When Steve Levy says “[t]here?s a behind-bars joke there somewhere” upon seeing Barry Bonds standing behind a chain-link fence, any question about his impartiality surrounding the Bonds BALCO controversy is answered.
When virtually every pundit on ESPN shares the same opinion about said controversy and Bonds the person, any question of impartiality is answered. And while everyone is entitled to their own opinions, once the majority of individuals on a network seem to share the same negative opinion about someone, it might make sense for that person to stop peddling his services to those individuals.
Hence Barry Bonds, taking the night off for each of ESPN’s three San Francisco Giants games this season. Evidently, those at ESPN do not consider Bonds skipping ESPN-televised games to be a coincidence, as the subject was brought up on Baseball Tonight recently.
Is Bonds is purposefully getting back at ESPN for years of criticism? Would that be fair, considering that ESPN once aired the much maligned reality show Bonds on Bonds, where Bonds had a half-hour platform to portray himself as he saw fit? Possibly not; but then again, years of criticism that in some cases borders on unprofessional may cancel out any short-lived reality show, at least in Bonds’ mind.
No matter what the cause of any slight, Bonds purposefully sitting out games televised by ESPN would be the most effective form of revenge — not that it would cause the Worldwide Leader any significant damage. The game where Bonds finally sets the all-time home run record will be one of the highest rated of the year, if not the highest rated. Currently, the highest rated game(s) of the season are two Sunday Night Baseball Yankees/Red Sox games, both of which drew a 3.5 national rating. The Bonds’ 756 game, with the many storylines and emotions attached, should easily top that; the rating could rise as high as 6.0 on FOX, and as high as 5.0 on ESPN. While ESPN can survive without an inflated rating from Bonds, it is easy to imagine that losing out on such a game would cause some irritation among ESPN executives.
Is this petty? Of course. Does it hurt the Giants? Not as much as it would have three years ago, but yes. But at this point, after five solid years of unyielding criticism from every possible corner, Barry Bonds does not owe anyone anything — especially ESPN. And if it hurts the Worldwide Leader in the television ratings, the network can simply shrug it off and look forward to the seventeen Monday Night Football telecasts it has coming in the fall.
