Bonds' chase not all that enhancing, By: Neil Hayes
May 14, 2006
SAN FRANCISCO - Awkward is the word that describes this home-run chase. Even here at 24 Willie Mays Plaza, where fans stood and cheered Saturday when Barry Bonds strode to the plate needing one home run to tie Babe Ruth's career mark, prompting others to stand until even the reluctant felt obligated to follow suit.
Peer pressure is required to get everyone to embrace Bonds' passing Ruth's long-sacred milestone of 714 career home runs.
How awkward is that?
Most awkward of all is a question that has become a 714-ton elephant on the on-deck circle during this stalled home-run race, albeit a question well worth asking given everything we know about Bonds, steroids and baseball.
Is Bonds still using performance-enhancing drugs?
It would be incredibly cavalier if it was the case, and we are making no such accusations. We are merely raising a question that is whispered in press boxes, clubhouses and behind batting cages across the major leagues.
It would take someone who believes he's bigger than the game to continue to take performance enhancers after what Bonds and baseball have been through. It would take an individual who was bold, defiant and even arrogant to consider such a thing now that a more-stringent testing policy in place.
Don't all those words accurately describe you know who?
It's certainly possible. Bonds is as muscular as ever. We haven't seen the incredible shrinking act we saw when Jason Giambi and others quit the juice. If anything, Bonds has gotten bigger, and that can't be completely explained away by a rickety right knee that keeps him off the Stairmaster.
The motivation is there. Continuing to take performance-enhancing drugs might be the best way to convince people you've never taken performance-enhancing drugs. Think about it. If Bonds had reported to spring training looking more like he did in 1998, it would've confirmed suspicions.
If he was suddenly unable to hit the kind of monster home runs that became his signature in recent years, like the mighty blast that hit the facade in the third deck in Philadelphia for career home run No. 713 last Sunday, it would be virtually impossible for him to maintain his innocence.
Reasons? He has 18 million reasons to try to prolong his career through this season. That's how much he will earn playing for the Giants in 2006.
Baseball wants us to believe the Steroid Era is over, and some sentimentalists in the media have bought into it, opining about how the game is finally "clean," although never again will we know that for a fact.
Thanks to Congress, baseball finally has a respectable drug policy. The only obvious loophole is that it does not mandate testing for human growth hormone, which is reportedly Bonds' performance-enhancing drug of choice.
If Bonds was taking HGH, how would we know? If the "cream" and the "clear" flew under the NFL's testing radar, isn't it safe to assume other undetectable steroids are available?
It's only fair to point out that Bonds is not alone. There is still a lot of murmuring going on around baseball. Giambi was struggling so mightily early last season that the Yankees considered sending him to the minors.
That he turned his season around so suddenly and stunningly en route to being named the Comeback Player of the Year that it aroused suspicions that Giambi, who reportedly admitted to a grand jury that he used steroids before obtaining more from Bonds' personal trainer, Greg Anderson, was back on the go-go juice.
That's the worst part of this. Records don't mean as much anymore. Numbers produce suspicion rather than awe. Nobody is ever quite sure if what they are seeing is real, and that's a big part of the appeal of sports.
Perhaps Bonds' biggest defense against accusations that he is currently using performance-enhancing drugs is his recent performance.
While chasing Ruth for second on the career home-run list, Bonds is also chasing Pedro Feliz for the team lead. Bonds is hitless in his past 13 at-bats and is hitting .222 after going 0-for-3 before being lifted and before the Giants rallied for a thrilling 6-5 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday. He's on pace to hit a very un-Ruthian 22 homers this season.
We could ask Bonds to answer this awkward question, but he doesn't answer steroid-related questions, only baseball questions. But when the subject is Bonds and steroids, it's impossible to mention one without the other.
