Barry Bonds: The Most Hated Athlete In History?

Marketing Evaluations Inc. of Manhasset, New York ran a survey recently to determine the popularity of various professional athletes. Know what they "discovered"?

Barry Bonds is one of the least-liked (is that the same as "disliked"?) people in sports. Shocking, I know.

It shouldn't be news to anyone who follows baseball that Bonds is kind of a dick. In the last ten years alone, he has been accused of: cheating on his wife; cheating on his taxes; lying to a grand jury; purchasing and using illegal drugs that transformed him from a Hall of Fame baseball player to one of the best ever; failing to properly hug his son after hitting homerun number 756; being a bad teammate; and not playing nice with the media. That's what I've got off the top of my head. Certainly there are others charges to be brought in the court of public opinion as well.

Opponents of Bonds often try to push the idea that he is the most hated person in the history of baseball, if not all of sports. I am neither in favor of nor against Bonds (although I do find myself attempting to defend him against stupid attacks recently), and I may sometimes be slightly off in my attempts to provide insight into current events, but I know a little bit about sports history. And I am fairly certain that forty years from now, Barry Bonds will be viewed far differently from the way he is today.

Why do I feel this way? Because of a 20-year-old kid from San Diego, that's why. A kid so bold, so brash, that when told he was being sent down to the minor leagues for more seasoning, informed the team's starting outfielders that, ''I'll be back, and I'll be making more money than the three of you put together.'' So angry over his treatment at the hands of the fans that he refused to tip his cap or acknowledge their cheers for fifty years. So frustrated with the local media that he dubbed them "The Knights of the Keyboard" and didn't mend fences for several decades. So imperfect as a human being that he spit when frustrated, tossed a bat that accidentally struck a fan in the head, made obscene gestures, married and divorced multiple times.

Or how about the youngster from Louisville, the one with the fast hands and the even faster mouth? The kid who won the heavyweight championship of the world and immediately made enemies by refusing to hide his allegiance to the Nation of Islam. Who made even more enemies by refusing to accept induction into the United States Army during the Vietnam War. Who turned on a close friend, in the name of promotion, painting him as an "Uncle Tom", referring to him as a gorilla, and generally driving his reputation into the ground.

The primary difference between Ted Williams, Muhammad Ali and Barry Bonds, as I see it, is that historical perspective gives us some legitimacy in considering the first two heroic figures, while we have no such luxury with Bonds. Williams had a terrible temper and was detested by many fans and most of the media...but he also worked tirelessly to raise money for The Jimmy Fund, championed the cause of former Negro League players at his own Hall of Fame induction and served his country in not one, but two wars, flying 39 missions over Korea and narrowly escaping disaster on more than one occasion. He may have been imperfect, but he also possessed certain qualities that we look for in our heroes.

And as hated as Ali was at the height of his boxing career, his legacy has done nothing but grow since the 1960s. Where his decision not to accept his draft status and refuse induction into the Army was regarded as subversive and anti-American at the time, it is now regarded as a heroic choice, one that cost him nearly four years in the prime of his career. He turned his allegiance to the Nation of Islam into a devotion to the religion of Islam, turning his back on racially inflammatory statements made in his youth and professing the need for peace and love and understanding. And it doesn't hurt that he has cultivated a reputation as one of the most open legends in sports, the type of person who will answer the knock of a complete stranger at his door and talk for awhile.

With Bonds, we just don't know how this is going to turn out. Yes, he has appeared to this point to be a morally bankrupt figure with few redeeming qualities to speak of. But if you had asked many sports fans in 1960 or the mid-1970s, you would have found a large number who said the same of Williams and Ali.

That's why it's silly to label Barry Bonds the most hated player in the history of sports, or to put any stock in some survey that tells us how much people dislike him right now. Because before we know it, the year will be 2039 and we'll be listening to fans and media alike as they talk about Bonds and how it's a damn shame that a guy like Bonds, who was such a great player and who did so much charity work through the years, is losing his record to some guy who just doesn't deserve it.