What can I say about Bonds and McGwire that hasn't already been said? They're both phenomenal record setting athletes, pillars of run production for their respective teams, and both hiding under the suspicion of using "performance enhancing drugs." I personally grew up a fan of both McGwire and Bonds. I still have rookie cards of both from my youth. I grew up thinking they were great athletes. Bonds was a perennial 30 home run / 30 stolen base man. I remember the amazing Pittsburgh Pirates teams of the late 80's and early 90's. Bonds, Bobby Bonilla, and Andy Van Slyke were amazing in the outfield. McGwire broke into the scene with an AL rookie of the year award following a 49-homer rookie season, much to the dismay of Kansas City's Kevin Seitzer.
I sat and watched much of the 11 and 1/4 hour congressional witch-hunt, and saw much of the testimony from McGwire disappoint. I know he had a lawyer inform him of his rights and the implications of testimony in future prosecutions, but he just pulled a Ronald Reagan before the Iran-Contra committee. He blatantly refused to answer anything. I can understand evading the direct questions regarding his use or knowledge of anyone else's use, but he didn't offer much. He said, "It's not up to me to decide," regarding if steroids were cheating. He also hid behind "I'm retired," and "that's in the past, and I’m not here to discuss the past," It just seemed so insincere since he opened his testimony with such emotion. I understand that he had people to protect, mainly himself, but the backlash has been immense. Some want to revoke the stretch of the "Big Mac" highway; some want an asterisk net to his 70-homerun season, while others are thinking of stonewalling him from Cooperstown.
People act like those enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame are all respectable, upstanding role models of society. I shudder at the thought of Ty Cobb, the reported womanizer and fan of the KKK. No one wants Cobb taken out because of what he believed, or did during his non-baseball life. I'm sure there are cheats, bat corkers, baseball scuffers, racists, drunks, womanizers, and out and out non role models in the Hall as well. What about all the pitchers that benefited from a taller mound before 1969? Should their records have an asterisk? Can you imagine Nolan Ryan, Steve Carlton, Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, and Curt Schilling's stats if they threw from a mound five inches taller? They surely would have more wins and strikeouts.
I see that steroids were a part of baseball for a while, but I have yet to see a steroid hit a pitch. Even if McGwire used steroids he still had to lift weights, practice hitting and train like the world-class athlete he became. So he had more homeruns than he would have without the rigorous training. How many fewer would he have hit? Are you sure it was the steroids, or was it the over wound baseballs, or the watered down pitching? The only thing McGwire has now is his friends and family, which has for the most part escaped public scrutiny. Barry Bonds on the other hand hasn't received the same amount of respect for his privacy.
Over the weekend the San Francisco Chronicle ran an article covering the grand jury testimony of a woman who has presented herself as Bonds girlfriend. She claims to have intimate knowledge that he has used steroids since the 2000 season; that he didn't report the income received from signing at memorabilia shows, and he allegedly gave her $80,000 that she used for a down payment on a house in Scottsdale, AZ. Whether you believe her or not it is not the first time the Chronicle has run a story that Bonds didn't like. Last year the Chronicle got a hold of the "sealed" grand jury testimony pertaining to the BALCO investigation that implicated Giambi, and Bonds of using their products.
Bonds looked worn out in his interview this week. He said he was tired 14 times in a very short 3-minute interview. It looks like he will miss at least half of the season to rehab his twice-operated on knee. It was noticeably conspicuous that the Chronicle baseball beat writer was missing from the interview. I think the allegations before wouldn't stick, but the testimony of the "girlfriend / mistress" contradicts most of what Bonds said to the grand jury in the BALCO investigation. All in all Bonds hasn't done himself a lot of favors by being so standoffish with the media over the years. I don't feel sorry for him, but he is still a person that deserves some of the "innocent until proven guilty" that the courts provide us in our Constitution.
