Bad Time for Stocks and Bonds

So steroid abuser/denier Barry Bonds is finally set to go down--for perjury.

It's not quite as satisfying as getting him for steroid use--much like Elliot Ness getting Al Capone for tax evasion--but it's better than nothing.

The funniest thing about the current perjury trial is that he will go down based on the testimony of his former personal shopper, who witnessed him being injected with something by somebody who was not one of his doctors. That's all it takes--since that scant evidence contradicts his previous testimony in the BALCO trial.

I know there are some people out there who don't care, who don't care that Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez, Miguel Tejada, Andy Petite, Jason Giambi, Mark McGwire, and Jose Canseco, at the very least, are all going down for admitting steroid use or lying about it. They don't care that 104 players tested positive for steroid use in 2001; don't care that that is the equivalent of eleven starting lineups, and probably was.

These people claim that baseball has always been a sport played by beastly men seeking any and all competitive advantages, loading themselves up with testosterone, bulking up in the gym, injecting all manner of substances, etc. They claim that it does not matter, that these men are out there to entertain us, to hit the ball farther, to run faster, and their methods are irrelevant. They compare baseball players to gladiators--who cares if some of them are on drugs? Look at how impressively violent they are!

I disagree with those people.

I stopped following baseball--and even quit my high school team--when the players struck for more money in 1994. I lost faith in the game and those who played it; I realized most of them played it for the wrong reasons and I didn't want to be a part of that ugliness.

The rampant steroid abuse--but moreso the boldfaced denial of said use--further tarnishes a game that used to be a lot of fun. It used to be a game of skill played among men; a game where anything could happen on any given day; a game with a clear distinction between good guys and bad.

How does one now distinguish between the good and bad guys? Are those who cheated bad? Are those who avoided drug use good? Are the guys who used drugs and won your team a World Series good or bad?

Let's break down the list of those recently outed for steroid use, for those of you who might not follow baseball. Among those mentioned above we have:

- a 7-time Cy Young award winner and one-time league MVP (Clemens)
- a 7-time league MVP (Bonds)
- a 3-time league MVP (Rodriguez)
- 3 one-time league MVPs (Tejada, Giambi, Canseco)
- the career home run leader (Bonds)
- 2 other players in the 500-home-run club (McGwire, Rodriguez)

14 MVPs since 1986? Okay, so...most of the best players of the last 23 years have used steroids to rise head and shoulders above the rest of the players in the league. How is this fair? How does this not take away from the game? How does this not tarnish their accomplishments? How does this not make you want to vomit when you think of how many legitimate records fell in the face of 'roided-out robot behemoths?

Barry before and after

I hope Barry Bonds goes down. I hope he spends at least six months in a minimum-security country-club prison somewhere in Marin County. I hope he has ample time to think things over. I hope he regrets what he did. I hope he releases a ghost-written memoir someday, in which he finally admits what everybody knows to be true.

To all of you athletes out there--all you future Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, OJ Simpsons--I hope you're paying attention to all this shit. I hope you learn from it.

The moral of the story?

No matter how rich and lazy you get, don't hire a personal shopper.

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