A Message To The PhDs

I hate having to write about Barry Bonds the day after he broke Hank Aaron's home run record. Enough will be said about it and the cloud over him. Most of it will be half-ass and redundant. However something else related to the Bonds story has come to my attention thanks to the words and actions of Bud Selig and Dale Murphy.

Michael Wilbon's August 7th column mirrors my position on the recent words and actions of Bud Selig.

What Selig is doing, by just sitting there in some sky suite, is taking the easy non-confrontational way out. Implicitly, he's blaming Bonds specifically and exclusively for baseball's larger problem of steroid use, even though it's a generational problem of which Bonds is a symptom but hardly the cause. Of course, there's great irony in the fact that the pitcher who gave up the record-tying home run has tested positive for steroid use in the minor leagues. In this regard, the chickens have come home to roost; baseball is getting exactly what it deserves.

Selig is nothing but a fool and a coward. For too long, baseball treated steroids the way China treats the Darfur issue. They talked around the issue as though the problem was non-existent until it got out and then they acted surprised. It's shocking baseball is doing as well as it is considering Selig's ham-handed reign of idiocy and that's an insult to sweet, delicious ham.

Selig's feigned disgust as Bonds approached 756 was pathetic and hypocritical at best. This is a situation he helped to create. Wilbon describes him as a "paralyzed commissioner, one whose inability to be decisive in this situation is making him and the game look bad". This has been the case too often when it comes to Selig and big decisions. One only need look at the way he bent over for the owners during the Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals saga or his conflict of interest due to his long-time family ownership of the Milwaukee Brewers several years ago to see a pattern of incompetence and an inability to step up to the plate when it comes time to make important decisions.

On the opposite end of the spectrum we have people like Dale Murphy.

"Barry's a great player, there's no question about it, but he put an asterisk by his name on his own. He's deserved all the negative publicity that he's getting. I mean, people are calling up and complaining, I've heard the last few weeks, that that he's being treated unfairly. You know, life just usually isn't like that. You don't usually get treated unfairly. You usually get what you deserve. This is what Barry deserves. He's a hard guy to like. He's a hard teammate to have and, you know, he's set a terrible example for our kids."

Let me get this straight. He's guilty because he's an asshole? It's interesting that so many people are willing to crucify Bonds even though he has never tested positive. I am of the opinion that for many (not all), Bonds is guilty because he is an unlikable personality. Contrast him with Lance Armstrong. Speak on it, Wilbon.

"Contrast that with iconic cyclist Lance Armstrong, who whenever he is accused of using some kind of performance enhancer, goes on 'Larry King Live' or 'SportsCenter' and eloquently faces his critics. There is only circumstantial evidence against Armstrong, too, as he's never tested positive for a banned substance. But Armstrong, who has beaten cancer and is eminently cheery and welcoming, receives every benefit of the doubt even though so many people have accused him of cheating it's impossible to keep track. The sport of cycling is a mess because of cheating, but Armstrong is seen as being separate and apart, even above, his sport's mess."

We all have our opinions on whether Bonds used performance-enhancing drugs just as we all have our opinion on Lance Armstrong. I wonder how many people believe that Bonds is guilty while also believing that Armstrong is innocent. Bonds, for whatever reason, has chosen to tell the world that he doesn't care about their opinion and of course that makes people furious especially self-righteous baseball writers and players like Curt Schilling and Murphy.

"Even in a court of law you can have ... a preponderance of circumstantial evidence to convict somebody ... Now, maybe I'm wrong, but when you get enough stuff on a guy, you can make a decision and it's just really a no-brainer. The guy would have become one of the great ones, anyway. ... But now, he sucked the fun and the life right out of it. I mean, there is enough evidence to me to say without a doubt he used performance-enhancing drugs. He hit 73 home runs when he was 37. I mean, Hank would have hit 855 if he had the same advantage."

Dale Murphy's a regular Perry Mason. He'd do well on the bench at a Guantanamo military tribunal. I'm a fool for going over $100k in loans to get a law degree.

Bottom line: There's way too much hypocrisy and bullshit flying around the steroids controversy from all sides. I'm not here to defend Bonds and say definitively that he did not use performance-enhancing drugs. People like Selig and Murphy make it that much harder to deal with the issue. I hate saying this but I do think that if Bonds were more of a "people-person", less people would be so vehement in their anger over his accomplishments. This is not to say that many would not suspect him.

For the record, Dale Murphy was a favorite of mine growing up. At the risk of sounding hypocritical, I do suspect that Bonds used performance-enhancing drugs. I suspect he did along with numerous others. However, he's never tested positive. Suspicion does not equal guilt. The same goes for Armstrong. If we're going to asterisk Bonds, we better asterisk a bunch of players and their records but that's not going to happen. Baseball needs to admit it dropped the ball and move on with a stronger performance-enhancing drug policy in place. Writers need to accept that fact that the game is not pure and hasn't been for a long time. Stop trying to act as though it is, Bonds is the first one to stain the game and that the damage is irreparable. Records are meant to be broken and someone will pass his final home run number too. Hank Aaron may not have been there but he still gave a video tribute to Bonds last night. That should be good enough for you in the absence of a positive drug test or admission of guilt. If you want someone or something to blame, blame baseball as a whole for ignoring the problem. Give Bonds his due because whether you like it or not, he's one of the best to play the game with or without the drugs.