Let the record show that I wrote this on March 8, International Women’s Day. Contrary to gender stereotypes, till a few years ago I was a passionate baseball fan. I still have one of the world’s largest baseball card collections (not a great collection, just a large one), though I gave up collecting a few years ago. That was just slightly before I gave upon baseball.

The Barry Bonds absurdity that has been playing out in the press with the upcoming publication of “Game of Shadows” by San Francisco Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams exemplifies perfectly the main reason why I gave up on baseball. (Publication is scheduled for March 27, but Sports Illustrated has published excerpts from the book in its current issue.)

Around the time Mark McGwire taught us all the word “andro”, it dawned on me suddenly that enjoying baseball is predicated on the same kind of suspension of disbelief that one is supposed to bring to, say, the cinema.

Perhaps what I’m going to say about baseball could also be said about football or basketball, to some extent. But it was baseball that was my passion, it was baseball that broke my heart, so I’m going to say it just about baseball.

Let’s just stick to Bonds. McGwire breaks the single season home run record in 1998. By next season, and just a tad late in his life for a growth spurt, Bonds suddenly bulks up, having added 15 pounds of pure muscle. And he starts clouting home runs like he’s never clouted them before. (Or at least at twice his previous rate.) And everyone goes around muttering to themselves “he’s just been lifting weights, he’s just been lifting weights, he’s just been lifting weights, okay?” There’s this huge big stinking elephant in the room, but no one sees it, no one smells it, and no one sure as hell talks about it. We all just want so desperately to believe in the illusion. So we avert our eyes, and we go on hooting and hollering at every home run. Because if you stop believing in baseball, then what’s left to believe in?

Or why the hell should we stick just to Bonds? How is McGwire’s story any different? (Except that he didn’t have a role model to inspire him in the same way.)

All these guys bulk up. Home run records that have stood for decades start to tumble in a manner that surely defies belief. Ah, but the fans lap it up. And guess who’s sitting there presiding over the whole damn farce? Major League Baseball, as incarnated and exemplified in the form of that major league asshole, Bud Selig. He doesn’t even mutter to himself (because anyone could be listening in). He just repeats over and over in his head: “A drug policy and drug testing would be the death of baseball. Baseball isn’t going to die on my watch. A drug policy and drug testing would be the death of baseball. Baseball isn’t going to die on my watch, baby.”

Because the fact of the matter is that for several years after McGwire and Sosa’s record-breaking season, steroids weren’t even banned in baseball. That happened only in 2002. Before that, major league baseball had no official steroid policy. The unofficial policy was one step beyond “don’t ask, don’t tell”. It was “don’t ask, don’t tell; don’t ban, don’t test”.

Shakespeare probably wrote the classic casually-shrugging-off-personal-responsibility lines:

I have committed adultery.
But that was in another land.
Besides, the wench is dead.

McGwire may not have been able to match Shakespeare’s poetry but he cloned the sentiment perfectly when he went (and got away with going):

I have taken andro.
But that was years ago.
Besides, it was perfectly legal.

You may have seen this movie before, but let me go ahead and recite the story anyway. So then Donald Fehr, the negotiator for the players union sidles up to Selig one day, and hisses seductively in his ear: “We’ll be the bad guys for you, Bud. And here’s all it’ll cost the owners…” And just like that, a deal is struck. It’s not entirely clear to me who’s selling his soul and who’s the devil here. But it sure as heck isn’t the fans playing either role. (No, we’re only the ones suborning all the fakery.)

The perfectly natural question that cried out to be asked was: how come the “I have taken andro” drama didn’t inspire MLB to clean up the sport, and ban the performance enhancing drugs that were clearly being used to enhance performances? The answer lies in a question: who is Bud Selig? If you think he’s the Commissioner of Baseball, you’re kidding yourself. He’s Don Fehr’s yin-yang twin. Fehr heads the players union and Selig heads the owners union. Catch Selig committing any action that interferes with the sweet sound of those cash registers ringing. The fans are buying it. The owners are making money hand over fist. So who cares if the integrity of the game is going to hell in a handbasket? Integrity is too entirely old-fashioned an idea to be relevant to this game in this day and age.

