And Bonds Is King... For Now

Now I'm not exactly a fan of baseball. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that I'm actually a detractor of baseball. And it's not that I'm turned off by the huge contracts, the behavior of professional athletes, or the steroids-induced asterisk era. Instead, I just think that the game is inherently sucky. For something calling itself a sport, there's just way too much standing around and scratching yourself. It's the most boring team sport I can think of to play or watch.

However, I am a fan of sports news, and somehow I get drug into baseball articles as often as I get drug into articles for any sport except football. So, obviously, I've been following the Bary Bonds chase of the all-time homerun record with mild interest. He's an interesting character that one, and despite a near universal dislike of the dude, there's a reason he's in the news so much. He's fascinating.

And personally, I'm not so sure that I care about the whole steroids thing with Bonds. First, it's not been proven (although it is highly likely from the evidence), and second, the superman powers provided by the juice are a wee bit overstated in common lore. The stuff doesn't actually make you stronger, it just helps you heal more quickly to allow you to work out harder and longer without wearing yourself down too much to compete. In other words, steroids really just lets you bust your butt harder for your sport. It's not like I could take steroids and suddenly be ripped (or even eventually get ripped unless I was working out all the time). Plus, the drug does nothing for skill or talent. Bonds really studies the science of the swing and was sending balls out of the park long before he grew a couple of hat sizes from the roids. He may have gained a couple of seasons from steroid use, or avoiding the diminishing returns of age, but even that's uncertain. Juicing leads to more frequent injuries, meaning that he's likely spent more time on the DL than he would have otherwise.

Besides, if Bonds is really cheating, he'll pay in the end. He may go down in history as the home run king (at least until Alex Rodriquez, a guy no one is accusing of cheating yet, breaks his record in a few years), but he'll suffer the physical failings that come with heavy use of the substance he's accused of using.

Personally, I think he's an inspiration to us all by showing that you don't have to be a good person to be a great athlete.

And here's an interesting bit of trivia. Bary Bonds actually broke Aaron's record in much fewer at bats. Aaron peaked during a decade that was much more offense friendly, while Bonds spent much of his career in a pitching decade.