Barry Bonds has been the face of baseball now for five years. With a record-breaking 73 home runs in 2001, a record-shattering 232 walks in 2004 and four straight MVP awards, Bonds’ resum‚ in the 21st century speaks for itself.
Bonds’ fame, however, is mostly due to the constant allegations of steroid use that are directed at him. With the recent release of “Game of Shadows,” it’s becoming more and more probable that Bonds did in fact use performance enhancing drugs. Ken Caminiti and Jose Canseco admitted to doing the same. Rafael Palmeiro and Ryan Franklin tested positive as well. Yet the controversy always comes back to Bonds. Why? Because he is quite possibly the best player to ever play the game.
Prior to 2001, Barry Bonds had never hit 50 home runs in a season. Prior to 2001 Bonds had never topped .700 in slugging percentage. Perhaps Bonds was too busy winning eight gold gloves, making seven straight all-star teams, stealing over 30 bases nine times and winning three MVPs. Bonds was a star, a first ballot hall-of-famer, and then came 2001.
In 2001 Bonds did something no one thought was possible. He had a season like no other player in the history of baseball, hitting 73 home runs with a batting average of .328 and a mind boggling slugging percentage of .863. Bonds became colossal, a man amongst boys. He had reached a level that no baseball fan thought was possible. Then we found out that he probably cheated.
As Bob Costas told my Sports, Media and Society class, when the Senate gets involved in a scandal, we hear about it for a day and move on. When the president gets involved, it’s the media event of the decade. In baseball, Bonds is Richard Nixon and steroids are Watergate. Consider Ryan Franklin and Alex Sanchez as rookie senators from obscure states. As Costas pointed out, Bonds’ place in baseball lore makes him the face of the story and thus he is the one that faces the most scrutiny.
I think, though, that there is a bigger reason for why Bonds takes so much heat: it’s because he is obviously lying. Bonds claims he ‘unknowingly used’ the ‘clear’ substance from BALCO. Founder Victor Conte claims Bonds is “full of lies.”
Every baseball fan in America with the slightest ability to put two and two together knows Bonds is lying. Mark McGwire stood up and testified in the Congressional hearings with regard to steroids and constantly repeated, “I’m not here to talk about the past.” In other words, Big Mac is guilty, he knows it, but he doesn’t want to talk about it. Most baseball fans pity McGwire, shake their heads and say “He’s such a good guy.” Bonds is a liar, he’s unlikable and perhaps worse, he just started his own reality TV show.
We hate Bonds because he’s a jerk. We hate Bonds because he claims that it is racism that causes people not to want him to break the home run record (when, the last time I checked, the record was held by a black man). And most of all, we hate Bonds because it is easy. He is the most easily hated person in professional sports. A rude, obnoxious athlete who is lying about destroying the integrity of the game is the perfect poster child for the most despised athlete in sports.
The debate will intensify in the next few weeks over whether Bonds’ record should stand or if he should be elected to the Hall of Fame. Personally, I don’t care. An asterisk does not need to be in print for fans to know his numbers are tarnished. His plaque need not be held out of Cooperstown for fans to know he doesn’t deserve to be there. Bonds will forever be labeled a liar, a cheat and a credent. It’s so easy to hate him and that’s why everyone does.