When the Giants Come to Town, It's Bye-Bye Baby

07.26.2007
Little Midget Man

In case you’ve missed it, Bob Costas interviewed major-league blowhard and johnnie-come-lately blogger Curt Schilling recently, and Schilling called out Barry Bonds and others on the steroid issue. A couple excerpts:

"If someone wrote that stuff about me and I didn't sue their [butt] off, am I not admitting that there's some legitimacy to it?"

Bonds in fact did sue over Game of Shadows but dropped his suit a few months later. If he hadn’t dropped it, the writers’ butts would have come off and Schilling would have been satisfied. More:

"It goes to the Mark McGwire thing in Congress. I mean, I'm a huge Mark McGwire fan.”

Mark asked me to let everyone know he’s thrilled. I mean, Curt Schilling? A fan? It doesn’t get any better than that.

“But I just always thought it was very simple: If you did something and someone asks you if you did it and you didn't do it, you say no. Any other answer than no is some form of yes, isn't it?"

Curt, who urged a national TV audience before the 2004 presidential elections to vote for Bush, also has a strong sense of mor-uhl clayr-uh-tee. While Rafael Palmeiro was pointing his finger and McGwire was hiding in his turtleneck, here’s what Schill said before Congress:

"I think while I agree it's a problem, I think the issue was grossly overstated by some people, including myself.”

Costas was curious about this statement. Schilling explained: 

"When you're sitting in front of Congress and you're under oath, you'd better be damn sure if you're going to mention a name that you are 100 percent guaranteed sure somebody did something.”

And when you’re sitting in front of Bob Costas and you’re under the influence of your own ego-toxicants? Like our President says, shoot mouth first, ask questions later, Beansprout! Heh heh! 

In the aftermath of all this, Bonds of course does the mature, veteran-savvy, high-road thing. He calls Bob Costas a “little midget man.”

Which, technically speaking, he is. More or less. But I’ll give Costas, one of the most overrated sports announcers in sports-announcing history, the last word for now.

"I've actually always had a pretty cordial relationship with Barry,” Costas said.

Bob: Barry, my dear fellow! How are you?
Barry: Who? What? Did I just hear a voice from somewhere in the vicinity of my navel?

"I have no ill feelings toward him personally. I regard him as one of the greatest players of all time who got [an] inauthentic boost and then became a superhuman player. I wish him no ill whatsoever.”

Wait, no. My blog: I get the last word. La ultima palabra, baby. Does anyone else notice a resemblance between the Costas quote above and Bud Selig’s statement about attending Giants games while Bonds aims for the record?



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[July 26, 2007 7:03 PM]  |  link  |  reply
mxmob33 said

Worst part of this whole thing is that Barry just pissed off the whole midget community. As if he didn't have enough enemies.

[July 26, 2007 7:28 PM]  |  link  |  reply
obsessivegiantscompulsive said

"I have no ill feelings toward him personally. I regard him as one of the greatest players of all time who got [an] inauthentic boost and then became a superhuman player. I wish him no ill whatsoever.”

In other words, he's just a cheat (though unproven thus far) but I wish him no ill by spreading potentially maliscious and false lies that kills his reputation even further on national TV, particularly since he's still doing the same superhuman feats when he is being tested regularly the past few years.

With cordial acquaintances like Costa, you don't need enemmies.

[July 26, 2007 9:11 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Tim said

Seems disingenous to just say that Bonds sued the authors. He didn't sue them for lying about him. He sued them for making money off him.

[July 26, 2007 11:00 PM]  |  link  |  reply
ELM said

Tim: you're either with us or against us.

[July 27, 2007 12:27 AM]  |  link  |  reply
Frank said

Well, it is exactly what one would expect from Schilling, an egotistical moron, who vastly overrates his own importance - and intellgence.
But Costas' stance is a little more worrisome. It says, basically, "well, I feel in my gut, so I must be right." Ya know, if you're really proud of yourself after you decided to buy that Chevy instead of the ford or Honda, well, good for you, but, while it makes you feel better, it doesn't make you right. People just seem to contemplate the possiblity they are wrong. And when they do, sort of like G Bush, they jsut change the subject.
I thought Costas was smarter. For him to either have no insight or to just blithely go ahead with his 'gut' as if that is somehow reliable is the worst sort of pandering. The unexamined life, and all. I know, he's just a sports writer, but sports writers have begun to assume the place of commentators on society - the new Chet Huntley's. For them to just be blathering Rush Limbaugh megalomaniacs is either scary or disappointing.

[July 27, 2007 12:59 AM]  |  link  |  reply
Brian said

Look at Schilling's numbers from 2001 and 2002. He had career years at the ages of 34 and 35. Does that not scream steroids?

He who smelt it, dealt it.

[July 27, 2007 1:24 AM]  |  link  |  reply
someguynamedg said

Costas has become such a blow hard. Even more so now that he finally jumped onto the Bonds Hate Train.

[July 27, 2007 1:28 AM]  |  link  |  reply
ELM said

Costas isn't a sports writer. He's a sports announcer. He shows up every few years to do the Olympics and a Ken Burns special. What does he do, exactly? Bonds's response was dumb, but the more I think about it, the more I sort of agree -- who the fuck is this little twerp?

[July 27, 2007 11:42 AM]  |  link  |  reply
someguynamedg said

-ELM but his voice has such gravitas! He must be saying something intelligent.

[July 29, 2007 8:08 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Carmichael said

Schilling played for the 1993 Phillies and the 2001 Diamondbacks, two of the more notorious (allegedly notorious?) steroid monster teams in history. I don't remember hearing him talk much about the evils of steroids, then. Now, of course, he's turned all moral and stuff, but I'd take his act a lot more seriously if I heard him mentioning some of his ex-teammates in the same breath that he's blasing Barry Bonds.