The interesting connection between Djokovic and Bonds
So what does a white guy from Serbia who plays an individual sport and a black guy from California who played a team sport more than a decade ago have in common?
Both are arguably the greatest players to EVER play their sport and yet neither has achieved the public love that their phenomenal accomplishments should merit. Indeed, they are disliked and vilified by large numbers of core fans of their sport. You certainly can’t say that about the GOATs in other major sports like Jordan, Brady and Gretzky.
Djokovic should be a compelling character. He has won as many Grand Slam tennis tournaments as any male player to ever play the game – he’s currently tied with tennis idols Roger Federer and Raphael Nadal at 20 titles. Given his younger age and better current form and physical condition the odds are extremely high (assuming COVID ends or he decides to get vaccinated) that Djokovic will ultimately surpass both of these beloved tennis giants. It will most likely be a record that will stand for decades and, indeed, may never be broken. The greatest of all time in any sport is naturally a subjective evaluation but winning the most majors is probably the best marker there is in the sport of tennis.
In addition, Djokovic has a winning head-to head record against the other two that could legitimately lay claim to the title. Djokovic has won 27 of the 50 matches played against Federer, including a whopping 65% (11 of 17) in majors (though Djokovic is six years younger than Fed and several of the matches that tilt the rivalry in his favor occurred after Roger was in his prime). Djokovic has also won 30 of the 58 matches with Nadal (who is only only one year older) and the vast majority of those matches not played on clay. In fact, Nadal hasn’t beaten Djokovic on a surface other than clay since the 2013 U.S. Open Final – over 8 years ago! Unlike attempting to compare the greatest athletes in a team sport or from other generations, this is the rare case where those vying for the GOAT title actually played each other – and over 50 times.
But for all the logical claim Djokovic may have to the crown as “the greatest” he has not won over many of those who bestow it – the fans and sportswriters. The man could be beloved for his tremendous athleticism, his unparalleled tenacity and ability to play his best in the biggest of moments (including his incredible 33-9 record in matches that have gone 5 sets!) and his awe-inspiring shot-making, including his Gumby-like ability to hit a shot while pulling off a gymnastics’ split. He’s also a well-spoken and even brilliant man in many respects- he can purportedly speak 11 different languages! And, at times, he can be quite entertaining and have a great sense of humor. Moreover, from all accounts he is a very charitable man who has donated a lot of his time and money to many worthy causes. And yet why no widespread love for him beyond his native Serbia?
Ironically, no athlete seems to crave love and respect more than Djokovic. He badly wants the crowd to be on his side during matches. He visibly frets when the crowd is rooting against him (as is often the case). After a winning match he implores people, with his exaggerated signature arm-raising gesture in each direction of the stadium, to shower him with their admiration. Indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised if he actually buys tickets for people to come to big matches to yell enthusiastically for him (his supporters, though relatively small in number, are clearly the most vociferous fans in the stadium).
But Djokovic is his own worst enemy in achieving his objective. For all of his talents, his judgment, actions and personality are a hindrance to his popularity – from his early days of publicly trashing popular American Andy Roddick in front of a New York crowd after beating him badly at the U.S Open, to firing a tennis ball in frustration and striking a female line judge in the throat forcing his disqualification, to frequently jousting with crowds who don’t support him during a match, to creating his own exhibition tour in the middle of a worldwide pandemic after the tennis tour had put a temporary halt to the season (only to contract COVID along with several of the players he signed up).
And then there’s his most recent public relations disaster with the Australian Open. It began with his refusal to get vaccinated from COVID as he knew was expressly required to play there. He then either lied about having had COVID for a second time a few weeks before the tournament in order to secure an exemption to this requirement or, worse, went out in public and completely unmasked after knowing that he had the highly contagious disease. This only solidified his reputation among many as a self-serving, obnoxious and clown-like character appropriately nicknamed the Joker. But that’s still better that his new moniker, “NoVax,” – one that he will likely wear for the rest of his career whatever he may happen to achieve on the court.
And then there’s Barry Bonds. Most ardent baseball fans consider Babe Ruth to be the greatest baseball player of all-time, or possible Mays, Aaron or Cobb. But I submit that Bonds is actually the greatest to ever play the game IF you look purely at the statistics.
In his 22-year career with Pittsburgh and San Francisco, Bonds hit 762 Home Runs and created 2892 runs in his career, each more than any player in MLB history. He also drove in nearly 2000 runs (5th in the modern era) and had a career on-base percentage of .444 and OPS (on base % + slugging %) of 1.051 (both 4th best in MLB since 1900).
