RealClearSports: For Bonds, No Jail, No Hall

By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

SAN FRANCISCO — Feel safer now? The feds got Barry Lamar Bonds. Barely. They took their money, which is our money, and spent it in an attempt to show that Bonds had lied, which he may have done but also which the feds were unable to prove.

No perjury, which is lying under oath. Just obstruction, which ironically in baseball allows the runner to go to the next base.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2011

SF Examiner: Defense is Giants' No. 1 concern

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

So right field has turned into the Magical Mystery Tour. And as with last year, the offense seems to be a mystery of its own. Still, the season is not quite two weeks old, and if Giants fans seek a sense of perspective they are urged to check out the disaster that is the Boston Red Sox.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2011 SF Newspaper Company

SF Examiner: Despite scandal, slugger Barry Bonds' legacy remains fully intact

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

The numbers are not going to change, and neither are most opinions. Barry Bonds will keep the home run records he set, even if everyone from Cooperstown to Candlestick knows he used performance-enhancing drugs.

What everyone didn’t know was he could be convicted for previously testifying before a grand jury that, in effect, he was a celebrity child. That was his defense 7½ years ago.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2011 SF Newspaper Company

RealClearSports: A Sportswriter Without Decency

By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

SAN FRANCISCO — The Dodgers and Giants have carried grudges across the decades and across the country. It always has been baseball with an edge.

Now it has become baseball with a reminder.

"There is no room in this game,'' the Dodgers' Jamey Carroll had told a somber crowd Monday evening, "for hatred and violence.'

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2011

SF Examiner: Giants enter season with great expectations

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

Another season, but for the Giants, not another season. A season in which they are no longer misfits but winners. A season in which they are no longer unappreciated, but admired. A season to follow the season of them all.

Opening Day has arrived, a first game on the last day of March against the Dodgers in Los Angeles, the Dodgers, who for decades drew envy and enmity from fans of the Giants. Until 2010.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2011 SF Newspaper Company