The High Court

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Bonds. Selig. Fiesta!

January 31, 2007

 

From the desk of The Chief Justice…

 

The question has been raised a number of times already, and it will only continue to be asked…with increasing intensity…as Barry Bonds draws closer to home run 756...Will Major League Baseball celebrate the feat when baseball’s greatest modern-day villain breaks Hank Aaron’s record?

 

It says here that they will, and it also says here, more importantly, that they should.  What we have in Bonds is one of the greatest players in the game’s history, his public image be damned.  We also have a player that has (as far as we know) never failed a MLB steroid test (although now amphetamines are a different story).  Yes, Bonds has a federal grand jury on his tail, and yes, we have the knowledge from leaked grand jury testimony that Bonds likely ingested performance-enhancing substances…although we have no firm testimony that Bonds took performance enhancers knowingly, save for the claims of a scorned mistress.

 

But just to remove the whole steroid speculation from the picture, let’s stipulate and say that Bonds ‘cheated’.  Let’s just go ahead and say it.  What then?  Should MLB be allowed to simply ignore a significant part of its history as if it never happened?  Should Bud Selig and company be allowed to take the high road now when it is convenient, when Selig and his ownership cronies were negligent in dealing with the steroid issue for better than a decade prior to Bonds running down one of baseball’s most hallowed marks?

 

I say no.  I say Selig (and I do like Bud Selig) should have to shake the hand of the man that will break the record of his friend and hero, Henry Aaron, whenever that historic blast leaves the ballpark.  Selig should have to stand up and be accountable for the actions that took place on his watch.  There should be photos of Selig physically embracing Bonds, providing tangible endorsement of whatever it took to get Barry in position to shatter one of sports’ most landmark standards.  Because for years, by sitting idly as one performance-enhanced player after another put on a big league uniform, Selig figuratively embraced their behavior.

 

It is important to state that I do not exonerate Bonds, any of his peers that may have engaged in steroid use, or the union that has long protected drug users, from criticism.  Any individual that chose to cross clear ethical lines or any group that acted to provide an environment where cheating could occur should be accountable for their actions, and frankly, everyone involved should be ashamed.  But at some point, one has to recognize that the apparent lawlessness on the steroid front kicked into overdrive when the owners kicked Fay Vincent out of office and installed one of their own, Selig.

 

I do like Bud Selig, and unlike his critics, I think he has been a positive force for the game of baseball.  It is hard for me to imagine there being anyone who loves the game more.  Selig has had a lifelong love affair with the game, including with Aaron’s Milwaukee Braves, a love affair that led to him eventually becoming the owner of the Milwaukee Brewers.  Sadly, for Selig, he eventually may be remembered as the commissioner who did nothing as steroids tarnished the image of his game.  It was thought for many years that he might be remembered as the commissioner that allowed a labor stoppage to cancel a season and a World Series, but I do believe that he is now in danger of being forever tied to the ugly mess caused by the rampant use of performance enhancers in the game of baseball.

 

Peter Gammons commented on the finalization of Barry Bonds’ contract with the Giants last night, and in doing so he pointed out that two NFL clubs went into the final eight with key personnel with a history of performance enhancer use.  San Diego’s Shawne Merriman, one of the most dominant defensive players in football, and New England’s Todd Sauerbrun, one of the better punters in the league, both have black marks on their rap sheet where steroid use is concerned.  Merriman lost four games to suspension this year, and Sauerbrun was one of several Carolina Panthers tied to a steroid scandal during their Super Bowl season of 2003.  The point was (and is) that organizations are ultimately going to employ people that can help them win, regardless of what transgressions they have committed…and perhaps more importantly, unlike Merriman, Bonds (again, as far as we know) has never failed a league drug test for steroids.  Gammons also noted that the many in the media continue to be overzealous in their reporting of such stories, often looking to add names to the steroid blacklist without any sort of hard evidence.  Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa are both examples of that trend.  Major League Baseball has never stopped marketing Roger Clemens, and they didn’t stop Sammy Sosa from attempting to return to baseball with the Texas Rangers.  How can they ignore Bonds if his testing résumé is as clean as that of Clemens and Sosa?

 

Bonds probably did use performance-enhancing drugs; he probably did so knowingly.  And I would guess the moralists that guard Cooperstown will make him pay for it.   But the day that he breaks Hank Aaron’s record, MLB should be there to acknowledge his accomplishment.  They should be there to honor Bonds and to honor Aaron, and maybe most of all, they should be there to remind themselves of how they got there in the first place.

 

 

 

You can contact The Chief at chiefjustice@thehighcourtofsports.com