Bonds to Costas: You freakin' midget
Reports of Barry Bonds' semi-meltdown before Wednesday night's Giants-Braves game, relating to a story on Bob Costas' "Costas Now" HBO series that gave former BALCO chemist Patrick Arnold a forum to discuss the future home-run king's steroid use, were both amusing and disturbing from our perspective.
"You mean that little midget man who absolutely knows jack about baseball, who never played the game before?" Bonds, who didn't play Wedneday, responded when asked about Costas' show, which had Arnold talk about Bonds' use of the substance he thought was flaxseed oil during his 2001 single-season home-run performance of 73 dingers.
"You can tell Bob Costas what I called him."
Not that we can't appreciate the subtle jab Bonds gave to the diminutive sportcaster. But trying to kill the messenger is a perfect example of what Bonds has been doing througout his career.
If only we had that on tape in an episode of "Bonds on Bonds."
Meanwhile, ESPN's "town meeting" on Wednesday in San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, a poll conducted on ESPN.com asking the question -- “Do you want Barry Bonds to break the home run record?” -- produced 53 percent of responses saying "No," with 26 percent "Yes" and 21 percent "Don't Care."
As for Bonds' relationship with the media, former teammate Kirk Reuter said on the show: "The media would love to write bad stuff about him. I saw on a number of occasions everybody wanted to talk to him (after games). Well, he didn't want to talk every day. I think he got a bad rap because he'd tell them to get lost."
The show also included what was called the first public audio play of Bonds’ former trainer, Greg Anderson, talking about the “undetectable… stuff” he said he gave Bonds in 2003: “Everything that I’ve been doing at this point, it’s all undetectable… See the stuff I have, we created it, and you can’t buy it anywhere else… But you can take it the day of (the test), pee, and it comes up perfect.”
Lance Williams, the San Francisco Chronicle reporter who co-wrote the "Shadows" book that included leaked grand jury testimony, said on the show: “The press coverage of Barry right now is surprisingly positive, given these bizarre circumstances. Step back for a minute. He’s under jury investigation. His trainer’s in prison… It’s really an odd time, and yet quite a bit of the coverage is pretty upbeat.”
And, in an odd way, if you want to put Bonds into perspective with all else going on in sports this week:
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