Juiced coverage

After standing outside the Federal Courthouse in San Francisco for two hours Thursday morning, the moment finally came. 

A Chevy Tahoe with window tint as black as its paint pulled up to the Turk Street entrance. Out stepped two blue-suit-and-sunglasses wearing secret service wannabes followed by the man of the hour: Barry Bonds.

Bonds coolly strutted by the media en route to arraignment and evidentiary hearings in his perjury case. No one said a word until one reporter called out "Hey Barry, how you doin'?" Bonds responded. "Good morning. How you doin'?"

The court house doors closed behind him without incident. No cavalcade of questions by reporters. No deaf ears by Bonds. No bruised egos.

But you wouldn't know it by many of the local stations' live reports from the court house.

Each of the top four TV news stations in the Bay Area reported that Bonds gruffly whisked by, ignoring questions, which in turn raised another: is the media unjustly slamming Bonds as the slugger has always claimed?

On Thursday, Bonds' claim was valid.

I may have hated him. I may still. He treated the fans like garbage. He treated his teammates like garbage. He treated the media like garbage. That still doesn't justify the haphazard coverage he received Thursday. 

We could do the chicken-or-the-egg argument of "who spurned who first" all we want. That still doesn't justify the haphazard coverage he received Thursday.

I lost a great deal of respect for people who I work with because of it. I even felt a little sorry for the man who I've booed and cursed and accused unmercifully from my couch and from the Left Field Pavillion in Dodger Stadium.

At 12:20 p.m. Thursday, Bonds walked by reporters on his way to the awaiting Tahoe, his heart not quite as black as the media has made it out to be.