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And I counter you with this.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/s...n.34a679f.html
Buck Harvey: A milestone - When Bonds gets a break
Web Posted: 08/06/2007 05:01 PM CDT
Buck Harvey
San Antonio Express-News
Bud Selig didn't know what to do Saturday night. The baseball rose toward left field, and Selig froze as if he had been, well, injected with something.
Cameras were on him, and he knew that. But Selig didn't clap, he didn't smile, he didn't nod. With an awkward pose, Selig reacted as if Barry Bonds had done something for the first time instead of the 755th.
Selig didn't have a plan, which is fitting. Selig and baseball didn't have one when it came to steroids, either. The sport let this happen, when track and field had a bead on illegal drugs two decades ago, and that's why Bonds isn't the villain so many say he is.
Bonds simply did what baseball players have done for generations. He used an available edge.
Make no mistake. It's almost certain Bonds took a series of enhancements stronger than flaxseed oil, and it's obvious without a lab test that he's been a jerk. Some athletes try to hide the sour side; Bonds sometimes flaunts his.
It's this combination that has made it so easy to turn him into pure evil. He "pierces the soul of baseball," as one sportswriter put it recently, and others use more common words. "Cheat" and "liar" are among them, and they are not inaccurate.
But somewhere in this morality play a few things get lost. One is Bonds the ballplayer. Right or wrong, just or unjust, he is one of the best dozen players in the game's history.
These last few weeks only add to that. He didn't have to endure the raw prejudice that Hank Aaron faced. But to play under these conditions — with Selig, Aaron and so many cool to him — says something about his own mental toughness.
He's the premier player of this era, as tainted as this era may be. And that's why the San Diego crowd got it right Saturday. The fans acknowledged something special had happened.
Should Bonds be one swing from the record? No one thinks that, given the visual and statistical evidence. Still, every era comes with an asterisk.
Few hit homers in the dead-ball era, and no black man hit home runs in the Babe Ruth era. Night games changed the sport, as did greenies used to get up the next day. The slider is a modern invention, as is the middle reliever, set-up man and closer.
Aaron had something else on his side. He played about half of his career in an Atlanta ballpark nicknamed "The Launching Pad." He didn't cause this, but he used the edge nonetheless.
How much? In 1971, Aaron hit the most homers of his career, and 31 came at home and only 16 on the road.
Just as telling was 1973. Then, four National League players hit 40 or more home runs. Three of them were Braves. Aaron, in his final season of high home-run productivity, was only third on his team.
The Atlanta leader was Davey Johnson, a future manager with San Antonio roots. He hit 43 home runs and set a major-league record for second basemen. In his previous eight seasons with another team, Johnson had hit a combined 66.
Bonds, in contrast, plays in a ballpark that works against him. But few point this out because no one wants to give Bonds a break right now.
Bonds absorbs all negativity, and Alex Rodriguez proves that. He's been targeted in the tabloids for everything from infidelity to screaming behind opposing infielders on pop-ups. Yet now, after hitting 500 home runs faster than anyone in history, he gets a pass.
Is it coincidence he's on pace to pass Bonds when it took someone 33 years to catch Aaron? Most just want A-Rod to do it.
A-Rod may be clean, no matter what Jose Canseco suggests, but the era isn't. After all, the pitcher who gave up No. 755 to Bonds was suspended for using performance-enhancing substances while in the minor leagues in 2005.
Yet Bonds is still singled out, as if he's the only one, when he's just the best one. And if he hits 756 tonight, those outside of San Francisco will turn away and not acknowledge his greatness.
Selig, ever unsure, won't try to correct that. It's easier than admitting the truth.
