Slavoj Zizek makes an argument that I sometimes toss around in discussions with friends: atheists would make the best governmental leaders. I highly doubt that a non-believer would be palatable to the majority of the American electorate, but the consequences of removing a religious agenda from a political one are interesting to ponder.
ESPN’s Gene Wojciechowski writes, “Bonds is finished. He might play again, but there is only a chalk outline left around his integrity and home run totals. And the only way he gets into Cooperstown is if he spends the $14.50 for a Hall of Fame admission ticket.”
I disagree. What do we know about Bonds today that we didn’t know yesterday? Not much. There is no new hard proof. I’m not defending Bonds — I’ve long thought he was guilty. Today’s news merely reinforced/affirmed my thinking. Ultimately, I think that Bonds’s bid for the Hall of Fame will be influenced by three factors:
1) He will be viewed through the prism of the “steroid era.” With voters unable to know with any certainty who juiced and who didn’t, many of them will just ignore the issue.
2) Absence of hard proof. If the government pursues perjury charges and Bonds is convicted, voters may well be swayed. Without it, I think that many will take the “innocent until proven guilty” approach when they cast their ballots.
3) Bonds posted HOF numbers before he was suspected of doing steroids. Indeed, if voters opt to disregard the years following 1998, they will still be looking at fantastic numbers. Who knows how many of them will rationalize that he was Hall-worthy without the drugs, so he’s Hall-worthy in spite of them?
It will be interested to see what happens when Bonds is finally eligible for induction. By then, we’ll have seen what happened to Rafael Palmeiro and Mark McGwire. If either of them makes it, Bonds is probably a shoe-in. If neither does, then it’s anybody’s guess. But if I had to venture a guess, I’d bet that he makes it.
PS Since I neglected to mention it earlier, SI has an excerpt from the book and lots of other interesting information relating to the Bonds story.
The calls to my father started coming in again today. That usually means that there is a new steroid story on the loose. In this case, however, it’s not a new story, but the continuation of a long, drawn-out saga. A book called Game of Shadows : Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports
I expect a media feeding frenzy in the coming days, and with the new Bonds reality show, there should be some excellent TV on the way. However, since the show is being produced by Barry’s production company, I suspect anything incriminating, unsettling, or otherwise unsavory will end up on the cutting room floor. With the book’s pub date more than two weeks away, the articles have started. Watch as Barry’s manager evades questions: “No, no, no, I don’t want to talk about Bonds. I’ll see you later.” Marvel at how the legality of controlled substances is totally misunderstood: “It wasn’t illegal,” Orioles manager Sam Perlozzo said in Florida. “The thing we all worry about is the fact that people discount the fact that you put some numbers up. ” (Note, Perlozzo might want to check out the DEA website; steroids have been classified as a Schedule III controlled susbtance since 1990.) And then wonder aloud how this is going to affect Bonds’s chase of the homerun record and the associated marketing by MLB.
Speaking of homeruns, I found an interesting piece on homerun trends over a player’s career. Basically, power peaks in the late 20s and early 30s before beginning to fall off precipitiously at around age 35. While I grant that there are outliers who top out a bit later or who have a prolonged peak, there is no one quite like Barry Bonds. Game of Shadows reports that Bonds, jealous of the attention Mark McGwire was getting, began a steroid, HGH, insulin, et al. regimen after the 1998 season. The first graph is one that David Luciani at Baseball Notebook put together. It reflects the average power trend over a player’s career.
The second graph uses the same methodology — though normalized to age 21 instead of 20 — and metrics for Bonds. (I whipped this up quickly, so if you see an error, please let me know.) I put a dotted line after the 1998 season as it represents the time that Bonds allegedly started juicing. The power trend is quite unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
(Statheads might also be interested in noting that the Game of Shadows jumped in its Amazon ranking from #119,745 to #9.)
Powered by WordPress