The Business of Barry Bonds

When Barry Bonds breaks Hank Aaron's lifetime home run record within the next two seasons, he will be booed. Mercilessly. He'll be booed because he's a cheater, because he's a liar, and because he's an egotistical bastard who treats other human beings like tiny scabs left behind by syringe pricks. (And really, when speaking about Bonds, appearance of the word prick is practically mandatory.)

The only thing larger than Barry's steroid-soaked head is the fallout from the last month's worth of revelations and accusations about performance-enhancing drugs in baseball. Even if the public doesn't care (and we don't), and even if Major League Baseball owes its renaissance to the artificially-inflated numbers from artificially-inflated players (and it does), the party's over. Too many politicians are too interested in what is one of those slam-dunk public relations coups for congressmen on the stump. ("Save our children from steroids!" "Eliminate flat tires!" "Unlike my opponent, I will not now, nor will I ever, ban the sale of umbrellas on rainy days, so help me God!")

There is going to be meaningful testing in Major League Baseball. But hasn't the anabolic pony already left the barn, as we're frantically closing the door? The home runs have been hit, the records have been shattered, and most importantly, the millions have been made -- by players, by baseball, and by media conglomerates like Time Warner and Disney.

All three parties were captains of the steroid industry. And now, all three are occupying the same awkward space between blissful ignorance and mournful perception. Because, you see, they didn't know ... but then again, who didn't know, right? The bottom line is that the late great Ray Charles could have seen these players were chemically-enhancing their performances. (And if he couldn't, one squeeze of the ol' twig and berries would have told him everything he needed to know. Georgia on his mind? Try Rhode Island in their pants.)

You know who knew? The trainers, unless they all received their degrees through the mail from Micronesia. And if the trainers knew, the coaches knew. If the coaches knew, the teams knew. If the teams knew, baseball knew. And we all know none of them were going to say but jack and squat about it, because nobody buys season tickets or advertising space during television broadcasts for a team with warning-track power.

Unfortunately for those season ticket holders -- and really all the fans that paid to see these frauds hit their home runs over the last decade -- they are now to blame for the steroid epidemic. You see, because we dared to attend games just to see Bonds, just to see Jason Giambi, just to see the rest of the ones who haven't copped to juicing yet ... we were feeding the monster. We were approving of the behavior. It's our fault, and now we have to figure out what we're going to do about it.

And who's telling us this? That's right: the people who don't have to pay to see the games. ESPN. Sports talk radio screamers. Magazine columnists. The usual group of know-it-alls who are far too eager to leap onto their soap boxes to shake a disapproving finger at the fans, even when we're the ones absorbing the costs, absorbing the punches, and wiping the spit off our $250 logo jackets.

Take ESPN, which spent as much time over the last few weeks telling the fans how to feel as it did analyzing what baseball didn't do to curb steroid abuse. Back in 1991, when it was apparent to everyone but Barry Bonds that Barry Bonds was on the juice, ESPN lauded him with the same kind of hero worship it gave Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa -- even if Barry's pursuit of the single-season home run record generated only a fraction of the interest theirs did. What was the most important issue surrounding Bonds' home run chase? The fact that Barry was clearly enhancing his strength artificially, but baseball's feeble drug policy was more concerned with cocaine because cokeheads don't hit homers? Nope ... it was that Barry kept getting walked at the plate.

The fact is that Barry walking wasn't good for business, especially with ESPN breaking into coverage to show his every at-bat. Barry hitting home runs was. So the media made it their task to slam opposing teams and managers for walking Bonds, to ridicule and bemoan the fact that Bonds was breaking the record for walks before he broke the record for homers. Forget the fact that these pitchers were actually defending the integrity of the game by not allowing a cheater to prosper -- they were the bad guys, not Bonds.

Fast-forward to May 2004, and Bonds is still getting the breaks, even as his name was linked with the BALCO case. Here's Tom Verducci, venerable baseball columnist for Sports Illustrated:

Two months shy of turning 40, Bonds has never been bigger, and not in a BALCO kind of way.

Boy, that sure sounds like someone giving Mr. Bonds the benefit of the doubt. Whaddya do, Tommy: drink his urine? Check Barry's belly for needle pricks? Imagine if the San Francisco Chronicle had not pursued those grand jury transcripts, and decided that Barry was big, "but not in a BALCO kind of way." We would have never known that Jeremy Giambi was on the juice!

But just like ESPN, SI is in the business of Barry Bonds. He appeared on six covers since 2001, although two were in reference to the BALCO Labs investigation. One cover from 2001 simply said "Smashing," and featured Barry's artificially-enhanced biceps smacking a historic home run. Eight years earlier, SI had a cover that featured Bonds and the headline "I'm Barry Bonds, and You're Not." More notable was the picture they used, showing Bonds in the on-deck circle, resting his weight on his bat.

Wait ... what weight? You can't tell the difference between Barry's forearms from his bat in the picture. But that never mattered to the bean counters in Tom Verducci's office -- although I imagine there are some lighting issues when you're trying to calculate net profits with your head buried in the sand.

