1115.org

It’s been quite a while since I vented my feelings about Barry Bonds. But since he’s within stealing distance of Hank Aaron’s career home run record, I feel compelled to return to the subject. Especially because some people insist on pretending that we are witnessing some kind of genuine athletic feat. Others — taking, as far as I’m concerned, a leaf out of the book of those dedicated ostriches who still justify the Iraq invasion — pitch more complicated arguments to convince us that it is a feat well worth celebrating even if it is undoubtedly steroid-assisted. A prime example of the latter is Rick Moran’s post at Pajamas Media, about “the debate over whether the San Francisco Giants slugger deserves the title “Greatest Home Run Hitter of All Time.””

Judging by a recent USA Today-Gallup poll, the American people are unconvinced. Only 8% of baseball fans polled believe Bonds is the greatest slugger of all time. And even if he breaks the career home run record of Hank Aaron, that number climbs to only 34%.

Contrast those numbers with a USA Today poll of 493 of the 750 Major League ballplayers. Fully 75% of the pros see Bonds as the best of all time. But both fans and ballplayers agree on one major point; that even if it is proved Bonds took performance-enhancing substances, he deserves a spot in Baseball’s Hall of Fame.

Why the discrepancy between players and fans in their attitudes toward Bonds? Part of it is surely the fact that Barry Bonds is perceived as something of a grouch. His well-known disdain for fans and the media makes him an unpopular player outside of his San Francisco home.

Beyond that, Major League ballplayers are fully aware of something that is only vaguely understood by fans and the media; that Barry Bonds’ feat in hitting 756 home runs is truly one of the more remarkable athletic accomplishments in history.

There is no more difficult task in sports than a baseball batter’s attempt to hit a round ball careening toward him from a little more than 60 feet away, inches from his person, at more than 90 miles per hour with a rounded stick of wood weighing on average 34 ounces.

And Moran goes on to wax eloquent about all the reasons why it’s hard to send that round ball out of the park with that rounded stick. Then he arrives at:

I have taken some pains to describe the difficulties in hitting because pro ballplayers realize all of this and believe Bonds’ feat of hitting 756 home runs is nothing short of phenomenal.

Increased strength may have assisted in some of his home runs. But strength does little good when trying to hit a curve ball.

My own sense is that Barry Bonds would have hit close to 700 home runs even without the steroids.

That’s the most absurdly misconceived balderdash. (It’s misconceived or dishonest; let me go with misconceived out of respect for Mr. Moran’s other work.)

First, strength helps you hit everything further, including a curve ball. It won’t help you make contact with a curve ball. But then it won’t help you make contact with any other pitch either, will it? And once you make contact with a curve ball, artificial strength will add artificial distance. So let’s be clear: everything Barry Bonds has hit lately (the last eight years, by Moran’s reckoning) has gone further than it would have, because he chose to cheat with performance enhancing drugs. (Maybe that’s why they call them performance enhancing drugs?)

Two, we know for sure a lot of those 756 “home runs” wouldn’t have left the park if they were not steroid-assisted. We have no bloody way of knowing how many fall in that category. I can say, my own sense is that he would have got only 600 without the steroids. There’s absolutely no reason why anyone should take my number any more seriously than Moran’s.

Spurious is spurious. And we do not celebrate spurious feats precisely for this reason — that there is no half-good way to figure out what the cheating athlete would have achieved had he or she not cheated.

So let’s not celebrate cheaters. At all. No matter how good we might think they might have been had they not cheated. Because the fact remains that they cheated. They had a choice not to cheat. But they cheated. For that they deserve only our contempt. Or maybe also our sympathy or pity. But certainly not our bloody admiration, not even grudging admiration.

I will celebrate Ken Griffey Jr. when he overtakes Mark McGwire’s 583 career home runs any day now, to become fifth on the all-time career home run list, behind Hank Aaron (755), Babe Ruth (714), Willie Mays (660) and Frank Robinson (586).

I will totally ignore Barry Bonds’ 756th.

In athletics they throw wind-assisted performances out of the record books. It’s not even your fault. You didn’t even cheat. But it was wind-assisted, so it’s not fair to compare it to the performances of others.

Now Major League Baseball is about to put a steroid-assisted record in the record books. If you can still take baseball seriously — or baseball records, at least — you have my condolences.

Me, I’m going to hope and pray that whoever pitches to Bonds when he’s sitting on 754 home runs follows the excellent advice I gave when Bonds was approaching Babe Ruth’s 714 last May:

here’s what I would do. I wouldn’t walk him. I wouldn’t bean him. I wouldn’t pitch him what the catcher called. I’d stand there and keep lobbing him soft, juicy, underhand pitches, and let him get his tying and breaking home runs that way.

Of course, I would need the tacit support of my manager, and maybe my pitching coach, too. Hopefully, they would have both a genuine love for the game and a sense of humor. Hopefully, they would enjoy the delicious irony of this player – who made a calculated decision to employ underhand means to win love and fame and enter the record books – achieving this milestone off underhand lobs.