Well, I know I'm going to take a ton of flak off the bat for saying anything remotely positive about these two men, but I'm going to do it anyway. I'm no bandwagon fan and I could really care less what the media's view is on something, and I'm not going to hate a guy or love a guy just because it's trendy to do so. If you want to hate on me because of this, that is your choice, so let the 1's reign down--because here is another thread defending Clemens and Bonds.
Perhaps defending the men is not my primary goal here, although let me say, steroids or not, these are the two greatest baseball players of the last 20 years. Any Moneyball gurus out there? Look at all the stats that are correlated with winning and you'll find nobody does it better than Clemens or Bonds. Not what you want to hear, I realize, but facts are facts.
Anyhow, my main point here is to describe the double standard that the media holds for professional athletes, and anyone for that matter. Here are two categories of athletes/sports figures.
Category A: Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa, Randy Moss, Bill Belichick, Kobe Bryant
Category B: Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Isiah Thomas, Michael Vick, Pacman Jones
The people in both categories have been alleged through rumors or other unsubstantiated allegations of committing unethical acts. Yet, the allegations against those from category A were either dismissed, forgotten, or forgiven while those from B are remembered, hyped up, accepted as being true, and have killed the athletes' credibility. Why is that? You can't say that those in B committed acts worse than those of A, because assuming all the allegations are true, those in A have done some pretty bad stuff. So why are so many fans fond of or indifferent to category A and so hostile to category B?
The answer is very simple. The media. The media doesn't mind those in A but despises those in B. Perhaps B was less savvy in their dealings with the media, or perhaps this is all a matter of whim. I really can't say. But what I know is that when the media doesn't like you, they really really don't like you, but when they don't really mind you, fans won't mind you either. Posters here and elsewhere are logging onto ESPN.com, reading the opinions of their reporters, succumbing to the subliminal messages in supposedly objective AP articles about sports, etc, etc.. What readers don't realize is that it is very, very easy to come up with allegedly objective material that is, in actuality, completely subjective. As an experiment, go watch Fox News for 30 minutes and then go watch a BBC News segment on the same subject. You will get two completely different stories. You can NOT convey controversial information without injecting your personal bias, so please do not go reading ESPN.com or cbs.sportsline.com or even AP assuming everything you are reading is completely objective.
Listen, I have no problem with individual viewpoints on these matters but what bothers me a lot is hypocrisy. Most of the allegations against A and B are unproven, but most fans, influenced by the media, either like or are indifferent to A and despise B. That's argumentative inconsistency if I ever saw it.
I agree and disagree with at the same time. Yes, there is a double standard in practice with those different groups of people involved when it comes to how people feel about them and their alleged (or not alleged in some cases, some actually have admitted or been convicted of) misdeeds. That double standard does originate for most people in how the media portrays these people. One of the first things I remember learning in my Mass Media class (holy cow, I paid attention in a class) many moons ago is that the camera, by its very nature, is one of the most discriminating things. When it is pointing at something, it is naturally ignoring everything else around it and the media uses the camera to record and then rebroadcast just about everything; so yes, there is an element of bias in the media that do affect how people view the different groups.
Where I see it a little differently is that the media doesn't always skew the message. The reason Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens and Michael Vick seem to get the worse attention than the others you mentioned is because of how they all reacted when confronted by the media. Now I know the media is annoying and such; but know this; if someone is not very nice to people who do have an effect of how they are portrayed - how poorly do you think that same person treats people they view as their inferiors? When it comes to Michael Vick and Roger Clemens; I think the public is just getting more adept at sifting through a players speeches of bull to create their own opinions now too. Personally, I am not a big fan of Clemens or Vick or Bonds; but that has to nothing to do with their crimes. It has everything to do with how they conducted themselves before they became notorious. Barry Bonds has never been a nice guy (to the media or fellow teammates) but one heck of a ball player. Clemens lost all of my respect in the year of the Subway Series and the Mike Piazza deal. I understand passion in the heat of a game; he just took it to a level of scumbag. Michael Vick has always come off to me as a player who felt he was entitled to special treatment because of his playing ability and then when he was implicated in the crimes, he immediately threw his family under the bus. That settled that for me.
But for everyone else, their opinions may be shaped by different times and I think the media will have something to do with a lot of opinions.
All valid points, Waldo. Your discussion of the camera's power is very interesting and makes a lot of sense. That was an aspect of media bias I never thought about really.
I agree with you that Bonds and Clemens were the best of their era. And if neither had touched a PED, they still would have been. Unfortunately niether may make the HOF for a long time due to the character issue that still has Pete Rose on the outside looking in. IF Bonds gets convicted of a felony for perjury or tax fraud/evasion, he probably shouldn't. IF Clemens gets convicted of perjury or perhaps statutory rape, if thats possible 15 years later, he probably shouldn't either. This would be a shame. I've always been a Roger Clemens fan but I don't believe him anymore and I can't blame the media for that. I can maybe say the media has been pretty hard on Bonds, but Bonds also hasn't been really friendly with the media either. With Michael Vick, he's been found guilty in his crime and is living 25 miles away from me now in Leavenworth...again, I don't see where the media did anything to ruin his reputation here, he did the crime, he's paying his price. I have NO sympathy for Pacman Jones either. His actions resulted in a night club employee being paralyzed for life. Pacman has taken the opportunities given him to give his side of the story and he doesn't strike me as someone who understands his behavior has been wrong.
I totally understand how the media puts its bias into his reporting, all major news networks are guilty in that and yes the sports media as well, but I think this Group B deserves what they're getting. I haven't been following the Isaiah Thomas thing all that closely as the NBA doesn't interest me all that much, so I'll not render an opinion on him.
Category A: Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa, Randy Moss, Bill Belichick, Kobe Bryant
Category B: Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Isiah Thomas, Michael Vick, Pacman Jones
I'm not exactly sure that some of those guys in Cat A have gotten off without dents in their credibility.
In McGwire's case, he was long retired before he made an idiot of himself in front of congress, and his non-testimony brought a LOT of criticism. However, he has remained out of the spotlight since then because he's not playing, and because he hasn't done several other things that are worthy of criticism. With Bonds and Clemens, and to a lesser degree Isiah, it seems as if every time the open their mouths they show not only a lack of character, but a lack of good judgment.
Moss and Bryant were rightly criticised for their indiscretions, but both have been pretty quiet lately. That doesn't mean we've all forgotten, because as soon as Moss's name shows up in the Orlando police blotter, we're all over him again.
I can't think of a more polarizing NFL figure than Belichik. Pats fans love him, everyone else loathes him. How is he getting a free pass?
I see what you're getting at, and to a degree i agree that the media does play a large role in how we perceive certain individuals. But a lot of times, the stories they report merely validate opinions we already held on these individuals.
