Pandora's box...

A lot has happened since I created the first post below. (As I mentioned, being new to blogging I lost the first post... which is why the date is the same as today's post.)

MLB has decided that it is going to investigate the use of steroids in baseball's past. Bud Selig chose the easy way out. With the greatest record in sport on the ropes he chose to look back in history to see what he might see. Investigate? What are they going to investigate that they couldn't discover in spending a few hours reading "Game of Shadows" and checking a few sources? Then what do they do? Are they going to go back and rewrite history? Are they going to make Bonds's 73 home runs disappear? How about McGuire's 70? Or Sosa's 66? They can't. They are already in the books. (Only this morning it came out that a grand jury is going to look into whether or not Bonds lied under oath. How bad is it that an arm of government not known for expeditiousness can act more quickly than baseball? Pathetic!)

There is really no way to rewrite history. It simply can't be done. Where do you stop? Juiced pitchers? Corked bats? Segregation? Pine tar? Trying to rewrite history would open some Orwellian Pandora's box that would do nothing but cause confusion and chaos and fundamentally diminish baseball.

Give Bonds his 73 HR season. But don't let him eclipse Babe and Hank. My solution is far from perfect but one has to start somewhere. The worst thing would be for baseball to stand by and watch 714 & 755 fall and only later discover to their amazement that Mr. Bonds had indeed used something stronger than milk to enhance his numbers. What would they do then?
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Help Save Baseball - Don't pitch to Bonds

I originally posted this on March 28. (Being new to this blogging deal, I lost the blog and had to create another one...)

I'm attempting to begin a grass roots campaign. My goal is to keep Barry Bonds's name off of Hank Aaron's home run record. Not by putting an asterisk by his name but by simply not letting him hit the ball. I want to encourage pitchers to simply walk him, refuse to pitch to him. The idea of Bonds eclipsing the records of Ruth and Aaron is a crime, both literally and figuratively. While 715 & 756 will certainly make for great theater if they occur, in the minds of so many people they are merely travesties in the making.

Given this situation, if Bonds doesn't have the character to simply walk away and leave the game with what's left of its tattered respectability still intact, pitchers should simply refuse to pitch to him. I started thinking about what can one guy do about this? Generally, not much. But that does not mean it’s not worth a shot. We can’t force him to leave gracefully, but I say if he demands to play, let the last record he reaches be walks and let him leave the home run record for someone who deserves it.

Hopefully this "Don't pitch to Bonds" notion can become a movement and pitchers across the league will listen. Maybe then baseball will begin to rebuild its reputation as a game of honor rather than one that turns a blind eye to cheating.

MLB responsibility

It's certainly not news that baseball has been derelict in its responsibilities to keep the game clean. It's not so different than the WWF before it was forced a decade or so ago to concede that it was entertainment rather than a sport. If MLB wants to have juiced players then stop the hypocrisy. Admit it and go on. Maybe they could establish a juiced league and a natural league and let the market decide which league survives, let the fans decide which players they would rather watch. Who knows, maybe then it will be the hypocrisy of the fans that will show its face if they choose the juiced league over the natural. (Somewhat like has occurred in the bodybuilding universe.)

If on the other hand baseball wants to actually have players who are clean, they should have real testing with real consequences. Again, you have to start someplace and Mr. Bonds has created a situation where the attention of the fans is focused and the opportunity for action is greatest.

McGuire
I've never met Bonds, but from everything I've ever read he doesn't seem to be a particularly likeable person. Nonetheless he is not paid to be likeable, he's paid to perform. That said however, it certainly should come as no surprise that a person who is disagreeable with almost everyone would come under much greater scrutiny than someone who is likable. I don't have it out for Bonds. I simply think it is a crime that Babe Ruth's and Hank Aaron's numbers should be surpassed by the Terminator. In answer to what is frequently asked, I was a big fan of the Sosa / McGuire chase back in '98. There were whispers of steroids, but they were just that, and in addition, both men had engaging personalities that endeared them to fans everywhere. Regardless of their smiling dispositions, I would like to think that if I had been faced with an account similar to the one that Williams and Fainaru-Wada have put together on Bonds, I would have been similarly outraged.

Of course, as McGuire stated rather pitifully last year to Congress, we are here to discuss the future of baseball, not the past.

(And of course visit www.helpsavebaseball.com for shirts and e-mail links to MLB)