On August 7, 2007, Barry Bonds became the all-time Major League home-run king, when he surpassed Hank Aaron’s 755 home run record. Usually when any sport record as prestigious as this is broken, it is met with universal support from journalist, fans and the general public. But in the case of Barry Bonds, the Miles Davis of Major League Baseball (when it comes to public personal), his reception from some baseball fans and especially the media has mostly been negative.
One of the main reasons why Bonds record achievement is not being embrace by the fans and, even within Major League Baseball (The commissioner, Bud Selig, was not in attendance in the historical game) is because Bonds former personal trainer Greg F. Anderson was indicted by a federal grand jury in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California and charged with supplying anabolic steroids to a number of Major league baseball players. This led to many in the sports media, to accuse Bonds of taking steroids since too many Bonds went through a physical change that was nothing short of Darwinian.
Bonds has always declared his innocence, stating that his Herculean physique is based on working hard in the gym and eating healthy. Too many in the always-reliable court of public opinion (Duke lacrosse case anyone?) believe Bonds is lying and his Home Run record should have an asterisk, since they believe accomplishment were with the help of steroids and all the other great home run leaders, like Babe Ruth, didn’t need or use enhancers.
Fashion designer Marc Ecko, who owns the historical baseball, announced on September 26, 2007, that the ball will be branded with an asterisk, and then sent to the Baseball hall of fame.
Now let’s say that Bonds did use steroids and they did help him hit more homeruns. So what? Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield, Iván Rodríguez, Juan González, Rafael Palmeiro & Jose Canseco, all played in what will be called my future Baseball historians as the Steroid Era.
Not celebrating Bonds accomplishment is one thing, but too taint his way into the baseball hall of fame is another thing. The fact is homeruns brings the fans into the park, which brings money to the owners of the team and at the end of the day a strikeout, stolen base, double play, hell even a fight is not as exciting and beautiful as a homerun and the MLB knew that and that why they were the last sport to have a an mandatory steroid test.
I can tell you with all honesty I never gave baseball any attention until the 1998 season, when Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire captivated the nation when they were chasing Roger Maris’s single season home run records. Even my dad who till this day refuse to called soccer anything but football, (“The world calls it football, why do Americans always want to change things?”) got into it, rooting for Sosa of course.
So why should Bonds uniform be branded with the Scarlet letter? Why should his record not be counting with the all-time greats? The hypocrisy of all of this is in the 131 year history of the MLB, minorities have only been playing for 60 years! No one ever mentions the fact that Ty Cobbs, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Na Lajoie and countless of other white baseball record holders never played with black, Hispanic and Asian players. Should we add asterisk in their records since they played during the all-white era and they never had to play against Satchel Paige, Cool Papa Bell, Oscar Charleston, Josh Gibson and countless of black baseball players who if given a shot a century ago, would have most definitely change baseball history.
The fans, public and the media should honor Barry Bonds home run record and any shame should be bestowed to the corporate heads of MLB who were the ones who benefited the most from every steroids tainted homerun.