Lance Armstrong vs. Barry Bonds

[Sandpiper]

Both are alleged to have used performance enhancing drugs, but the difference in the public's reaction to each couldn't be more stark.


Lance Armstrong = Media Darling

As such, no one wants to believe anything but the best about him, and short of an admission, no one will.



Barry Bonds = Media Villain

Consequently, no one wants to believe anything but the worst about him, and even if he ends up being completely exhonorated, people will still doubt him.


The whole thing could be a case study in the media's ability to shape perceptions.

[interview7]

1. Good call

Riding bikes with GW doesn't hurt!

[tk2kewl]

2. ...it doesn't hurt as long as your not georgie

[jaysunb]

3. It doesn't hurt that

Lance is a white man in America either....:evilfrown:

[Geoff R. Casavant]

5. It also doesn't hurt that

Bonds's head grew two hat sizes in two years. I have no idea what kind of weights you could even attach to get that kind of muscle development, but testosterone does some weird things.

[democracyindanger]

4. Bonds is portrayed as a jerk

because he is a jerk. I don't dispute the power of the media, but Bonds' public persona is his own fault. An argument could be made that if it weren't for his baseball accomplishments, the media would be even harder on him.

Don't cry for Barry. He cries enough for himself.

[frylock]

6. bullshit!

Why not play the race card while you're at it. Bonds brings all this crap upon himself. He's a dick. His head has also grown x5 since his rookie season. Look at his dome and tell me isn't juicing!

[Sandpiper]

7. Thanks for proving my point

n/t

[frylock]

11. i'm not sure what your point is..

the media doesn't make the other players in the league hate on Bonds; his personality does. And I firmly believe that he is, or was, on the juice. That's just MNSHO, along with many, many other people.

[Captain Hilts]

8. Lance's teammates don't hate him, he's never been seen

yelling at his dad in public.

In other words, Lance has some manners, isn't as selfish, and is a better team mate. Oh, then there's the recovering from cancer thing.

Other than that, they're the same.

[Sandpiper]

9. Thank you also for proving my point

n/t

[Captain Hilts]

10. Baseball PLAYERS uniformly dislike him.

He's got his own lounge in the locker room so he doesn't have to interact with team mates.

The press didn't make that up.

[HuckleB]

12. How?

[Ravenseye]

13. I don't know about that

I think there is a grain of truth in what you're writing but I don't think it's the whole story. The media will portray athletes partly in how the media is treated. If an athlete is a jerk to a reporter, how likely is that reporter to write glowingly about the athlete's personality?

I often read in the sports pages about how the media loves this player or that player. The journalists have a job to do like anyone else. They appreciate it when athletes stop after a game and answer all their questions. The pro athlete has no requirement on doing that. It's not part of their job to answer questions of the media, and journalists know that. When an athlete doesn't need to do something, but helps out a reporter by answering any questions asked, they're going to like the guy and it's going to come out in the writing.

Barry Bonds was highly disrespectfull towards the media, his fellow players, and others. He was like that while he was here in Pittsburgh with the Pirates and he's apparently gotten worse. Lance Armstrong on the other hand has not only better media savvy, but more respect for other people. Or at least he's better at portraying that.

So you ask the normal person on the street here in Pittsburgh you ask them who they think is a better person and why and they'll tell you the above reasons and more. Yes the media obviously affects our perceptions because it's all we have, but those perceptions in sports about specific athletes are direct reflections on how the athlete interacts with the journalist. Pro Athletes are aware that how they interact with a local sports reporter is essentially him interacting with the entire city. If he swears at a reporter, calls him names, and insults his family...well the athlete is just begging to be portrayed like a jerk, because that's how he's portraying himself to the report. Rarely is a player nice to a reporter, answers all his questions, and is portrayed like a jerk.

Plus the visual evidence with Bonds is far more striking to most people than a vindictive french sports paper who always hated Armstrong claiming they have some evidence against him, that even the lab itself denies.

So can the media shape perceptions? Yes. Is that perception generally created by the attiude and actions of the player himself? Yes.

[Princess Turandot]

14. How can Bonds be exonerated? Wasn't he one of the guys

who supposedly said he used a "mystery cream" supplied by his trainer but never asked what was in it and oops, it might have been steroids ??? (I don't know whether he commented on his GJ testimony in public, which he has the right to do.) Before you jump on these being GJ rumors, Sheffield and Giambi certainly have been trashed by those illegally released 'rumors'. (And Giambi, whatever one thinks of steroid use, at least appears to be the only honest one in the bunch, even if he won't discuss his testimony in public.)

Bonds really bothered me when he said that everyone was against him as a black man potentially passing Ruth's record. Uhm, Barry, ever hear of a guy named Hank Aaron who is now in first place and who really took the crap for that? Even poor Roger Maris, a white guy, got pissed on for passing the baseball icon's record. There very well might be racists out there who would be upset if Bonds pushed Ruth to third, but to be so profoundly disrespectful of what Aaron went through was completely classless on Bond's part. Especially given how much class Hank Aaron has.

[HuckleB]

15. Indeed.

The contrasts between Hank Aaron and Barry Bonds could not be more stark.

[GOPBasher]

16. There's a lot of truth to what you're saying; however,

I must echo other posters and say that Barry Bonds really is an asshole. The people in the media do not make that up. He's hated by other player, even his teammates. As far as Lance Armstrong goes, I'm really not sure if he ever juiced, but if he did, it's nowhere near as evident as Barry's steroid use.

Plus, Lance seems like a nice guy, at least as far as I can tell from the interviews. I don't know him personally, but Barry Bonds is definitely an asshole.

[Lefty48197]

17. Same with Mark "I'm here to discuss the FUTURE" McGwire

he's the poster child for steroid abuse, yet the American public, and the media have given him a free pass forever. I suspect racism.

[SuperWonk]

18. Lance can not be compared to Barry....

please - Lance is the most tested person in the history of sports.

Barry could never live under the same scrutiny ... hence his "injuries" this year.

[Roachman]

19. Race is one of many factors

I think race is often a factor in the way media covers sports, but as many people have said, there is a reason not to use this comparison to make the point: there's just too many other factors.

As everyone has said, Bonds makes himself the bigger jerk, and we can't be as sure with Lance. I don't know him, and so I can only go with what they let me know. Sometimes that's a factor of race as well though. Gretzky is considered as big of a jerk as Bonds, but most people don't know that because the media doesn't let it out as much.

Plus, the evidence that Lance is dirty is much sparcer and biased. He probably is, but the evidence to indicate it is just not there with him. The fact is, we know that he blood doped (the worse action a cyclist can do) for his cancer treatment, and so blood doping, and a huge change in body fat due to his treatment and disease, may have changed him to the great cyclist he became (the second greatest ever probably), but that doesn't mean he's dirty.

Bonds has no excuse for either being a jerk or being dirty, but I'm sure the media would help him a little more with both (at least a little) if he were already a darling if he were a white man in a black man's field (sports in general).