Bonds & Kent Unplugged

Matt Bruce

Somewhere in Oklahoma lives an aspiring Internet model. You may have seen her web site, or you may have seen second- or third-hand pictures of her. She likes to pose in her soccer uniform, or various parts thereof.

The striking thing about her appearance, apart from a gorgeous figure, is that facially she has the exact same features as Johnny Bench. The resemblance is quite unnerving, and has been on my mind ever since I caught a biography of Mickey Mantle on ESPN Classic the other night. As Bench was talking about how great it was to see a fellow Okie in the big leagues, I suddenly recognized what was so familiar about him.

Bench seems like an upstanding citizen, at least since I don't know any better about him. Mantle, on the other hand, shortened his life and brought pain to his family through alcohol and womanizing. His portrayal in the TV documentary was quite grim, though in fairness both his long-suffering wife and his shameless former companion managed to look far worse than he did for completely opposite reasons.

The weekend of Mantle's death was also the weekend that the Giants held their annual "Until There's A Cure" day, bringing the AIDS Memorial Quilt to Candlestick Park. I know this because of WGN, since the Cubs were in San Francisco that weekend. If memory serves, the pre-game program actually featured two distinct moments of silence, Mantle's commemoration being added to the schedule at the last minute.

A right-winger or a cynic might point out the irony in eulogizing Mantle along with another group of people, some of whose tragic deaths partly resulted from their own lifestyle choices. Ideologues of a different stripe might suggest that the comparison is unfair to AIDS victims themselves. Even if not all of them practiced monogamy, at least most of them managed to avoid betraying their partners. Almost none of them had legions of adoring fans to whom they could present a superhuman image completely at odds with their own frailties.

Somewhere in there is room for reasonable people to make (and to disagree about) profound sociopolitical points. Rather than offending anyone any further, I will express my sorrow about any premature death. Then I'll retreat from cultural controversies and return to baseball arguments, with a look at the National League MVP race. As I give you my perspective, with luck what's come so far will seem like something more than just an incoherent lead-in.

The buzz among baseball writers was that the two leading NL MVP candidates, both teammates here in San Francisco, actually made little effort to hide their disdain for each other. The conventional wisdom condemns Barry Bonds as flashy and self-centered, while it exalts Jeff Kent for his lunchpail work ethic and unmatched intensity. Bonds, we are told, schmoozes with the other team while Kent refuses even to make eye contact with them. Bonds makes it look easy; Kent hustles.

Any number of enlightened statheads will rebut (and some have already demolished) the case that Kent edges ahead of Bonds on intangibles. The irony here is that Kent's most impressive stat, his RBI total, is a personal milestone set with luck and with teammates' help. Bonds actually helps his team's offense more by getting on base to prolong innings. Bonds would have been my pick, though I'm glad to see that Jason Barker actually beat me to the argument about positional value.

The real problem I have is with generalizations made by the media. Bonds comes across as a media ham, yet what I've seen of his public appearances reflects nothing more than an utter lack of interest in presenting himself as anything other than what he is: A ballplayer who happens to have tremendous talent, in the midst of an amazing career. He doesn't bother to be humble, but then I also don't see him engaged in any kind of PR manipulation. If he had been, he should fire his handlers for never figuring out how to stop the local newspapers from torching him.

In the clubhouse, Bonds is supposed to be aloof while Kent provides the competitive fire. It's hard to say how much of this is media hype. If anything, Ellis Burks was the team's social leader in his brief stint in the Bay Area. Kent's way of doing things works a lot better if he leads by example and lets the attention come to him. If he was truly a master at this, paradoxically, we never would know about it. At least, the people who caught on to his greatness would show a better analytical understanding of the game than Kent boosters and Bonds bashers often do.

Rather, I find the two of them to be quite alike, introverted type-A personalities who really want to win and who handle the pressure in totally different ways. Even their introduction music puts the same themes into very diverse styles. In "The Next Episode," the main Bonds theme, Dr. Dre raps about his quest to "get my drink on and my smoke on/then go home with somethin' to poke on." Other than the shout-outs to different parts of L.A., that might actually be the cleanest part of the song.

Kent himself often bats to "Thunderstruck," in which AC/DC belts out these immortal lyrics: "We met some girls/some dancers who gave a good time/broke all the rules/played all the fools/yeah they blew our minds. And I was shaking at the knees/Could I come again please?"

Neither of them is an altar boy, but please don't get the wrong impression: I'm actually more than willing to accept that. The Mantle special on ESPN Classic mentioned the controversy surrounding the page-and-a-half of dirt that Jim Bouton brought up about Mantle in Ball Four. Yet, contrary to either Mantle's impossibly golden image or the horror that Bouton's most ignorant critics expressed at what they thought he said, Ball Four revealed the antics of ballplayers to be more sophomoric than good or evil.

So Bonds and Kent don't much cotton to each other. As a curious fan, I'm happy to be informed. As a wannabe analyst, though, I'm inclined to take the Dusty Baker see-no-evil position. "If something makes it all the way to me," Baker often says, "it's gone too far." Without hearing the dirty laundry in minute detail, I'd just as soon believe that their spat neither hurts the team nor affects their relative contributions to it.

If all else fails, remember that they're ballplayers and human beings. Their lives are enviable but not necessarily legendary. They're on one of the best teams in the league, and are themselves hugely responsible for that. Handling things responsibly and professionally is no more and no less than what their fans should expect of them.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go back to gawking at all the cute pictures of scantily clad amateur sirens. Thinking of their own humanity gives me another weird disconnect -- I don't know about you, but I'd feel really awkward in the presence of one of these women if I recognized her. Thankfully, life is all about the realization that people's images never tell the whole story.

Contrary to popular belief, Matt Bruce has never spent much time in the Betty Ford clinic. No really. But then he's never been close to winning MVP honors, either, which may be a bit easier to believe. However you feel about that, why not commiserate with him at mb@strikethree.com.