baseball in the barroid era

let's get one thing straight: barry bonds took performance enhancing drugs. in a leaked grand jury testimony, barry bonds said that he did take steroids, but he did so unknowingly. he testified that when he took the designer steroids ‘the cream’ and ‘the clear,’ he was told that they were flaxseed oil, a supplement that aids in healing pain that is associated with arthritis. i'm no legal expert [yet], but i’m not sure how that type of argument holds up in a court of law. for example, let's say an someone is charged with smoking marijuana. when a court of law investigates the accusation, if the defendant’s only argument is that he thought he was told it was a regular cigarette and nothing else, he would still be found guilty of the crime whether or not the defendant genuinely believed that it was a cigarette. and guess what, the accused can't deny that they smoked marijuana, regardless of what they thought it was. the same thing can be said in barry bonds' case, that he took steroids even if he was unaware of it. obviously, the two situations aren’t entirely the same [with barry’s case being much more complex], but the situations are similar enough to juxtapose. so i’m sorry barry, but that’s a pretty weak defense.

i do believe barry bonds when he says that he was never told that what was taking he was taking were actually steroids, but i’m certain that he suspected that they were. for barry, it was a better situation for him to be out of the loop and leave others to be the fall guy [eg his personal trainer greg anderson] in the event that a scandal would arise. that way, he would be able to plead ignorance. for barry, the less he knew, the better.

so why did a mortal lock of being a first-ballot hall of famer place himself in a position where his legacy could be tainted? he had already won 3 mvp awards by 2001, which at the time was tied for the most mvp awards of any person [bonds currently has 7 mvp awards, no one else has more than 3]. without argument, he had already established himself as one of the all-time greatest players before the issue of steroids came under suspicion. in the book, game of shadows, mark fainaru-wada and lance williams propose that bonds was jealous of the admiration from fans and media that mcgwire and sosa were receiving for their accolades. he was not envious because of their accomplishments and the attention per say, but rather that their feats were helped by the use of steroids [or so he thought] and that no one suspected as much. so i assume barry took the 'if you can't beat them, join them' approach and the rest is baseball history.

although barry bonds has become the poster-boy for the steroid era, there are many other players who have admitted to taking steroids and/or have actually tested positive. for instance, jason giambi and rafael palmeiro have either admitted to steroid use or have tested positive for using steroids. jason giambi [who admitted to steroid use] won an mvp award, and rafael palmeiro [who tested positive] is one of four players in baseball history with 500 home runs and 3,000 hits. yet neither of these two players are hated to the extent that barry bonds is. gary sheffield has also said that he unknowingly took steroids, yet it seems as though that he gets a pass from fans and media alike. likewise, sammy sosa seems to have avoided the scrutiny that bonds has faced, even as he reached a noteworthy milestone by hitting his 600th home run earlier this year. so why does the majority of the baseball community hate barry bonds more than players in a similar situation?

for the greater part of the public, the answer to this question lies in what barry bonds has accomplished because of his steroid use, and not necessarily the steroid use itself. people are angry that he broke mcgwire's single season home run record [even though another alleged steroid user in mcgwire did the same thing himself when he broke the record set by roger maris, a person who didn't take steroids], and people are angry that he has now passed both babe ruth and hank aaron in setting the all-time home run record. [for some reason, the other records and historic marks aren't as important.] but if is this the issue at hand [and i believe it is], does that mean that it is more valid to hate a steroid user who breaks the single season and all-time home run records than the other players who acculmulate lesser statistics? because i thought the main concern is cheating in general in addition to the health of players who use them and the youth who might make the same mistake. but maybe i'm just naive.

with that in mind, what frustrates me the more than anything else about barry bonds taking steroids is not that he has broken hallowed records by using them, but the fact that he was already a transcendent player before he even touched any of it. he was gifted and talented far beyond almost all of his peers as well as those who played before him. he didn't need steroids to enhance his game to higher level; he was already playing at a level most players could only dream. i don't understand why he thought he needed to take steroids to convince people that he was better than mcgwire or sosa, because in the minds of those who truly follow baseball, among his contemporaries, there were none better.

in the end, i believe that barry bonds has been unfairly vilified. but don't misinterpret that as a statement that i condone what he has done. barry bonds deserves to be hated and booed, but not to this degree [or, all steroid users should be hated and booed to his degree]. there have been other high profile players who used steroids to help accomplish noteworthy achievements on the field but they are not treated as poorly. true, those players are treated badly for a while, but it fades away. and for baseball's sake, i hope the steroid use by players does as well.