Some of the sports writers don't want to give Barry Bonds any more chances...
mercurynews.com
Posted on Wed, Mar. 08, 2006
Enough is enough - Barry Bonds has got to go
BY JENNIFER FLOYD ENGEL
Knight Ridder Newspapers
FORT WORTH, Texas - What did we really learn about Barry Bonds on Tuesday that we didn't already think we knew?
He is a cheat?
A liar? A steroid user? An embarrassment to baseball?
None of this is surprising. Not to me anyway.
What ``Game of Shadows,'' a book by two San Francisco Chronicle reporters detailing Bonds' brazen and prolific use of performance-enhancing drugs until at least 2003, does is finally provide documented proof of what almost everybody felt in their guts.
Excerpts, which appear in the new edition of Sports Illustrated, detail how frustration with baseball's embrace of an obviously `roided Mark McGwire prompted Bonds to start using steroids and provide a definitive accounting of every single pill, injection and dose of the steroids he continues to deny taking.
Which is why this is no longer about Bonds.
He has shown us what he is.
What this Bonds story is about now is if baseball commish Bud Selig finally has the coconuts to say, "Enough."
Because Bonds must be booted from baseball. Forced to retire. Quietly sent packing. Whatever. However. Just do it.
Bye, bye Barry.
He has been a persistent pall on everything baseball has done and attempted to do for too long now, and he must not be allowed to take another swing at Hank Aaron's homerun record - probably sports' greatest mark.
Or Babe Ruth for that matter.
Bonds is seven home runs shy of passing Ruth and needs 48 to bypass "Hammerin' Hank." And while Aaron told me back in June that he is OK with being passed, he added a caveat:
"As long as somebody breaks it who deserves it."
Bonds doesn't in any way fit Aaron's definition of deserving, which was: "I do not want my or anybody's record to be broken simply because somebody went into drugs. I don't want to give them credit if they are on drugs or things. I like them to do it in a clean manner."
Clean? I can't pronounce half of what Bonds did.
Game of Shadows documents Bonds' use of the cream and the clear (designer steroids), insulin, human growth hormone, testosterone decanoate (a fast-acting steroid known as Mexican beans), trenbolone (a cattle steroid) and clomid (a fertility drug), all of which were handily tracked on his "trainer" Greg Anderson's computer and on BALCO boss Victor Conti's calendar.
Don't you just hate documentation?
It makes it nearly impossible for anybody, even the most ardent Bonds backers, to dismiss this as a witch hunt. They have him cold. With facts. With documents. With under-oath, grand-jury testimony.
So what exactly is Selig waiting for?
Does he need to inject the steroids in Bonds' butt himself to finally recognize that this fraud is disgracing baseball?
We don't know.
Selig is not talking.
Somewhat surprisingly, he skipped the debut of his World Baseball Con baby Tuesday instead sending a spokesman with pleas that he had not had a chance to read excerpts of Game of Shadows.
It only took me 10 minutes, but I may be a faster reader.
Let me summarize for you, Bud: Bonds cheated baseball.
Like Rafael Palmeiro, Ken Caminiti and probably McGwire, Sammy Sosa and countless, faceless, nameless others who were allowed a free pass under baseball's non-policy on steroids.
You screwed that up.
Their only punishment can be Hall of Fame exclusion, which, if I had power, would be a done deal. None of them are deserving. None should be in Cooperstown.
Unfortunately, you can't go back in time and bust McGwire before he unjustly took Roger Maris' single-season home run record. Or Sosa, or any of them. You can only stop this latest nonsense.
Banish Bonds.
Banish him before he ruins another record.
Banish him before your sport loses whatever credibility it has left.
I say this not as some jaded sportswriter who has an ax to grind against Bonds. I have never met him. What I am is one of your customers, a diehard fan of baseball who grew up asking for Cardinals tickets for my birthday, who still flies back to St. Louis to watch games with my dad and who still buys tickets to almost 20 Rangers games a year just because I love your game.
But you are losing me, Bud.
You are losing me because what I read about Bonds is no longer surprising at all.
What would be surprising is if you finally did something about it. This is about you now, and it is your last chance to make it right. |
