20th Century Baseball

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Posted By: warshawlaw

Bonds, like his godfather, is a first-rate horse's ass, which is why he gets slammed by the press and public. The more of jerk you are on the way up, the less slack people cut you and the more people will look to take shots at you. Less popular = less reputation. More popular = better shot at the HOF. It ain't fair, but it is entirely human.

Mays always whined about Mantle being the more popular guest/signer/higher priced card, even though he was the better player. Mick was more popular because he made an effort to be affable in public, or at least not surly and rude to his customers. Mays seems to go out of his way to alienate fans. I remember when I went to get a Mays autograph in the 80's (I was a huge Mays fan as a kid). He was so rude, wouldn't even say hello back to me, that I got completely turned off and sold off all the Mays cards I had (and I had them all). I got autographs from a lot of my other childhood idols (Jim Brown, Sandy Koufax, Hank Aaron, Muhammad Ali, Sylvester Stallone, Roger Moore, Walter Payton), some for pay and some for free, and all were cordial or even appreciative of the fact that I was an fan and was willing to wait and/or pay for their sigs. As shown by the reports from Cooperstown, Mays has remained true to form, a consistent jerk.

Bonds is an incredible player, one of the best ever, but he is also not a likeable guy and has a tin ear for public relations. Crapping all over Babe Ruth's reputation recently was just the latest example of Barry being Barry, and Bonds isn't half the player Ruth was (they may be parallel in hitting but I'd like to see Bonds win 90+ games as a pitcher--Ruth was the greatest all around baseball player in history). Big Mac, for all his holes as a player, was (is) a decent guy, or at least is publicly perceived as such. Is he a HOFer? I'd say yes on his stats (if Maris hadn't been hurt and had racked up 500 HR's I'd say he goes in too--fact is, he had three good seasons plus a great 1967 WS), but also on his impact and performance, because one of the criteria for selection is contribution to the game. Frankly, I think Big Mac belongs more than Eddie Murray, who was a very very good player, but not a great one, and who hung on for a long time to get the final numbers up there (I remember his time in LA--useless as showing a painting to Stevie Wonder. Or Fred McGriff in TB or LA).

Bonds fans who think their guy isn't getting the love he deserves should remember what the Beatles said: "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make."