FireJay's Relationship With Jeff Pearlman Becomes Increasingly Complex With Every Post

Honestly, the guy is really cool. He let me interview him. His Barry Bonds book is fantastic. He seems friendly, approachable, down to Earth, and generally the antithesis of the sports journalism world's multitude of Jay Mariottis. So why must he always be so wrong about everything? Unfortunately, yet again, he leaves me with no choice.

Example #1, from his blog.

There’s been mounting buzz of late that somebody—Boston? the White Sox? Tampa Bay—should bite the bullet and sign Barry Bonds to a free agent deal.

I hate Barry Bonds. A lot. I hate him more than I hate white people. (Just kidding! I am white. And not a self-loathing white person, either. I just wanted to make a racist remark, because those usually generate controversy, and subsequently, blog traffic.) And yet, I have to agree that those teams would almost certainly benefit from signing him.

The arguments are myriad: He can still slug. Incredible on-base percentage. An instant threat in the midst of a lineup. Etc.

All valid.

My take: No friggin’ way.

I mean, that's fine. You could make a case as to why a Bonds signing would be a bad idea. It would probably be pretty weak, and based on nothing more than his personality issues, and maybe the tenuous idea that he's no longer on steroids, but it would still be a case.

Signing Barry Bonds would be a complete and total disaster, for about 8,302 reasons

Reason No. 1: He’s a has-been.

Well, technically, yes. He's not nearly as good as he was 15, ten, five, or even three years ago. But please elaborate.

Everyone talks about Bonds’ phenomenal on-base percentage, but consider how he reached it.

I am under the impression that he reached it by not making an out somewhere between 40% and 60% of the time he came to the plate.

In San Francisco, Bonds was surrounded in the lineup by liquid crud. Who wouldn’t pitch around Bonds (or, for that matter, me) if you’re “protected” by Ray Durham and Benji Molina. Of course he had a high on-base percentage.

In how many ways can we identify this as WRONG?

1) We could anecdotally point out that while in SF, Bonds played with Matt Williams in his late prime, Jeff Kent in his late prime, Ellis Burks in his late prime, and a cast of many other excellent hitters. The punchless Giants Pearlman refers to didn't really exist until about 2004.

2) We could take this route: note that if you're accusing a player of having an inflated OBP, then it would seem to follow that you're accusing them of not being as good a hitter as most people think. (Assuming we generally equate a high OBP with hitting ability, which seems more than fair.) Then we could ask Jeff: do you really want to say that the all time home run champion... is overrated? There's a couple logical leaps in there, but none of them are 1/10th as outrageous as what Jeff is trying to say.

3) We could note that while OBP can be artificially inflated by intentional or semi-intentional walks, there is no corresponding way to "inflate" slugging percentage. Either you get a lot of extra base hits, or you don't. We could then note that Bonds has the 6th highest SLG in baseball history, and that his SLG as a Giant is much higher than his SLG as a Pirate. By putting these two pieces together, we could conclude that no matter how many times he was pitched around while playing for SF, the numbers show that he was still an unbelievably dangerous hitter if and when pitchers dared to challenge him.

4) We could laugh, and just shout "WRONG!" Everyone needs a little more laughter in their lives anyways.

Reason No. 2: He’s the worst clubhouse cancer in the modern history of sports.

Probably true, and a fair reason to hesitate, but not enough to conclusively say that picking him up would be a bad idea.

Worse than T.O. or Randy Moss; worse than John Rocker or J.R. Rider. The worst. He wants special perks, and special perks don’t fly during a pennant race.

Special perks must have been cleared for takeoff by the FAA during the 2002 season, when the Giants won the pennant.

Any team he joins will be an awfully good one. In Boston, would guys like Josh Beckett and David Ortiz really want to put up with his bullshit? After all they’ve accomplished? No way.

