Barry Bonds

I have decided to join one of the latest crazes going through Hollywood. I’m picking a problem or issue that’s happening in the world today and do my part to help by raising awareness; so that the public will know what is happening and can do something about it. Angelina Jolie and Oprah Winfrey are my inspiration for this column.
I even have a cool acronym for my campaign: BOB; which of course stands for Back Off Barry. As Barry Bonds hit career homeruns 755, 756 and then 757 in the past couple of weeks to equal and then pass Henry Aaron’s mark, the world continues with their asterisk march. They put that little crossed dot anywhere they can. But I am here to put down my John Hancock to stand up for Bonds.
Of course I’m going against popular opinion by taking this stance, but this man needs someone on his side. Yes, Bonds probably did take steroids. There is simply too much evidence against to say it’s more than some white lie that someone made up. But the crusade by the purists to rid the game of this “cheater” is completely flawed.
First of all, what happened until “innocent to proven guilty?” Isn’t it just incredible how all the people who what to shut down that prison in the Caribbean for going against fundamental American rules of government regarding prisoners are they same people who to throw this man in jail without a positive test or without admitting he used himself? This man is being sentenced without a conviction, mainly because people don’t like him a person. If this had been recent Hall inductees Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn, they lash out would not be near as harsh. Please put the personal feelings aside in this matter.
But if the steroid allegations are completely true, what can we really do about? The people who hate him the most want him to never enter the Hall of Fame and for all his numbers to be discredited. That’s great, go ahead and do that. But if we do that, then we can’t allow anyone from the steroids era (circa 1980-2002) to be in the Hall of Fame or have their numbers count towards the record books. Because Bonds wasn’t the only one using, everyone was and people still are. The pitcher he hit the tying homerun off of was just caught a few years ago while in the minors. The whole era was tainted and we will never who used and who didn’t. For all we know, Roger Clemens took steroids because like Bonds, he was heckuva lot skinner when he first broke out in the 1980’s. The same goes for Ken Griffey Jr. or anyone else for that matter. It will be baseball’s greatest unsolved mystery and to punish only Bonds just because he was better than everyone else is shameful.
The best thing that baseball can do now is to admit it happen, resolve to fix it and treat it like any other era. Because the fact is that all the really smart owners, GM’s, managers, players and fans knew something was wrong but they let it happen anyway. A great tragedy happened and nothing was done about it for 20 years and now Barry Bonds must pay for the sins of others. It will be probably be the darkest time in all of sports history and all we can do now is to hope our children forgive us for what we have done.
So let us be careful with our next steps in how we treat Barry Bonds or any other suspected users. Because before we tell Barry Bonds to go to that place that is not heaven for what he’s done, let us think hard for what we did as the institution because our sins may send us there as well.