Newz Forum: OTHER: Barry Bonds & NBA conspiracys, the White Sox, the Cubs, Jose Canseco plus more..

When Barry Bonds needed a third surgery on his knee due to some kind of infection in there, the Arizona Republic reported that he is being treated by a doctor who has been disciplined a couple of times in the past by the California medical authorities and is currently on probation.

One of the charges: is that Dr. Ting has prescribed medicines for patients that he never saw or rarely saw and for whom he kept no reliable patient records. I saw just a tinge of irony in there so I checked out a couple of other news sources. It seems that Barry Bonds really believes that the press has it in for him and has started his own website where his objective is to give his fans the real scoop on his situation without any spin; this is where you can find out the real stuff. I don't think so.

Somehow, he hasn't found it interesting to discuss Dr. Ting's medical record and it has certainly not been important for him to discuss what if any current association he may have with his longtime trainer who is currently under indictment in the BALCO case. The news with "spin" and the news with "a hidden agenda" all comes from ESPN and the like, but nothing like that from Barry. Yeah right. Bonds' website should be named The Spinning Top.

Now, it seems that the Internal Revenue Service may have an issue with Bonds' tax return related to unreported or under-reported income from memorabilia sales and appearances and the like. I do not work for the IRS and never have but for one moment let me assume that indeed there is some kind of audit/investigation actually ongoing there.

The question I want Bonds to address is very simple:

How did ESPN and the rest of the media out to get you convince the IRS to do this investigation? Did they offer the IRS Commish a chance to be on SportsCenter?

Or is it even more sinister... Did the media sneak into IRS headquarters, remove Bonds' totally honest tax return, replace it with one that carefully omitted some items related to miscellaneous income, and then drop a dime on Bonds knowing that the auditors would find the bogus return?

Even MLB got into this circus for a moment. At first, there was a story in the NY Daily News saying that MLB was in the process of conducting its own investigation of Bonds and that league sources feared that Bonds might be at risk of jail time related to tax fraud/evasion issues. The next day, MLB walked partially back from that story saying it was merely monitoring the ongoing investigation.

But just remember this:

This is all a conspiracy created by the sports media to hurt Barry Bonds. Obviously, to get something this grand organized and in place, they must have hired Oliver Stone as a consultant.

I am not a devotee of conspiracy theories in general and if you'd like to read a nice satirical piece on the grand conspiracies in the NBA, let me point you to Brad Rock in the Deseret Morning News. He has it all figured out. David Stern is not worried about how to get the Lakers or the Knicks back into the NBA Finals; David Stern is out to become president of the world. For example, did you know that Lee Harvey Oswald was once hired to assassinate Pete Rozelle and that LeBron James is really a former mobster now in the witness protection program? For all the details, check out this column.

The SF Giants certainly have enough to pay attention to with Barry Bonds but they also have a geriatric line-up out there, which could come apart at the seams at any moment. If they just turn their attention a bit to the south of SF, they may find some help. Rickey Henderson has signed on with the San Diego Surf Dogs in the independent Golden Baseball League. Henderson is younger than Julio Franco - which isn't saying much because Franco knew Adam and Eve personally. So, maybe the Giants can solve two problems at once. They can add another old player to the roster who can rotate on and off the DL and at the same time they can replace the great team chemistry that is missing because of Bonds' absence from the line-up. The Giants' front office ought to have the Surf Dogs owner on speed dial.

Staying with baseball for a moment, there is euphoria at the moment on the south side of Chicago for the surging White Sox. It's a toss-up at the moment as to whether the White Sox are the biggest surprise of the young season for their 24-9 record or whether the Yankees are the biggest surprise of the young season for their 15-19 record. Whatever. Here is one cautionary note for the White Sox fans. The last time the White Sox got off to this kind of a start was in 1919. Yes, the team went to the World Series that year; however, that Series did not end well...

Up on the north side of Chicago, all is not nearly as rosy. Yes, the Cubbies still draw more fans than the White Sox do; but somehow, I don't see how the "loveable" part of the "loveable losers" tag continues to obtain. In the off-season, the Cubs fired radio/TV analyst Steve Stone for being a bit to candidly critical of the team.

Here is his current assessment of the Cubbies:

"If you've been watching the Cubs over the last few years, you'll realize that situational baseball escapes them a lot. They can out-pitch you; they can out-hit you; and at times, they might even out-defend you. But they can very rarely, if ever, out-finesse you or out-think you. If you watch the Cubs at all, you often wonder just where it was that Dusty Baker picked up the genius label."

With regard to Baker, all I can say is - - my sentiments exactly!

I ran across an item and did not make note of where I saw it so I can't send you there for the full story, but I did see that Jose Canseco is supposedly shopping his life story around to movie houses as the basis for a biopic. I am not a huge fan of movies to begin with and most biopics are sappy offerings out of the same mold. But this one would be particularly offensive since Canseco's life has had nothing noteworthy or interesting contained therein. I'd rather have some studio make Rocky XIX - Training With Depends.

Finally, here's an item from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald related to Jose Canseco:

"The University of Florida speakers bureau recently paid Canseco $35,000 to address students. In an unrelated story, the person in charge of the UF speakers bureau has been stopped on a suspicion of BUI - - booking under the influence."

But don't get me wrong, I love sports...

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