Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Barry Bonds, With a Side of Roger Clemens

Right off the bat, I will not refer to Barry Bonds by his common baseball title. Henry Aaron (not Hank Aaron, as The Hammer considers "Hank" a character he has to perform in public, but does not particularly like) was my first hero in sports, the man who carried the burden of approaching and then surpassing Babe Ruth on the Home Run list, and I will not now or ever describe any juicer as Mr. Aaron's better on baseball's greatest list. So...
The Giants' former slugger, Barry Bonds, is on trial in California due to steroids. Not because he used steroids. But because he lied about using them. He has repeatedly insisted, under various oaths and to multiple law enforcement officials in sworn statements, that he never "knowingly" used steroids. I did not use the popular "allegedly lied" because anyone who has seen pictures of Barry Bonds prior to, say, 1997, and after, say, 1998, knows that something happened. In his mid-30's Bonds' head went from being an orange to being a grapefruit. His shoulders went from those of a sprinter to those of an offensive tackle. His arms...well, you get the idea. His best single season home run total also went from 49 to 73. That's a lot. Many ballplayers saw a similar increase in those years.
Most of that many have owned up to what caused their improvement. A lot of them, granted, were outed by the Mitchell Report or the periodic spurts of names from the list of positive testers that set baseball's testing program into motion from 2002. But they've owned up to it. And not one of the people who has admitted what happened, either before Congress, the FBI, local police or other officials has ever been prosecuted for steroid use. Miguel Tejada pled guilty to perjury, with a full elocution of his usage, and had his sentence suspended. That, to my knowledge, leaves the prosecutions of Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds.
Again, neither of them is being prosecuted for using steroids. They are being prosecuted for lying about their use of steroids. It does not matter that Clemens and Bonds seemed to themselves to have been bigger than the game of baseball, no usage pun intended. It does not matter that both men seem to believe themselves bigger than Congress (in Clemens' case) or federal grand juries (in Bonds' case). And, yes, this combination of charges may indeed mean that Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens find their freedom in peril because they are stupid. Nonetheless, as Bruce Pearl can now also bear witness, when you are caught, own up to it. Otherwise, it will cost you, and cost you big.
And it is precisely the nature of that cost that is now at issue. Bonds and Clemens have already cost themselves election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. The Baseball Writers' Association of America, those who cast the ballots for the Hall, have already made themselves heard on steroid usage, and even whispered allegations of steroid usage. Look at Mark McGwire's vote totals, or Rafael Palmeiro's, or even Jeff Bagwell's this year. If you used, or are believed to have used, you aren't getting in, period. Bonds and Clemens don't have a prayer of being elected.
Any day now would be a good time for these two fellows to wake up, own up to their actions, beg the mercy of public opinion and the courts, and pray fervently that they get to live out their natural lives outside the bounds of a federal penitentiary.
Or, they can just keep going as they are, as arrogant and foolish as they have lived for pretty much their entire adult lives. And kiss their freedom goodbye for a few years, and what's left of their names goodbye forever.

2 comments:

"CAPTAIN DAVE" said...

Yeah, but have you seen how big those guys get in prison?!?

Joe Baseball said...

Then again, as far as I know, the inmates' stats aren't getting them into the Hall of Fame, either.