Perhaps most significantly, his career WAR (wins above the average replacement player and the best marker in many baseball experts’ minds of a player’s overall value) was 162.7 – tied exactly with the Babe for the highest of all time among position players. While Ruth also pitched successfully early in his career, and thus had a higher total WAR, it’s hard to fathom that the pitchers of Babe’s day compared with those of Bonds’ era. I seriously doubt that the great Bambino would have put up quite the results he did against the likes of Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz, Schilling, Ryan, Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez.
In addition, Bonds was an excellent fielder (whereas Ruth was only average), walked more than any player to play the game (nearly twice more intentionally) and stole over 500 bases (Ruth surprisingly stole over 100 bases in his career, but still only a fraction of Bonds). Indeed, Bonds is the only player in MLB history to hit 500 Home runs and steal 500 bases – no one else has had 400 each. The man also won the MVP award as the best player in the league 7 times – since the award began in 1931 no other player in history has won more than 3!
Finally there’s the eye-test, which I know rarely matters in evaluations these days. But no player I’ve ever seen (and I grew up watching Mays and Aaron) consistently took better at bats than Bonds; he could hit every type of pitch at any speed or break and in every location; he virtually never swung at a bad pitch or looked foolish at the plate; and he almost always made great hard contact.
Like Djokovic, Bonds should be a fan favorite. Aside from his off-the-chart talent, he comes from baseball royalty as the son of major league player Bobby Bonds, the cousin of Mr. October, Reggie Jackson, and the godson of the great Willie Mays. But Barry was often a sullen character who came off to many as rude, inconsiderate and a bad teammate who only cared about Barry. When he was suspended back in college at Arizona State for missing curfew his teammates thought so little of him that they voted against him being allowed to return to the team, even though he was their best player.
But Bonds really solidified his reputation in the public mind by his use of steroids. Unlike Lance Armstrong, Bonds didn’t need performance-enhancing drugs to be elite and better than everyone else at his craft. And he didn’t even take them until late in his career. Having watched Bonds play before his head began to explode in size along with the rest of his body, he didn’t need drugs to be mentioned among the greatest players of all-time or to even hit a lot of home runs – he routinely hit 40 home runs before being injected with the “juice.” And steroids arguably do not improve a player’s hand-eye coordination, speed, pitch recognition, fielding, base-running and most of the things a ballplayer does on the field.
But Barry’s ego could not tolerate all the attention that Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa got for their home run chase to break the coveted single season HR record held by Roger Maris: of 61 in 1961. When McGwire was worshipped wildly for smashing the 37-year old record with a whopping 70 home runs in 1998, Barry was pissed. He knew that McGwire was a far inferior player to him and that he had achieved this result under false pretenses. So Barry vowed to show the world just how many home runs he could hit if he also took steroids. And he showed them all right. He eclipsed McGwire’s record in his very first season of juicing – cracking 73 homers with an astounding OPS of nearly 1.4 (only Negro-league star Josh Gibson ever surpassed that in a year).
Barry’s decision to use steroids undoubtedly helped him achieve baseball’s most celebrated records for most HRs in a season and a career. But it also ironically cost him the very recognition he craved so badly. Today, Bonds name is rarely thought of by most baseball fans when asked to identify the greatest player(s) of all time.
Indeed, he can’t even get into the Hall of Fame, the shrine that honors the legacies of the greatest players in the history of the game. Just yesterday, Bonds failed to secure the 75% votes needed to make it for the 10th straight year! It was his final year of eligibility (though he could be voted in by an Old-Timers Committee in the future). The Hall of Fame was designed to represent the greatest players to ever play the game and includes nearly 270 former players, and yet somehow the best player of all time statistically (or at worst one of the 5 best of all-time) is not among them. It would be like having a Hall of Fame for religion and leaving out God!
So there are a lot similarities between Djokovich and Bonds. Their records and performance on the court and field, respectively, are arguably without equal. Yet both legacies are “in the shitter.” Each man’s behavior seems to have been influenced by ego and jealousy about the attention received by others in their sport (Djokovic by the unbridled affection bestowed on Federer and Nadal, and Bonds by the short-term love conferred upon McGwire and Sosa). Each of their reputations have also been damaged by a stigma associated with drugs; in one case by taking a drug illegally, and in another by refusing to take a drug strongly recommended by the overwhelming consensus of the world’s medical community for the good of society as a whole. Both men failed to appreciate that if you really care about your image and being honored and recognized forever in the minds of most as the best ever in your sport you had also better act like a first-rate human being.
I personally think both athletes have been treated unfairly in the “legacy world.” But at the same time I can’t say that I shed any tears over it.
