Bonds

I don’t have anything very insightful to say about Barry Bonds and steroids. I suppose that, for a long time, I was hoping that I could continue to believe that he had not used steroids seriously, or that the steroids had not meaningfully impacted his performance. The former, obviously, is no longer plausible (subscription required). Of the latter we’ll never know for sure, but it’s hard for me to believe that the beginnings of a steroid regimen coincided only accidentally with the transformation of a first circle Hall of Famer into the Greatest Player Who Ever Lived, all at the age of 36.

At the same time, I suppose that my disappointment in Bonds is mildly ameliorated by the fact that my favorite player, Ken Griffey Jr., has never been accused of using steroids. Indeed, Griffey’s record looks much more impressive in light of the general steroid scandal. He is now the active leader in home runs hit by a player untainted by accusations of steroid use. The fact that Alex Rodriguez has similarly never been accused of steroid use should undermine whatever confidence anyone had left in sports journalism; if Bonds isn’t the Greatest Player Anyone Has Ever Seen, then A-Rod comes pretty damn close, and the media still, unaccountably, hates him. That he seems to be the nicest guy in the world only makes it more odd; he may have been indecisive regarding his choice of countries in the WBC, but that seems to me to be a factor in his favor, especially given the number of elite players who have chosen not to participate at all.