But back to the narrative. So now MLB can’t have anything more than a Mickey Mouse drug policy because the players association won’t let them. Imagine the mafia having veto power on whether racketeering should be illegal, and that about sums up the crock of shit they tried to sell us. And guess what? We bought it. No problem! That’s why they call it the willing suspension of disbelief. It sounds a lot better than “co-dependency”.

Ken Caminiti came clean and confessed up to his steroid use (in May 2002). He also claimed that steroid use was widespread in the major leagues. But Caminiti was too much of a gentleman. He didn’t point fingers and name names. Baseball didn’t even need to react to his mea culpa. Then there’s Balco (in March 2004), but everyone denies everything with a straight face, and some combination of “if I took steroids, I didn’t know I was taking them” and “besides it was perfectly legal at the time” easily carries the day.

The fans keep on saying “we don’t care”, those cash registers keep on ringing, and Bud Selig still doesn’t feel the need to pretend he’s anything other than the owners’ representative. Investigations continue, of course, and the law shows every indication of taking its course, but MLB feels no need whatsoever to clean up its act.

So then Jose Canseco comes along and publishes his book (February 2005). And, sonofabitch, he’s not just pulling a Caminiti. Initially he’s just the villain of the piece, isn’t he? Just a goddamn finger-pointing liar, who came along and tried to wreck this perfect fantasy relationship baseball fans had with America’s game. To actually name names! How low can one man sink?

But before you know it, drug abuse in baseball is suddenly a major story, and Congress is getting into the act, and the “Players Association won’t let us” story doesn’t play so well in Peoria any more. Even then, Bud Selig valiantly tries to pretend for a good long while that he believes major league baseball now has a reasonable drug policy. Steroids are actually banned, after all, great strides have been made in recent years. Who can forget his deeply felt performance? When he argued with deep personal conviction that they had a real policy, even though it actually consisted of a hug and a kiss and tears and forgiveness for the first offense, a rap on the knuckles for the second, and a hard rap on the knuckles for the third.

But finally even Bud Selig learns the meaning of the phrase “too little, too late”. Even MLB has to get up off its ass, and have something that looks like a real drug policy, with actual teeth and everything.

It certainly didn’t help much when one of baseball’s prettier faces, Rafael Palmeiro, failed that drug test either. Especially after his fine performance when he testified before the Congressional committee, and so convincingly and angrily denied ever using steroids. I guess that’s what they teach ‘em in the minors: you can do whatever you want, and you get away with it as long as you can fake it afterwards.

Now I don’t know where Dusty Baker has been for the last five years or so, or what he’s had on his mind, but evidently they forgot to tell him that as far as steroids go, the gig’s been up for a long time. So he goes and embarrasses everyone by his response to the Sports Illustrated excerpt:

I read it, man. I was lost. I didn’t even know there were that many kinds of steroids. I’ve (never) even seen steroids. I didn’t even know what kinds of steroids or steroids (there were) other than the kinds you used to fight allergies.

Didn’t even know there were steroids other than those you use to fight allergies? Where do they get these guys? Why isn’t this guy either Scott McClellan’s understudy or Scott McClellan himself or Scott McClellan’s boss? Hell, why isn’t he running for President? With truth-telling skills like that, he’s a natural. Barack Obama will just have to find some way to deal with the fact that he’s not going to be the first black President of these here United States.

If all of this isn’t enough to make you sick or swear off baseball forever, then hats off to you.

But as for me, I compare MLB and whatever they’re calling the WWF these days, and here’s what I come up with. What’s the main difference between the two? WWF is much more honest, all round. There’s no pretence about what business they’re in, and it’s not sports. They don’t require you to suspend disbelief, they invite you to come and celebrate the fakery. They make such a camp production out of it, the fakery becomes honest. Whereas baseball is all about setting you up, and taking you for a ride, and then bringing you crashing down.

So, yes, baseball broke my heart. Who says there’s no crying in baseball?