All Sport Report

“It’s Barry’s head, we’re just living on it,” a sign held high and proud by a fan on a SportsCenter highlight last season just reminds me of the fact, in my eyes at least, that Barry Bonds is making a mockery of professional baseball.

Say it ain’t so, the San Francisco Giants resigned Barry Bonds last night to a one year contract worth nearly sixteen million dollars. Doctors reportedly examined Bonds extensively before the pen was officialy put to paper.

I was hoping against hope that ‘06 would be Barry’s last season in pro baseball, that Hank Aaron’s historic record would stand. Bonds sits a mere 22 home runs behind Aaron and if he can avoid a long term injury that will shorten his season he should break the mark by August.

Much of the baseball world was at odds with Aaron breaking Babe Ruth’s career home run mark, but that was mainly due to ignorance and bigotry. Aaron deserves the record, no matter his race, Bonds on the other hand, in my opinion, does not.

Don’t get me wrong, I used to be a huge Barry fan, the outfield he played with in Pittsburgh was one of the most talented I can recall. But something has drastically changed in Barry over his illustrious twenty year career, for example - in 2001 at the age of thirty seven, a time when most players a beginning the downslide of their career that will carry them into retirement, Barry hit 73 home runs which is nearly as many as he hit in his first four seasons with the Pirates, this isn’t something that happens under normal circumstances.

The “Barry Bonds effect” on the game of baseball is a negative one, as long as he puts on a uniform the allegations of steroid abuse among ballplayers will never quiet down and never go away. Whether Barry is guilty or not, there remains so much suspicion surrounding him that the sport is damaged.

Just say, for arguements sake that Barry were guilty. If he would just come clean about it now and retire leaving Hank Aaron were he belongs atop the career home run list I would forgive him, and I would certainly support him for the hall of fame. Bonds is a tremendously talented baseball player, the list of rewards he’s received that have nothing to do with home runs over the course of his career prove that. But in my mind, if he continues to play and breaks Aaron’s record and the news comes out later that he did in fact take performance enhancing drugs, he’ll be no more than one of the “bash brothers” to me.