Has sports reached a new low?

Today, Barry Bonds tied (he broke it a few days after I originally wrote this). Hank Aaron's career home run record of 755. Apparently, the reaction from the capacity crowd at San Diego was a cacaphonous mixture of boos and cheers. There were also hundreds, if not more than a thousand fans who held up white pieces of paper with a huge asterisk printed on it.

Here is one sporswriter's take on this whole circus.

Bonds, of course, is still under investigation for lying about using performance enhancing drugs. His trainer Greg Anderson went to jail for refusing to testify and for obstructing justice, if I remember correctly. This whole sordid, disgraceful story was unpacked in the book Game of Shadows, written by two San Francisco sportswriters who thoroughly investigated Bonds' ties to the dubious San Francisco training supplement lab known as BALCO.

I am not sure what is more disturbing- that Bonds may well have done steroids and hormones then lied about it and been enabled by trainers, OR that owners, managers, and top league officials, including MLB commissioner Bud Selig seem to have all but turned a blind eye to the steroid and performance-enhancing drug problem.

In the first 12 years of Bonds' career, he had never hit more than 40 home runs. Then, all of a sudden, the year after Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa battled for the home run record, under suspicious circumstances (fast forward to McGuire's huge 'no comment' in his testimony before the congressional committee investigating performance-enhancing drugs). THEN, the following year, Bonds bulks up by more than 25 lbs, sets a new home run record, followed the next year by swatting a mammoth 73 homers! A few of them which may still be orbiting the earth...

Also, his stolen base total went down significantly while his power numbers skyrocketed- presumably from the significant weight and muscle mass he put on all of a sudden....

So, here we are about 6-8 years later, and Bonds just tied Hank Aaron- one of the most prolific and highly respected men to ever play the game. What does the league commissioner have to say about what under presumably honest circumstances would have been a momentous achievement?? Here is his quote:

"Everybody has to make their own judgments."

Hmm... not exactly a ringing endorsement.

Wait, wait, surely one of his own teammates would be able to put a more positive spin on this:

"My impression?" teammate Dave
Roberts said. "From the outside, I had a certain opinion. Now that I'm
closer to it, I think he's getting a raw deal, plain and simple. … He's taken
shots from everybody. After a while, you clam up. People take him as a bad guy
because of it.
"He's never tested positive. The people that know him best –
teammates or guys who play against him – those are the people I listen to. And I
love having him as a teammate. I don't know how he's dealt with it his whole
career. Some of it might be warranted, but it goes both ways."

"Some of it might be warranted, but it goes both ways." Basically he seems to be saying- look I am still on this guy's team, so I can't say much, but I wouldn't be surprised if I found out he did it (Even though he has not officially tested positive since MLB officially instituted steroids testing- about a decade after they instituted a policy against it).

And what is with this mickey mouse "investigation" (if you want to call it that) put on by George Mitchell. Does he really think he is going to get anywhere by trying to compel people to talk about this taboo issue voluntarily?? The only people that seem to be talking about steroids are washed-up mediocre players who juiced themselves, like Jose Canseco, who has all but become a pariah in the pro sports world for naming names.

It all stinks if you ask me.

I have to ask, though- What is the greater moral of this whole disgraceful saga??

Is it that somehow Bonds will be or has been proved to be a bad role model for kids?? That is not the real issue- sports figure bad boys have been around since it all began. Even Babe Ruth drank like a fish and apparently had several different venereal diseases that he acquired from his many affairs.

The number of players involved in shady business deals or illicit off-field/off-court escapades are a dime a dozen...

No- the clincher for me, is that this goes straight to the root of not only damaging that player's reputation, but it exposes the whole sport as a fraud for tolerating (probably knowingly) such grossly unethical- if not illegal and unfair practices.

Then again, what does that say about "us"- the American public, who fill the stadiums, buy the millions in team merchandise, and watch the games and support the advertisers??

Are we not all enabling this by allowing ourselves to become passive voyeurs with a lust for more and more sensational feats??

I am a pretty devoted baseball fan. I have followed the Philadelphia Phillies since my grandfather took me to see my first game when I was six years old.

At some point, I think enough of the fan base needs to send a strong, firm message to MLB owners and the commissioner that ENOUGH IS ENOUGH- CLEAN UP YOUR ACT!

Unfortunately, it appears the only way this will ever be accomplished is if enough people vote with their feet and spend their time and money elsewhere.

After all, there is a lot more to life than watching pro sports. Here's to living life more fully instead of putting bad role models up on phony pedestals then watching them fall...

Put your faith in the TRUE ROCK, Jesus Christ, and you will never fail.

Peace in the Lord,

John