As PSLweb.org publishes this piece, San Francisco Giant’s slugger Barry Bonds has 755 home runs—a tie with Hank Aaron’s all-time record. Bonds is just one home run shy of breaking it.
Few people in the United States have been able to escape the media barrage against Barry Bonds.
The sports media almost universally denounce him as guilty of using steroids. A slew of mostly white callers on AM talk
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Why would the corporate institution of Major League Baseball allow one of its brightest stars to be crucified publicly?
Perhaps in order to keep attention away from the role that baseball’s owners and executives played in the abuse of performance-enhancing drugs. If someone has to be blamed, the owners would prefer it to be the “malcontent” Barry Bonds.
It is also racism.
Major League Baseball has a long history of racism. Years of segregated leagues and racist attitudes shaped the social culture of the sport. When Jackie Robinson became the first African American player in the modern era to play in the major leagues in 1947, he faced death threats, harassment and racist jeers from white crowds.
In April 1974, when Hank Aaron, an African American, surpassed Babe Ruth as the most prolific home run hitter in baseball history, it was accompanied by hundreds of pieces of racist hate mail: “Dear N****r Henry, You are (not) going to break this record established by the great Babe Ruth if I can help it. … Whites are far more superior. … My gun is watching your every black move.” That is just one awful example. Babe Ruth’s records were viewed as untouchable by white racist baseball fans.
These racist notions are still playing into the hysteria surrounding Bonds today. A May ESPN/ABC poll found that 74 percent of Black baseball fans hoped Bonds broke the record, compared with only 28 percent of white fans.
Without doubt, Bonds will break the record. He should be congratulated for doing so by all fans of the sport; not vilified and subjected to slanders motivated by racism.
Baseball, as a professional money-making sport, is not divorced from the general characteristics of U.S. society, including the racism promoted by capitalism.
