LOVE VILLAINS

Admit it, fans: We love the villain


Barry BondsLet’s get it out there once and for all: Baseball fans love Barry Bonds.

No? Well what the hell am I supposed to think when they vote him into the All Star Game, despite the constant barrage of hate that the general population normally spews at him?

Bonds is by far the most hated athlete in all of sports, yet he’s elected – by the fans – to what’s supposed to reward the best players from the first half of the season. What gives?

I've been racking my brain trying to figure this out, and I've concluded that most fans fall into one of these three categories regarding Bonds' selection into the All Star Game and him in general.

1. You’re a conspiracy theorist who believes Major League Baseball rigged the voting so Bonds could play at his home park in San Francisco. It’s about marketing the game and therefore the all mighty dollar.
2. You actually like Bonds or the Giants, truly think he never took anything to enhance his already pretty dominant game or believe he was the best player on his team in the first half.
3. You simply hate him, but can’t get enough of all the drama and therefore love to see him in the national spotlight at all times.

If you fit into the first category, fine, whatever helps you sleep at night. It is interesting how Bonds got thousands of votes in 37 seconds in order to leapfrog the Cubs’ Alfonso Soriano, but something tells me Major League Baseball stayed out of this one.

Think about it, Bud the slug Selig isn’t well liked and at times this year he’s tried to paint a public picture that he disapproves of Bonds. He even went so far as to say that he may not attend any games in which Bonds could potentially break the record, so why allow the league to put him in the All Star Game? Seems counterproductive to me, but it’s still a possibility when you think of how much money Bonds could bring to the league while playing at his home park.

Moving on, though, if you fit into the second category, then you’ve got nothing to explain. You’re naïve if you think for one second he didn’t juice, but it’s understandable to vote Bonds in if you’re a fan of his or just backing him because he plays for your favorite team.

Onto the third category, which is the one I truly believe 75 percent of sports fans fit into. You need the monster and deep down love the idea that you get to bitch about how he shouldn’t have made the game because he cheated, he’s an ass, or the pure fact that he wasn’t even the best Giant throughout the first half (that honor goes to Bengie Molina, by the way, seeing as how he can actually play defense and was way more clutch at the plate than Bonds).

Sure, you love to stand around the water cooler with your friends, on top of your soapbox proclaiming how he cheated the game, Hank Aaron and the fans. You boo him vehemently when he comes to your baseball city and post on Internet message boards how he’s the scum of the earth.

But all the while, you’re punching “B. Bonds” on the All-Star ballot, snapping countless pictures of him at the ball yard and digging up everything you can on the web.

We love to hate guys like Bonds, just like we love to hate the Spurs and Patriots for winning all the time and the Yankees for, well, being the Yankees.

We can’t stand that a guy like Bonds cheated in his profession while we struggle just to make ends meet in ours.

We can’t stand that franchises like the Spurs and Patriots are considered dynasties because, “the Celtics and Cowboys back in my day – now those were dynasties!”

We can’t stand that the Yankees can buy or trade for any player and therefore have an unfair advantage over the Devil Rays, Pirates and Nationals.

Why on earth, then, do the Yankees sell out at every stadium across America if they’re hated? People want to see them go down in flames, because it’s the American way that David can beat Goliath in sports, and that the poor or middle class can rise up against the wealthy. There’s nothing wrong with feeling this way, of course, but most people wont’ admit to those feelings.

The truth of the matter is that we as sports fans need Bonds, the Spurs, the Patriots and the Bronx Bombers. They breed controversy in their own special way and with that, it gives us a reason to call into a sports radio show, constantly debate on the Internet or tune in to the 24-hour television networks to complain about how these villains make our blood boil.

Barry Bonds is the perfect villain in every sense of the word. There are countless MLB players who have cheated, yet only one is hated to all extremes. Is Sammy Sosa hated these days? Hell no; in fact, didn’t we just celebrate his 600th home run? How about Mark McGwire? Does his name always come up when venom is being spat at Bonds? No, because we only need one bad guy in order to stoke the flames until the next one comes along.

Alex RodriguezFunny thing is, who’s the next villain in baseball? Once Bonds retires, who else is there to hate? Albert Pujols? Ryan Howard? The Yankees will always – unless a cap is implemented, of course – be the villain team that everyone hates. But they still don’t match Bonds in a lot of ways because while they can win championships, they can’t touch the individual records that sports fans cherish as much as the player who sets them does.

That’s why sports fans better hope Alex Rodriguez stays a Yankee (and married to his wacko wife for, that matter). He doesn’t have the same aura about him as a Derek Jeter, rarely says the right thing and is great enough to make records fall. In other words, he’s the perfect villain to supplant Bonds once he finally retires.

I think subconsciously, fans voted Bonds an All-Star because they know his time is almost up. Fairly soon there won’t be the constant swirl of controversy every time he steps to the plate or hits a ball 475 feet into the upper deck. No more ESPN cut-ins of his at bats, Pedro Gomez special reports, “Bonds on Bonds,” or special treatment from Giants’ owner Peter McGowan. Fans will shout from the rooftops how much they hate the aforementioned “Bondsisms”, but they also need to admit how important the guy is in the scope of sports. He – much like the Patriots, Spurs and Yankees – gives us reason to say, “He’s not that good, and let me tell you why….”

The villain’s reign of terror is coming to an end and all of a sudden, there’s a growing void in the game. Why else would the starting lineup for next week’s All Star Game list “B. Bonds” in left field?