Imperial Points On Bonds

I've been resisting writing about this guy. But here it goes.

I hate Barry Bonds and what he's done to distract from the game. All this talk about him and what he might or might not have done is taking away airtime from the most important thing...the games themselves.

But even if it's proven that he did do steroids, and there's yet to be a shred of hard core physical evidence produced to say that he did, what exactly are you going to do to him? Answer...not goddamn thing.

It wasn't illegal to do steroids in baseball until 2003. And unless someone can come up with a positive bloodtest of his in the last three years, there's nothing you can do to punish him. Nothing.

Yeah, maybe you can turn him into baseball version of OJ. A pariah who will never be able to make the sort of money an athlete of his stature should be able to make off his name and exploits after his career is over. But that's unlikely.

You're not going to keep him out of the Cooperstown. Any honest baseball fan has to admit after 1998, that Bonds was a first ballot Hall Of Famer if he was hit by a truck the day after the season was over. The last eight seasons have been icing on the cake and more cheddar in his bank account. You might be able to keep him out the first year. But eventually, he's getting in.

Outside of a possible perjury charge, and that's shaky at best, Bonds is getting off. A witchhunt turns Bonds into a martyr and that's the last thing you want to do.

To paraphrase a line from Full Metal Jacket "This is a big shit sandwich and Bud and MLB is going to have to take a bite."

Bonds got away with it. Just like OJ. Deal with it. Let's just hope the measures put in place will prevent another Bonds, McGwire, Sosa or any other abuser you want to name from taking their place.

Baseball waited too long to deal with the problem. Now it must deal with the fallout.