March 13, 2006 6:10 AM

Now do you believe it?

The Truth About Barry Bonds and Steroids

Baseball’s biggest bully is Bonds

Delivered with the blunt force of a sledgehammer, Game of Shadows is to Barry Bonds what the Dowd Report was to Pete Rose in 1989 — it destroys the reputation of one of baseball’s most accomplished players. Whether Bonds never hits another home run or hits 48 more, which would give him the most of all time, he never can be regarded with honor or full legitimacy. Shadows painstakingly catalogs him as a serial drug cheat, and thus the eye-popping stats that he has accrued stand all too literally as too good to be true.

For years now, I’ve wanted to believe. I’ve wanted to believe that baseball’s steroids “problem” was just a media myth created to sell copy and generate buzz for writers in need of a career boost. I’ve tried to give players the benefit of the doubt. I assumed that Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were just offseason workout fiends, living in the weight room bulking up in their quest for more power. I believed Rafi Palmeiro’s righteous indignation as he proclaimed that he had never used steroids- EVER.

I even wanted to believe that Barry Bonds had simply found the Holy Grail, that he had discovered the secret to improved performance late in his career. After all, if a player is dedicated to building himself up and he spends the offseason hitting the weights, why SHOULDN’T I be able to believe that increased power is a natural occurrence?

She Who Endures My Myriad Eccentricities and I were in the stands at Enron Field the night Barry Bonds hit his 70th home run. It was as electric a moment as I have EVER experienced. The anticipation was intensen, and as soon as the ball left his bat, there was no doubt that the ball park was not going to be able to hold it. The crowd’s reaction and the import of the moment left me with the sort of goosebumps that I’ve never experienced. The hair stood up on my neck and time seemed to stand still. It was an evening I will NEVER forget.

Now I have to face the very real likelihood that it was all a fraud, a chemically-enhanced deception that few of us can ever truly understand. What would drive a player to turn himself into a walking, talking, pharmaceutically-altered freak in the pursuit for numbers, fame, and fortune? Especially when you consider that no one really knows what the long-term effect of such irresponsible drug abuse is?

Yes, I finally have to admit that one of the most memorable events of my life was a fraud- perpetrated upon all of us by Barry Bonds in his craven, insatiable quest to be the center of attention…and I am sickened by it all.

This is the most maddening question I’ve faced in my career: How does Barry Bonds keep getting away with it?

How can the United States attorney’s office in San Francisco not pursue a perjury indictment against Bonds for his testimony to the BALCO grand jury? Are there simply too many Bonds fans and Giants season-ticket holders in that office? Are they more concerned with being at SBC Park the nights he passes Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron on the all-time home-run list?

Does Bonds keep getting away with it because he’s still the biggest individual draw in sports? You might hate him, but you can’t take your eyes off him. He’ll still pack parks from San Francisco to New York because people want to see just how much farther and harder this chemistry experiment of a robo-slugger can hit a baseball now. The steroid revelations make him an even bigger freak-show gate attraction.

Satan (Bud Selig) has tolerated Bonds abuse of his body and the game of baseball. The San Francisco Giants have tolerated it AND looked the other way, because they have to put butts in the seats to cover the note on Pac Bell Park. Most of the media has feigned blissful ignornance…after all, Bonds is an easy target when you’re on a tight deadline. Bonds has even had to testify (and openly lied) in front of a federal grand jury. All of this, and yet NOTHING has happened. For all we know, Bonds may still be injecting himself with Human Growth Hormone (HGH)…because Major League Baseball does not test for it. Despite all of the anecdotal and actual evidence against him, Bonds has skated through it all with nary a scratch. It would appear that given Barry Bonds’ prodigious (albeit chemically enhanced) accomplishments over the past few years, Major League Baseball has chosen to focus on the numbers and not the cheating, the lying, and the pharmacology.

If I sound angry, it’s because I am. One of my most precious baseball memories, one that I witnessed in person, was a complete, total, utter fraud. What’s worse is that Barry Bonds got, and is still getting, away with it. Rafi Palmeiro and Jose Canseco have been disgraced, but Bonds has successfully flaunted his disregard for the law and baseball’s rules with no fear of accountability. To make matters even worse, Bonds is an asshole, a miserable excuse for a human being and a racist who mistreats those around him and disrespects virtually everyone who dares to question his honesty and integrity…such as it is.

THIS is someone we regard as a hero? That our children look up to and whose accomplishments they want to emulate? As much as I love the game of baseball, I am sickened by Barry Bonds, and it’s almost enough to make me turn my back on the game. If Satan (Bud Selig) refuses to hold Bonds accountable, I may just walk away. Why should I spend my energy and hard-earned money supporting a game that openly condones cheating?

If this doesn’t leave you angry, you’re simply not paying attention….

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on March 13, 2006 6:10 AM.

And we just stood by and watched was the previous entry in this blog.

And this is a problem...why, exactly?? is the next entry in this blog.

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