Barry and the Babe

Just so you know, Bond's success at the plate can be paralleled to making a fortune on Wall Street with insider trading.

Both take skill. Both are illegal. One lands you in jail. The other in the Hall of Fame.

Don't get me wrong. I couldn't hit one single dinger. Not a single fly ball off a real pitcher bringing real heat.

I can't even hit beyond 60 mph from a pitching machine.

I tried at 70 and couldn't even see the ball coming.

The fact that Bonds can hit the 3rd deck from home plate says something about his skill and his physical attributes. I can't even see the ball and someone like Ted Williams can count threads when the ball leaves the pitcher's hand.

Barry Bonds starts his swing three revolutions of the ball after it leaves the pitcher's hand.

All the great home run heroes do that.

But lots of wealthy businessmen (we place our value of business on how much money you make) have gone to jail for insider trading. For getting an unfair, and illegal, edge in the game.

Insider trading wasn't always illegal. Steroids in baseball used to be ignored.

Steroids didn't help Bond's eye-bat coordination. That's pure talent and athleticism. He could have more hits than Pete Rose, but that's not what everyone remembers. That's not what San Francisco is paying Bonds $20 Million a year to do.

Anyone else out there in Blogosphere making 100 times what you made your first year on the job? 100 times!!! I'd be pulling in $1.9M per year if that were the case.

Barry Bonds* was valuable to baseball. And then he got greedy.

He needs to go away, and be asterisked forever.

He'll beat the Babe. And might beat Hank Aaron.

But I hope not.


* - Professional baseball player from 1988 to present, guilty of using performance enhancing drugs to boost his salary and his home-run production. Guilty of lying, cheating and stealing from the pockets of fans everywhere, and from the hearts of children who really want a positive role model. His only punishment will be the derision of meaningless fans such as myself, and spending the remainder of his arthritically painful life in a hundred-million dollar mansion. See also Jerk.