Grammar and Arrogance: The Barry Bonds Approach

Barry Bonds is arguably the best hitter of all time. He has been called the Mickey Mantle of our generation, and deservingly so. Many wonder what sets him apart from Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Pete Rose, and his godfather, Willie Mays. Attitude. Barry Bond’s has been known to be an enemy to the media; his arrogance is well known throughout the sporting community as well as pop culture. These are some suggestions on how certain quotes, which demonstrate his arrogance, could be different, and in doing so make him as a person sound less arrogant.

 

“I went to catch the ball and the wall ran into me.” –Barry Bonds

            This quote gives one solid image: Barry Bonds being attacked by a wall. Saying, “The wall ran into me” instead of “I ran into the wall” is almost a personal statement saying “I am larger than the wall; I am a greater entity than the wall; I am more powerful then the wall.” The simple difference in word location separates a neutral comment from an arrogant one.

 

“I like to be against the odds. I’m not afraid to be lonely at the top. With me, it’s just the satisfaction of the game. Just performance.” –Barry Bonds

            It seems like he is trying to make a point that he is a competitive person. In doing so he got caught up in himself, taking the statement on to implying that he has surpassed others. If Barry Bonds were to take out that one simple sentence,  “I’m not afraid to be lonely at the top,” then the statement would completely change the feel of the sentence. Funny enough, the rest of the statement alone sounds almost inspirational.

 

“I’ve hit a couple off him. He’s thrown more than one stupid pitch to me.”

            This was stated when Barry Bonds had hit a game winning homerun.  The whole statement seems completely unnecessary, and is just insulting the pitcher.  If he was going to comment on the actual event of him hitting the homerun, he could have focused more on his personal success, not the pitcher’s failure. Even going further than "I've hit a couple off him" is just completely unnecessary. It is no secret that every pitcher and batter in the major leagues has an open scouting report on them, and there are particular pitches in particular counts that any given pitcher may not want to throw to a given batter. On the flip side, there is no one player who is above another. It is baseball and anything can happen. 

 

Vocabulary in general is part of Barry Bonds’ arrogant nature. This being said, entire sentence structure would have to change on many occasions in order to even sound somewhat humble (or neutral for that matter).

 

There are many quotes that portray Barry Bonds’ arrogance. Maybe he just didn't care at the time, but either way, switching his word order could have changed his whole persona. After all of his major league interviews, it is clear that he is aware of his notoriety in the media. Maybe a lesson in sentence structure and word choice would have done him well.