.  But why do so many of us think  that Bonds should be excluded from the Hall despite the transgressions of those already in the Hall ? Babe Ruth was an unreliable,  game-skipping, drinking, smoking, fornicating machine of a man so self-centered & immature he couldn’t remember anyone’s name & thus called everyone “Keed”.   And he’s in.   Ty Cobb was an antisocial, bitter, racist, violent character who went into the stands at the Polo Grounds and beat senseless a cripple he suspected had called him a racial epithet, a nasty name that Ty himself used everyday for others.  And he’s in.   Ban Johnson & JG Taylor Spink conducted their businesses, the American League and The Sporting News respectively, for decades with shamelessly racist and biased designs to keep African Americans out of Baseball until 1947.  And they are in. The Hall of Fame isn’t Disneyland or Kindergarten.  It’s somewhat like a Revival Tent complete with sinners.  So why draw the line at Steroids  ?   Why pick on him ? Sure he chemically altered his body to produce 762 Home Runs instead of about 550.   There is no debate about that once you read GAME OF SHADOWS.   So what if he won’t talk to the media ?  So what if he disassociates himself from his team mates and has a private locker room with throne-like chair ?  Who cares ?  He’s a baseball player.  We don’t have to take him fishing.  He’s not coming over to grill and play jarts.  He’s not getting a Christmas card this year.  And frankly, HE DOESN’T CARE.  He has more money than he’ll ever need.  He has a knack, like Pete Rose, of maintaining an orbit of followers and enablers.   So let’s be at peace with that and move on to the issue at hand:   Keep out anyone who could go in based solely or largely on the abuse of records through the use of steroids.  KEEP BARRY BONDS OUT OF THE HALL OF FAME.  And that’s not all.  KEEP MARK McGWIRE OUT, TOO. Baseball’s long ago track record is indefensible but 50 wrongs do not make a right.  Let’s do the right thing as often as we can going forward and honor the game and it’s fans, the crown jewels of Baseball, the people who come together to enjoy the game & its  history, and the community of Baseball.   Barry has threatened to boycott his assumed induction if the record-breaking ball is now displayed at the Hall with an asterisk.  That is Barry’s right.   Let’s respect his rights.  He’s entitled.  Let’s go further.  Let’s resolve to forgive and support Barry when inevitably the hammer finally falls on him.   His drug dealer is still in jail for refusing to testify to a California Grand Jury.  He has income tax problems.  He will never be inducted into the Hall of Fame.   A career 550 HR hitting, 100-RBI, .320 hitter is going to be barred from the Hall of Fame because he cheated in order to become a 762 HR hitting physical oddity.  He has to live with the legacy of being one of the most disliked & disrespected baseball heroes of all time, right alongside Ty Cobb, for whom there is no legacy of justice and peace.  Leave Barry Bonds alone.  And leave him out of the Hall of Fame.