This is not a "0 or 1" binary problem. It's not like there's putting up with bullshit, and not putting up with bullshit, and nothing in between. Say the Red Sox were five games behind the Rays and only a game up on the Yankees on August 15th, Ortiz was still out of the lineup, and then they signed Bonds. Would everyone embrace him with open arms and tell the media that he was the coolest cat they'd ever met? Probably not. Would they bite their collective tongue, and allow Bonds to set up his recliner, TV, fridge, microwave, massage chair, air purifier, Deep Rock water tank, entertainment center, hot tub, BBQ grill, NBA Jam arcade machine, skeeball machine, hyperbaric chamber, gazebo, and Nerf mini-hoop wherever he wanted? Probably.

Reason No. 3: He’s 44.

Last year, at age 43, he was arguably one of the 20 best hitters in baseball when in the lineup. Of course, a player's ability drops off extremely quickly after 36 or so. But Bonds would have to drop a looooooong way to be not worth a pro-rated deal somewhere in the low millions.

I’m 36, and I can no longer catch up with the inside heat

Jeff, please. You're a blogger now. It's unlikely you've ever even seen a real-life baseball game, let alone tried to play in one.

(Actually, I could never catch up with the inside heat. But now I have trouble tying my shoes without farting)

I'll give him points here for a poop/fart/butt joke.

Reason No. 4: My dog Norma just ate a leaf. I blame this on Bonds.

Tongue-in-cheek alert, everyone! Tongue-in-cheek alert! Sorry, Jeff. Based on most of the other garbage you've written that has been picked apart by us, I'm simply not going to be able to accept this as a copout. I'm 100% certain that you legitimately think Bonds isn't going to help any team that happens to sign him. And for that opinion, sir, you are a clod.

Example #2, from his ESPN.com sob story about journeyman infielder Mike Lamb:

What Lamb didn't say, at least not bluntly, is that -- despite what fans might think -- there is no such thing as a "dream job"; that every schlub who believes in the right to mercilessly heckle a ballplayer because he's "living the life" needs a few lessons at decency school.

First of all, I'm pretty sure heckling players falls under the same category as sacrifice bunts, stolen bases, running over the catcher, pitchers "finishing what they started, dadgumit," and umpires using those giant arm-worn shields as chest protectors. That is to say: heckling is part of playing/participating in the game the way it was meant to be played/participated in. It's old school. It's part of baseball lore. It's what little kids used to do with their spare time when they weren't working in factories or playing kick the can. Computers can't quantify its effect; therefore, it's "good for ball."

Second of all, if millions and millions of people around the world spend good parts of their free time doing what you do for a living (or a variation thereof), and usually paying some kind of league a good bit of money for that privilege, guess what? You have what is legitimately referred to as a "dream job." I don't hear about too many people rushing home from their regular job so they can go take customer service calls or sell vacuums on out in a field somewhere.

I'm (probably, pending the whole law school thing) going to be a lawyer one day. Although it carries a number of negative connotations (LAWYER JOKES GO HERE!), I think it's fair to say that that's regarded by most people as a "good" job. Many would say a "desirable" job, even. Certainly in the top, say, 15% of common jobs, right? You might personally think it sounds awful, but I believe the general consensus in a large-scale poll would be that most people wouldn't mind switching their current job for one as a lawyer. And yet, do you know how many people out of a hundred would pick being a lawyer over being a MLB player if given the hypothetical choice of either career path? Negative 1,000 billion, that's how many. Baseball... not a dream job... what are you, fucking nuts?

So baseball players have to spend a lot of time away from their families? Tough shit! That happens in a lot of lines of work, and most of them don't have a median yearly salary in the low seven figures. Mike Lamb, miserable and sympathetic as Pearlman makes him sound, has, at the frail old age of 32, made $6.5 million so far. Ninety-nine percent of Americans can't even comprehend that kind of money. So yes, I will heckle you, MLB ballplayers. Deal with it. Fuck Jeff Pearlman's opinion about the matter.

Minor league players? Now that job is a little bit tougher, what with all the bus travel and shitty accommodations. But most of those guys don't have kids. And given the chance (haven't been to a minor league game in years), hell, I'd probably heckle them too. What are they gonna do about it? "Accidentally" throw a ball into the stands and try to make me hilariously spill my beer and popcorn while avoiding it? That's a risk I'm willing to take.