Baseball is Barry, Barry bad, By: Bob Keisser
March 22, 2006
Barry Bonds has become the sporting version of Michael Jackson. Freak show. A grotesque vision only a hunchback could love. That size XXXL head. Total denial about his current dilemma and the world's view. Contentious persona. Schizophrenic mood changes.
OK, Barry deserves a break in this comparison because he's never had a compound named Neverland and invited young boys for sleepovers. Indeed, bashing Barry has become de rigeur, and a point needs to be made strongly that, while it doesn't absolve Mr. Bonds, the blame and resolution belongs elsewhere.
Like, in the hands of MLB Commissioner Bud Selig.
Just as Selig played a major role in the 1994 strike and canceled World Series and played a rogue in decisions that pushed people like Peter O'Malley out of the game, he's played a role in the steroids saga by putting his hands over his ears and loudly singing "la-la-la-la" so he couldn't hear anyone talk about the issue.
The sports world has been dealing with steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs for more than four decades. You could set the nuclear clock to the annual reports of jocks ingesting some kind of steroid or blood thinner or opiate that allegedly gave him an edge.
To their credit, the smart leagues chose to deal with this early. In the Olympic arena, it became a crusade. In the NFL, the league took hits for a few years then negotiated testing and policy that turned reports of a positive drug test into a footnote on the sports policy blotter.
Not baseball. Back when Jose Canseco showed up with the kind if biceps God didn't make, and a handful of players began sharing his syringe, baseball went blind. When guys who previously had little power began beefing up, baseball turned its head.
The BALCO investigation that has turned Bonds into a specious superstar first leaked out in 2002, and it took baseball another year to institute the Mendoza Line of testing. The Ken Caminiti revelation and his subsequent death did nothing to inspire baseball to reconsider issues other than legality, like the arenas of safety, health and morals.
That led to the congressional hearings last year that, while out of kilter need-wise for a country dealing with Iraq, torture and oil supplies, buzzed a fastball under baseball's chin.
The problem is that we know Mark McGwire took Andro, a steroid precursor, but it was not illegal to do so at the time. The stuff could be bought over the counter.
The problem is that while we know Rafael Palmeiro took steroids and got busted for it, it sheds no light on how many other players of his generation were also dipping into the juice.
The problem is that the steroids Bonds and others allegedly took in recent years weren't on any illegal list, and they never failed a drug test, meaning baseball is legally powerless to do anything now after the fact.
Which leaves it in the hands of two groups you do not want making decisions that can impact the games the feds and the sports media.
If baseball doesn't do something to investigate Bonds and reach some conclusion and resolution, then the only agency with something on him will be the federal government, which could pursue him on perjury charges.
Now between you and me, I'd love to see Barry take the ultimate walk the perp walk in handcuffs, and see how good he looks in one of those orange jumpers, if only for a day or two. (What irony; the Giants' colors are black and orange). But that would be as dangerous to the health of baseball as the 1994 strike. The new home run leader breaks Hank Aaron's home run record two days before being charged? A nuclear blast couldn't be any more devastating.
If baseball then leaves the interpretation of the home run record to the masses, I can tell you what will happen among those in the media who still believe in the moral imperative you know, something politicians once considered before they sold their souls.
The Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) vote on the Hall of Fame candidates, and they're going to have to.
