Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Bloom on Bonds
For his discussion about Barry Bonds on Monday night's edition of Quite Frankly with Stephen A. Smith, the ESPN commentator interviewed my brother Barry Bloom, who's a national reporter for MLB.com. Asked his opinion of Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams' controversial steroids-in-baseball expose Book of Shadows, Bloom replied:
"I have a tremendous amount of respect for the journalists who wrote [Game of Shadows]. Obviously, they put a lot of work into it. I don't think it's as well footnoted as I would've liked to have seen. It reads as a narrative. So I think the layman who reads the book reads it as the truth when really there are a lot of questions to be asked about it.
"But that being said," he continued, "if you take everything at true value in there, I'm wondering why a guy like Gary Sheffield, who is hammered pretty well in the book, is being given a free pass by much of the New York media, who seems pretty apt at taking swats at Barry."
Last night, on ESPN's reality series Bond on Bonds, the slugger claimed, "I'm being judged by public opinion. I'm being crucified by the media."
He also said about Pete Rose, "He should be in the Hall of Fame... OK, suspend him permanently from the game for gambling as a coach or manager... He hit all those 4,000 hits when he was playing... But's he's a hall of famer - he'll always be a hall of famer in all of our hearts."
Regarding his slow start, Bonds admitted, "It's a chess game. Right now I'm making the wrong moves... I just have to stay with my workouts and figure out something."
Bonds on Bonds is surprisingly fair and balanced. Episodes air every Tuesday at 7 pm EST.
"I have a tremendous amount of respect for the journalists who wrote [Game of Shadows]. Obviously, they put a lot of work into it. I don't think it's as well footnoted as I would've liked to have seen. It reads as a narrative. So I think the layman who reads the book reads it as the truth when really there are a lot of questions to be asked about it.
"But that being said," he continued, "if you take everything at true value in there, I'm wondering why a guy like Gary Sheffield, who is hammered pretty well in the book, is being given a free pass by much of the New York media, who seems pretty apt at taking swats at Barry."
Last night, on ESPN's reality series Bond on Bonds, the slugger claimed, "I'm being judged by public opinion. I'm being crucified by the media."
He also said about Pete Rose, "He should be in the Hall of Fame... OK, suspend him permanently from the game for gambling as a coach or manager... He hit all those 4,000 hits when he was playing... But's he's a hall of famer - he'll always be a hall of famer in all of our hearts."
Regarding his slow start, Bonds admitted, "It's a chess game. Right now I'm making the wrong moves... I just have to stay with my workouts and figure out something."
Bonds on Bonds is surprisingly fair and balanced. Episodes air every Tuesday at 7 pm EST.
