indicted.
So to all you Barry-haters out there, before you pop open a
bottle of your finest champagne to celebrate the demise of baseball’s legendary
villain, ask yourself why Bonds’ indictment is being hailed as the ultimate
victory against cheating in professional sports. Ask yourself why so much
attention has been focused on the exploits of one man, while the sports world
around him cannot itself boast a spotless record.
As hard as it is for me to admit, Barry is an asshole. Being
a die-hard Giants fan, it took me years to realize it — and it breaks my heart
to this day. A childhood spent idolizing the man led me to develop a glorified
image of him. No matter how many times he turned down my requests for a simple
autograph throughout my youth, I still adorned my walls with his posters and
memorized all of his Hall of Fame-worthy statistics.
With the indictment charges, it now seems that Bonds began
dabbling with the juice in 1998, setting in motion a span during which he broke
both the all-time single season and career home run records and won four
straight MVP awards from 2001-04. And he did it all at a point in his career
when most ball players retire because of tired knees or blown-out elbows.
Of course, Bonds skeptics ignore the fact that he batted
.360 and won the National League batting title one year removed from breaking
the single season mark. Surely, having bigger muscles must allow you to have
the patience and hand-eye coordination to take a breaking pitch to the opposite
field for a clean single, right?
Also left out of the Bonds debates are his 500 stolen bases,
most of which were recorded before his supposed steroid use. Now, with public
opinion vehemently against him, it is ironic that Bonds was the leading
vote-getter for the All-Star Game for over a decade, chosen by fans year in and
year out as their most respected and idolized player.
But none of this means anything anymore, because I guess
Bonds is a cheater. Every single one of his home runs should have an asterisk
next to them and Marc Ecko should be made the new commissioner of baseball. And
the Hall of Fame? Forget about it; no way should a cheater like Bonds have a
plaque that graces the same sacred wall as Ty Cobb, an unimaginable bigot and
self-admitted murderer.
Bonds’ critics abound, and reasons for his standing as
baseball’s anti-hero range across the spectrum from morality to racism. To
those of you out there who blindly hate Bonds, but cannot give me any more
reason than “he cheats,” take a good look around and open your eyes to the sad
reality that he’s not sports’ only cheater. Unfortunately for him, he just
happens to be the only one who holds a major record and is harder to get along
with than a strand of syphilis.
As baseball’s bad-boy, Bonds could never be given the
benefit of the doubt for his actions. For the public to forgive a player, or a
team, for cheating, they have to be able to win the hearts of fans and portray
an image of good old-fashioned Americana.
Take the case of the unstoppable New England Patriots, for
example. Winning three Super Bowls usually tends to put you in fans’ good
graces, and right now the Pats have a fan base as big as their average margin
of victory. It can’t hurt to have a quarterback like Tom Brady, who is just as
comfortable on the cover of GQ as he is under pressure from a safety blitz,
either.
But the New England Patriots are cheaters. Their head coach,
Bill Belichick, was fined for stealing signals from the opposing team, and
according to sources, it wasn’t the first time. Many football fans and players
will say that what Belichick did isn’t a big deal, that all teams steal
signals. But statements like that is eerily similar to the fact that Bonds is by no means the lone juicer in
baseball. Within the ranks of baseball’s nice guys, names such as Gary Matthews
Jr., Miguel Tejada and Matt Williams have been linked to steroids. So why is it
that the Patriots’ brand of cheating is virtually ignored while Bonds faces a
nation-wide witch-hunt?
Arguing that New England’s cheating is not as bad as Bonds’
is like trying to justify one murder over another. I don’t care if you think
Bonds cheated — he did — but you should not be allowed to pick and chose which
cheaters you want to persecute.
Around the time that Bonds was approaching Hank Aaron’s
all-time home run record, a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, Gwen
Knapp, suggested that Barry retire one home run short as a sign of respect for
the game and as a way to make amends for his previous wrongdoings. However
unrealistic it may have been, it was a nice thought and would have surely
quieted the majority of Bonds’ critics. Let’s not abandon that noble gesture,
but instead apply it to the aforementioned cheaters: the Patriots.
Only one team in NFL history, the 1972 Miami Dolphins, has
ever gone undefeated for an entire season, but this year’s Patriots seem to
have a legitimate shot at repeating the incredible feat. If the Pats are 15-0
going into the season’s final Sunday, I call on Belichick to forfeit the game
to acknowledge his fraudulent ways and teach all of America’s youth that it is
unacceptable to cheat. Retiring before hitting number 756 would have been the
greatest sign of honor to Hank Aaron and to the morality of the game. Likewise,
conceding the 16th win of the season would illustrate Belichick’s willingness
to play the game the right way, and would be a tribute to the 1972 Dolphins,
who we can safely assume didn’t use video technology to cheat.
Obviously we all want to move past this tainted era of
cheating and scheming and hope that our beloved sports teams can return to the
days of yore when games were decided by grit and determination. But using Bonds
as a scapegoat will not help us get there any sooner; it will only create
animosity and foster future discontent among both players and fans. Just be
happy with the fact that Bonds has been indicted and will most likely now retire
from the game. Let him steal away into the night, leaving his home run total to
be broken by a future slugger. I implore you to show him respect that, as a
player, he never fully showed you as a fan. Be the bigger person and remember
him as the great player that he was, one who loved the game and loved his team.
To err is human, to forgive divine, so cut Barry some slack and move on.
