I know you said you were going to start this little project off, but I'm eager to get started, so I wanted to start on a distinctly non-political topic. I imagine that as we get rolling into this thing, politics will occupy much of our "ink" space, but I wanted to begin with the number one issue in baseball today:Bonds. (Full disclosure: I sent a modified form of this post to a baseball blogger. I haven't heard back from him yet, so I thought I'd expand the circle of my inquiry.)
I don't know where you fall on the pro-Bonds/anti-Bonds scale, but many people I respect (and many I don't, of course) believe that Barry Bonds has de-legitimized himself as a player because he took steroids, but my question is: why? There are really two issues that inform my question. First, what constitutes “cheating”? Why should steroids be considered cheating and not, say, weightlifting or caffeine? Are steroids worse than testosterone injections? What about human growth hormone – a substance natural enough that, as Selig mentioned, there is no test for it? In other words, where should the line be drawn? What enhancements to the body or body processes are acceptable and what are not?
The second issue arises from the first, but in a more legalistic context. As I understand it, at the time Bonds (and McGwire, Sosa and all the others) admitted to taking steroids, these substances had not been banned by MLB. If so, this means that the charge of “cheating” is purely an ethical one, because it is not possible to be a breaker of a rule, if there is no specific rule that is being broken. Am I correct? Is the “cheating” Bonds and others engaged “just” morally wrong or were they breaking the (baseball) law? If it is the former, then, by rights, he cannot be excluded from the HOF because he did not violate any rule of baseball in his play of the game – at least at the time he is accused of taking steroids.
It is difficult, I think, to separate out Bonds’s selfishness, disrespect for the game of baseball, inability to be contrite, and general misanthropism from the issue of whether or not he cheated at the game, but, in the interest of fairness, I do think that such a separation needs to made. When it comes to his eligibility for the HOF, I think this distinguishing between the person and his body of work is especially important.
I'm curious to get your opinion.
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Joe Sheehan in Baseball Prospectus, I think, has a good answer: Bud Selig. Selig has failed to act in the best interests of baseball to promote Bonds, and that has only fanned the flames against him. Bonds certainly doesn't make it easy on himself, but Michael Jordan was similarly arrogant and petulant and a poor teammate, and was even mixed up in questionable gambling and womanizing, but David Stern and the NBA chose to celebrate his talent rather than emphasize his weaknesses, so no one remembers Jordan for the bad stuff, even though Bonds was far more above the average baseball player than Jordan was above the average basketball player.
Well, Selig didn't help, and it is painful watching him consistently act in the interests of the owners, not baseball as a whole. But MJ's faults were mostly his alone. Baseball is living in the steroids era, of which Bonds is merely the more prominent whipping boy. The anti-steroid feeling in the media and fan base would have been strong even if Selig was pro-Bonds. Since the Congressional hearings at least, the battle for hearts and minds has been lost.
Interesting question whether MJ's VORP is higher than Bonds. That would be a fun analysis. It may seem that way just since it's more possible for 1 player to carry a team in NBA than in MLB.
BTW, I find the almost pro-steroids stance of much of the BP and BBTF crowd to be disturbing groupthink and almost shockingly off base. Just because the MSM commentators who BP and BBTF love to rip say the sky is blue doesn't mean that it has to be purple. Yes, some print columnists treat this issue like the end of the world, but that doesn't mean that players who did 'roids are all okeley-dokely.
I think it's that the effects of steroid use were widely exaggerated. Regardless of whether Bonds ever used steroids, he's plainly not using them now, yet he's still having the best season a 42-year-old has ever had in baseball history, and is even leading the NL in OPS. It just isn't like the difference doping makes in cycling, or even the difference steroids makes in football where, unlike baseball, raw muscle mass isn't a disadvantage.
I was with you for years re: the benefit of steroids in baseball, but the leaked grand jury testimony and number of players testing positive has changed my mind. Because Selig has preferred to place all of the blame on the players rather than clear the air "truth and reconciliation" style, share responsibility and move forward, head held high, we'll never know the answer for sure. But, looking at Bonds' leap in OPS+ from 1.050 level to a 1.350 level in his age 36-40 seasons when there was no expansion or technology changes, combined with the evident physical changes and grand jury testimony, it beggars imagination that this change wasn't caused by his adding unnatural substances to his body.
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