But now that the syringe is out of the fatty tissue, winking denial of steroid abuse in Major League Baseball is soooooo 2001. Solemn realization is what the cool kids are into. Like Jayson Stark of ESPN.com, who like the rest of his cronies in Big Media knew-it-all-along, and now it's up to the fans to dictate how this thing plays out:

"We know that because, in the same set of polling, more than 93 percent of fans surveyed said steroid use "taints the game."

So the people have spoken. But they've spoken before. And what they said this week is no different than what they said last week. Or last month. Or last year. Or last century.

They don't exactly look at steroids and baseball as the sports world's cutest couple. When they look at this scene, they see Sharon and Ozzy, not Nick and Jessica.

So what have people really made of the developments they read about and heard about this week? They didn't need shock therapy -- because they knew this stuff was looming, just over the horizon. Who the heck didn't?"

Indeed: who the heck didn't? Did ESPN? Did SI? Did The Sporting News? Did FOX? Did Topps? Did Nike? Did Rawlings? Did FILA? Did all the corporations and individuals who used the same players they now vilify like virtual ATM machines of ad revenue and subscription fees?

Suddenly, it's on us, dear paying customers, to decide where baseball and its drug testing policy are going. If we still go to the games, or fail to grab our torches and head to Selig's office, aren't we saying we simply don't care about drugs in sports? Aren't we the depraved ones?

Or is true moral bankruptcy when one fails to prosecute the guilty because they don't want to see the cash cow roll over and die?

Fans don't have to answer to anything or anyone. We're the reason all of these people have their jobs -- never forget that.

The same privilege doesn't fall to the Mainstream Sports Media. They have some questions to answer, some souls to search. What if ESPN refused to cover Barry Bonds' every at-bat because of the issues surrounding his achievements? Remember: the antidote for libel is truth. And as Jayson Stark said: who the heck didn't know?

Maybe Bonds's admission that he took steroids (unknowingly, naturally) will encourage the sports media to take a stand against cheaters and suspected cheaters.

Maybe it'll be the ultimate irony: steroids actually increasing the size of someone's testicles.

But, more likely, ESPN and SI and FOX and whoever else has their hands in baseball's cookie jar will cover Bonds' 756th home run like The Second Coming, adopting the forever popular "steroids can't help you hit a curve ball" mantra as the music swells and Barry is crowned King of All Sluggers.

I just hope we can hear the announcers over the booing.

Not from the fans.

From Henry Aaron.

A Short Memo to Oakland Co. (MI) Prosecutor David Gorcyca

David:

I'm not a lawyer.

I know this because I never catch a whiff of bullshit on my own breath.

But I know injustice when I see it.

You decided to charge a fan by the name of John Green with two counts of misdemeanor assault for his role in the Pacers/Pistons brawl. In your words, by allegedly throwing a cup of soda at Ron Artest, he "single-handedly incited this whole interaction between the fans and players and probably is the one that's most culpable."

Now, I'm not sure a high-powered Perry Mason like yourself has a chance to watch many sports on television. But this actually isn't the first time a fan has thrown a cup of soda or beer or air at a player. It happens a few times every season, as a football team leaves through the tunnel or a hockey player heads to the locker room after a fight. Hell, I remember when Hulk Hogan joined the nWo in professional wrestling, and every cup that wasn't behind the concession stand was thrown at the ring.

What separates those -- presumably unprosecuted -- incidents from the Pacers/Pistons fight is that none of the victims of these random cuppings ever turned around, ran into the stands and beat the living crap out of anybody.

John Green threw a cup at a player who was mocking his team and its fans. Ron Artest entered a crowd, incited a riot, and assaulted an innocent party. Yet his punishment will be less than Green's by virtue of being charged with one fewer misdemeanor.

This is a joke, right? When do the real charges come down, on the players who entered the stands and pummeled a bunch of people whose only crime was not running the minute these lunatics left the court?

Look, John Grisham: we both know athletes get the breaks when it comes to the legal system. O.J. didn't do it. Kobe's chick isn't a rape victim; she's a crazy harlot. If I got caught with a bag of Grandpa's magic eye medicine in my backpack, I could try to explain it away with "it's my friend's" or "I don't know where that came from," but since I don't have a shoe contract, my ass would be going to jail.

But we all saw the footage. Artest beat the piss out of an innocent bystander. Yet he only gets a slap on the wrist, while two of the fans get taken to the woodshed. (Evidently throwing your fists isn't as felonious as throwing a chair.) Palace president Tom Wilson has banned all seven fans from his arena; will he do the same for the five players charged this week? I'm guessing not.

Good luck to you, Dave. Mayhaps this aggressive prosecution will begin a new era in arena fandom, and we'll see dozens of fans carried out in handcuffs during games for tossing, cussing, or gesturing. One day, maybe we could even do the Iraqi Freedom thing and prosecute fans that intend to one day throw a soda.

Who knows, Dave? If this all goes as planned, maybe the day will come when we'll see maniacal thugs like Artest lauded as heroes for having the guts to stand up to their soda-chucking persecutors.

And we'll have you to thank for it.

Greg Wyshynski is also a weekly columnist for SportsFan Magazine. His columns appear every Saturday on Sports Central. You can e-mail Greg at [email protected].