Bonds not liked, but he's the best, By Dan Le Batard

May 29, 2006

Steroids or no steroids, jerk or no jerk, outraged national hysteria or no outraged national hysteria, Barry Bonds it the best baseball player I've ever seen. He is Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, Lance Armstrong, Pelé. And that is not diluted for me by all the angry noise that surrounds him now in a sports climate in which we derive a little too much glee from shouting ''Cheater!'' and ''Liar!'' and ``Fraud!''

Do I like Bonds? Not particularly, although I can't really pretend to know him based on the dozen interviews I've had with him in a decade. But I do admire him. I think he is to baseball what Einstein is to genius. I think he is better at what he does for a living than just about everyone on this planet is at what they do for a living. And I wouldn't be covering sports as a livelihood -- or wouldn't be doing it with any joy, anyway -- if I didn't admire and respect this kind of unprecedented excellence.

STILL OBJECTIVE

Does my admiration cloud by judgment? No. I try to be discerning, not judgmental, about how I cover sports. I fail sometimes. But I try. A personality, no matter how prickly or personable, does not alter my view of his production. It would be ideal if everyone in sports were like gentlemen Derek Jeter and Tiger Woods. Boring. But ideal. That's unrealistic, obviously, but we continually try to make sports a utopia unlike any other workplace.

I believe sports fans, still viewing this big-business entertainment through a child's eyes, still escaping to the playpen away from Enron and a war in Iraq, allow like and dislike to get in the way. The excellence of abrasive types such as Bonds and Terrell Owens somehow are diminished because they aren't easy to like. We probably wouldn't be quite as outraged if we somehow learned that saintly Cal Ripken Jr., owner of a sacred number in our most numerical game, had stayed healthy with the help of dianobol.

Ah, yes, steroids. They confuse matters today, don't they? As Bonds passes the boozy, debaucherous legend Babe Ruth. And this is the part of the column where, amid all the howling, I have to point out a few things, because anything these days that isn't angrily anti-Bonds is somehow viewed as apology.

I don't condemn Bonds' behavior. That doesn't mean I condone it. I try to explain his behavior. That doesn't mean I excuse it. Andre Agassi calls ''empathy'' the trait he most values in other human beings, so all I try to do with Bonds is what I do with most human behavior. I try to understand it. There are plenty of people yelling about Bonds today. It isn't interesting to me.

What is interesting to me is the fascinating storm that swirls around Bonds and why and how he got sucked into it. He was baseball's best player. And a bunch of pharmacy freaks saved his sport, overshadowing him and his unprecedented achievement while he was becoming the only player to reach 400 homers and 400 steals. That made him jealous. Small? Absolutely. But human, too. You wouldn't like being the best at your job and watching others blow past you for promotions.

Bonds was a product of his environment. His godfather, the god Willie Mays, says he probably would have tried steroids if they were available in his day, too. Most athletes would if there were no repercussions, as there weren't in baseball. It is why we have refs, managers, officials, bosses in sports. People as competitive as athletes can't be trusted to police themselves.

But the steroid era was the wild, wild best. Jose Canseco's estimate that 80 percent of the league was using doesn't sound absurd anymore. That's baseball's fault, not Bonds'. He was doing what aging athletes do -- trying to keep up. The surprise isn't that someone in this competitive and ruleless ecosystem would go through the pharmacy to heal and get stronger. The surprise is that all of them didn't.

NO EXCUSES

Again, that's an explanation, not an excuse. You shouldn't do illegal things. That goes without saying. But you show me an athlete or coach who is making too many moral stands, and I'll show you an athlete or coach who is losing to the guys who aren't. Baseball created the climate of cheat or lose, not Bonds.

So now he takes his place one home run beyond the immortal Babe Ruth, as enormous a sports legend as America has ever seen.

It is your right to view this as tainted, smeared and fraudulent. It doesn't alter my view, though.

He is the best I've ever seen.