SCHILLING BURIES BONDS

[hwbs]

By Steve Silva, Boston.com Staff
Curt Schilling may be a big fan of Roger Clemens, but you won’t find any Barry Bonds posters hanging on the walls of his Medfield home.

Schilling, in his weekly appearance on sports radio WEEI’s "Dennis and Callahan" show, was asked if baseball fans should hold their noses while watching Barry Bonds’s pursuit of Hank Aaron’s all-time Major League home run record.

“Oh yeah. I would think so. I mean, he admitted that he used steroids,” said Schilling. “I mean, there’s no gray area. He admitted to cheating on his wife, cheating on his taxes, and cheating on the game, so I think the reaction around the league, the game, being what it is, in the case of what people think. Hank Aaron not being there. The commissioner [Bud Selig] trying to figure out where to be. It’s sad.

“And I don’t care that he’s black, or green, or purple, or yellow, or whatever. It’s unfortunate… there’s good people and bad people. It’s unfortunate that it’s happening the way it’s happening.”

Schilling was asked if he would give Bonds a pitch to hit if the home run record were on the line when the San Francisco Giants come to Fenway in June.

“Not on purpose,” said Schilling. “Hell no. I don’t want to be Al Downing.” Downing, who won 20 games for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1971, is best known for giving up the record-breaking 715th home run hit by Hank Aaron on April 8, 1974, in Atlanta.

“I’m guessing they’re going to try to make sure it [record-breaking home run] happens in San Francisco,” said Schilling.

Schilling said he thinks that Bonds’s achievements during his period of alleged steroid use -- as detailed in the book “Game of Shadows” -- should be “wiped out.”

"If you get caught using steroids, you should have everything you've done in this game wiped out for any period of time that you used it," Schilling said at the time of the book’s release. "A lot of players, I think, have said as much because it is cheating."

Sox slugger David Ortiz seems to have a different opinion on Bonds’s pursuit of the record.

“He deserves respect,” Ortiz told Michael Silverman in a story in today’s Boston Herald. “People are not going to give it to him because of all the bad things running around, this and that, but people need to realize. I’ve heard a lot of different things about Barry Bonds, but people should just admit it - this guy’s a bad (expletive).”

More from Ortiz ...

“I don’t know what steroids can do to you as a baseball player. You’ve still got to swing the bat, man,” Ortiz said. “If I ever use steroids, and then I know what the difference can be and I’m using them, I’ll tell you, ‘Yeah, whatever,’ but I don’t know what the feelings are when you use the steroids. But I can tell you how it feels to pull yourself together to swing the bat.”

[TJT]

If it wasn't for change in the rules,Bonds wouldn't have shot at this record. Pitchers used to be able to bean guys w/o being ejected.

If you don't think they'd be throwing at him if they could you live in fantasy land. Bonds was despised by most of baseball before the steroid thing came up? Managers who players in the Hammer's era letting Moon Head sniff the record under the old rules? Bonds would be getting dusted or beaned every time he came to the plate.

[blckhaze]

If it wasn't for change in the rules,Bonds wouldn't have shot at this record. Pitchers used to be able to bean guys w/o being ejected.

If you don't think they'd be throwing at him if they could you live in fantasy land. Bonds was despised by most of baseball before the steroid thing came up? Managers who players in the Hammer's era letting Moon Head sniff the record under the old rules? Bonds would be getting dusted or beaned every time he came to the plate.

yeah. i'm wake up hopin one day one of these pitchers "throws" at him and bust up his knee. That would be be sweet Godly justice. but alas tis not happened, but there's still time. I wil forever mark him, McGuire, and palmero with an "*".

[ezed]

If it wasn't for change in the rules,Bonds wouldn't have shot at this record. Pitchers used to be able to bean guys w/o being ejected.

If you don't think they'd be throwing at him if they could you live in fantasy land. Bonds was despised by most of baseball before the steroid thing came up? Managers who players in the Hammer's era letting Moon Head sniff the record under the old rules? Bonds would be getting dusted or beaned every time he came to the plate.

yeah. i'm wake up hopin one day one of these pitchers "throws" at him and bust up his knee. That would be be sweet Godly justice. but alas tis not happened, but there's still time. I wil forever mark him, McGuire, and palmero with an "*".

Thank you. The guy's a dick. And Henry Aaron does not deserve to be passed by him. Here was a guy who earned every home run he hit.