http://msn.espn.go.com/mlb/news/2001/1115/1278329.html I am really not surprised about this, but to hear him explain how it affected his hitting is interesting. It's truly sad that any player in the spotlight has to go through this. A good read.
I never understood why people personally hated Bonds. I agree the guy is moody, but he doesn't mistreat people, he doesn't beat his wife, he doesn't get into trouble off the field, he doesn't dog it, and he produces. He's a Hall-of-Famer. The sad thing is there are probably people laughing at the fact that he got death threats. Crazy.
I'm not a big Bonds fan either. He's ultra-selfish. Those types of people just clash with me. Getting death threats is ridiculous in any time period, but especially in this day and age. If I were Bonds and someone sent me a death threat about hitting HRs, I'd try to hit as many as I could. It would just be an incentive for me.
How, again, is he ultra-selfish? He said time and time again that the only thing he's ever cared about is winning. The only negative things you hear about Bonds is from the media that has always hated him and Jeff Kent, someone that has a hard time finding someone to say something nice about him. So, please explain to me how Bonds is ultra-selfish.
I am a Bonds fan, so please explain to me how he is "ultra-selfish". Many times last year while being questioned by the media he said that he would be happy if he didn't hit another home run all season just for the team to have the chance to win a ring. He said in that interview that he only told his wife and Dusty Baker. Why would someone do that? Probably because he didn't want it to become a distraction while the team was making a push for the playoffs. Although it wasn't a good idea to not notify the authorities immediately, this action is definitely not a selfish one.
<B>How, again, is he ultra-selfish? He said time and time again that the only thing he's ever cared about is winning. </B> What athlete DOESN'T say that? Do you think they are all non-selfish? <B>The only negative things you hear about Bonds is from the media that has always hated him </B> Well, if you dismiss anything the media offers, it's quite hard to give you examples, since just about everything we know is from the media. I'd say his teammates voting him off his college baseball team is a pretty big indicator as to his "I'm more important than the team" attitude.
When the media has such an obvious bias (you're not stupidly arguing that they aren't biased against Bonds are you??), then yeah, you can ignore most of this stuff. The media were on their knees for McGwire and Sosa, two players who seemed to be really happy even though their teams were ****. However, when Bonds was on his way to breaking the record, he hardly ever got anything like McGwire and Sosa got. Hell, close to the end, ESPN even had a big deal about how funny the hecklers were at Dodger Stadium who were making fun of his divorce. Also, I've heard stuff about him getting kicked off the team in college, yet never actually seen anything about this. I'm not saying it didn't happen, but the only time I've read anything about this is from anti-Bonds people referring to it. A link would be nice.
What about not showing up for the team picture... EVERY year? I know it has little to do with the actual baseball, but the fact that he doesn't put forth the very minimal effort to show for those pictures is a good example of how little he wants to have anything to do with his teammates.