An Era to Forget

Bonds is going to break baseball's most cherished record and stain the game by doing so. Hank Aaron won't be there to congratulate him when he breaks the record and you can bet Commissioner Bud Selig won't be there either. He simply cannot be there to shake Bonds' hand because the minute he does that he is saying that cheating is okay. Yes, Selig is tacitly guilty of all this because he was one of the people who closed his eyes when the steroid outbreak occurred. But he can't continue to endorse what Bonds and others have done to the game by going along with the notion that Bonds is the greatest home run hitter in history.

He has to turn his back. And please let us not continue with this foolish notion that Bonds and the others must be convicted beyond a reasonable doubt. This isn't a court of law. Being considered a hero is a privilege, not a legal right. Even if you want to take Bonds at his word -- which is a little bit like taking anything Alberto Gonzales says seriously -- he has taken steroids (accidentally, he told a grand jury) and amphetamines, for which he tested positive last year. (Another accident of course. Athletes and drugs are a little bit like Claudine Longet, the beautiful French singer who killed her lover, skier Spider Sabich, and then claimed she'd shot him accidentally. Saturday Night Live once staged a "Claudine Longet skiing invitational," in which every competitor was accidentally shot by Claudine Longet).

Every single athlete who has ever tested positive for drugs ended up with them in his or her system accidentally.

If you are paying even a little bit of attention -- ala Darling in the Oakland clubhouse in 1991 -- it is pretty clear that the number of players using steroids in the last 15 or 20 years has been epidemic. Bonds is just the best of them and, while the apologists will claim that the reason people don't want to acknowledge his pursuit of the record is that they don't like him, that's just not the case.

Make no mistake, Bonds is a bad guy. He's obnoxious, condescending and rude. Forget his relationship with the media (no one cares if he's not nice to the media) ask his ex-teammates or his ex-wives or ex-girlfriends. Don't ask current teammates (for obvious reasons) especially pitcher Barry Zito, whose behavior in trying to ingratiate himself with Bonds this spring has been close to disgusting.

Lots of bad guys have set important records. Rickey Henderson was as hard to take as anyone. Who can forget his, "I am the greatest of all time," speech after breaking Lou Brock's record for stolen bases. Pete Rose is a liar and a moron. There aren't a lot of people around baseball shedding tears for Alex Rodriguez after his postseason meltdowns because they think he's a phony. Ty Cobb was truly an evil man according to just about anyone who ever met him.

But no one has ever tried to demean their baseball accomplishments of any of them because there's never been a shred of evidence any of them cheated. There's plenty of evidence Bonds has cheated and there's no one inside the game who doesn't think he's lying every time he claims his innocence.

He's not alone by any means. In fact, every day it is becoming more and more apparent that he was probably a part of the majority. He's just the symbol of an era that baseball can't forget soon enough.

The problem is it is going to be a long, long time before anyone is able to forget. Baseball has been stained. Perhaps not forever and probably not irreparably but in ways that won't be forgotten, and shouldn't be forgotten, anytime soon.