Baseball Musings: Erasing History

June 02, 2008

Erasing History

Cameron Martin notes two omissions from an MLB commerical promoting Griffey's pursuit of 600 home runs:

During Sunday's Red Sox/Orioles game, which I watched on MLB.TV, the league ran a promotional commercial for Ken Griffey's approach to 600 home runs. Backed by maudlin piano music, a Costas-like narrator says the following script, to the accompaniment of pictures and video:
"Willie Mays, September 22, 1969...600.
Babe Ruth, August 21, 1931...600.
Hank Aaron, April 27, 1971...600."

Then the screen flips to Griffey, who sits at 599, and he says, "Ken Griffey Jr.... keep watching."

Only five men in Major League Baseball history have hit 600 home runs - the aforementioned three, plus Barry Bonds (762) and Sammy Sosa (609). So, why weren't the dates of their 600th home runs included in MLB's tribute to Griffey's pursuit? I guess it's possible that mentioning all five players would take too long for a quick, effective commercial. And I guess it's possible that Barry Bonds will make the Hall of Fame someday. What's more likely, however, is that Major League Baseball is whitewashing history.

This reminds me of Animal Farm.

Posted by David Pinto at 08:22 AM | Records | TrackBack (0)

Comments

I love how many fans and many in baseball are so quick to throw that evil Barry Bonds under the bus for representing all things "cheating" and "bad" and, well, we all know and debate the arguments, etc...

But then, at the same time, Griffey's promoted as what's good and pure. Not only do I know of a Griffey--and no, I don't "blame" him for this, he's human and has his own personality--who has a temper and who has had his surly moments, but I'd ask how "everyone's" so sure that Griffey never "cheated" and never took "steroids"? 'Cause he has a nice smile?

If the argument is--and many seem to take it this way--that "most" or "all" or "many" or "a lot" or whatever amount of players explicitly "cheated" (rarely defined or quantified) by taking "steroids" (again, rarely defined or quantified) over the last 20-odd years, then the "pass" that Griffey gets is all the more ridiculous. To me, the treatment of Griffey vs. the treatment of the whole "steroid" issue just demonstrates how fabricated this whole "scandal" really is.

Keep on hitting Ken and keep on keeping on. Count your lucky stars that sports fans and the sports media have selected you as one of the "good ones."

Posted by: Kent at June 2, 2008 10:02 AM

I don't agree. I think they're keeping the controversial players out of the commercial. That's a smart idea. If someone like me, who believes Sosa and Bonds cheated worse than the 9 guys on the 1919 White Sox saw that commercial and it had them in it -- no. Absolutely no. If you're going to ban Pete for betting his team would win a game, you need to ban PED users who cheated to win. I know they say the jury is still out, but com'on....would Chick Gandil have admitted it before solid solid evidence came to light? So yeah, MLB did the right thing excluding them from promotional spots.

Posted by: S P at June 2, 2008 10:47 AM

I don't understand all the Griffey adulation. When he was younger, he was a prima donna clubhouse-jerk who make his team trade him in part because he was worried that their new ball park would suppress his home runs. He also famously never cared about his physical conditioning, which probably contributed to his body breaking down at a young age.

Obviously, one has to appreciate his prodigous natural talents, and his solidly Hall of Fame calibre, although not inner circle, career. But pretending he is some paragon of baseball virtue really irks me.

Posted by: Blackadder at June 2, 2008 11:26 AM

Lots of ballplayers are not paragons of virtue. But I honestly believe Griffey when he says he never took the drugs. Sure, this is based on eyeballing him and not really seeing any physical change over the years. But also based on the fact that there's been absolutely nothing that's ever surfaced in the way of evidence that he took steroids or HGH.

Bonds and Griffey both grew up with the ballplaying pedigree. Both were superstars from the moment they joined the MLB. The difference, in my eyes, is that Griffey "grew up" during his career. Bonds just grew more bitter.

And I'm not sure I buy that Griffey forced a trade because he thought the park would rob him of HRs. I thought he was pretty vocal about not seeing himself as a HR hitter, from the start of his career.

Posted by: Mike at June 2, 2008 11:39 AM

Just as the steroid isssue heated up in the 2002 CBA negotiations, MLB decided to use superhuman bulging muscle cartoons to promote the game (one of whom was Barry Bonds).

The press release:

NEW YORK -- Major league baseball, coming off a labor settlement that averted a strike, has launched its first worldwide postseason advertising campaign with the theme "Wear the ring.''

The campaign, created by McCann-Erickson, began Sunday with spots during NFL broadcasts on FOX and baseball's telecast on ESPN. It is similar to the pre-All-Star game campaign that portrayed stars as superhuman puffed-up cartoon characters, and is aimed at 18-34 year-olds.

Ads feature Lance Berkman, Barry Bonds, Eric Chavez, Troy Glaus, Torii Hunter, Kazuhisa Ishii, Derek Jeter, Randy Johnson, Chipper Jones, Pedro Martinez, Albert Pujols and Ichiro Suzuki.

"The superhuman campaign works to attract the demographic that our TV partners and sponsors want,'' Tim Brosnan, baseball's executive vice president of business, said Monday.

MLB chose to not promote Griffey at the time. But of course they were concerned about their image and steroids!

PS - the prepondence of the charges v. Bonds are related to THG, which was not deemed a schedule III drug by the FDA at the time nor was it on any banned substance list (until the end of the 2003 season). So Bonds is being charged with numerous counts of perjury regarding taking a legal substance?

Posted by: Bob Tufts at June 2, 2008 11:42 AM

I think you meant to say it reminded you of "1984", not "Animal Farm". Different Orwell book.

Posted by: Zenny at June 2, 2008 06:45 PM

No, he meant Animal Farm:

All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.

Of course, 1984 wouldn't be far off the mark, either--or we could forget literature altogether and note that Bonds and Sosa are being consigned to nonperson status as far as the 600 HR club is concerned.

Posted by: M. Scott Eiland at June 3, 2008 01:43 AM

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