Letters to the Editor
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Please
Some one earlier tried to compare what Bonds did to some golfer when there is no comparison. The golfer used an illegal piece of equipment known to be against the rules of the sport. Bonds on the other hand has never been accused of using illegal equipment he was smart and in the beginning of his monster late career run switched to the hard bat which was legal and better then ash bats. Bonds if he did use PED did it to his own body with substances that where not illegal in his sport (and not being enforced is the same as being not illegal). If you really want to compare what Bonds did to a golfer look no further then Tiger Woods who had Lasik surgery that improved his eye sight to better then nature. That is a true performance enhancement. That required no work on Tiger's part.
And to all the people that say I should read Game of Shadows i will the second you read "The Juice". For a sport where cheating is not only condoned but celebrated people sure like the view from the Ivy Tower.
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The view from someone there
I had the good fortune of being in SF on business and snagging a ticket. All game I heard fans bash bonds for "the cream & the clear" and how it will always tarnish his record. I heard people shoot back that it was no big deal and the steroids only had "that much effect" and that "everyone else did them" so it should not matter. For years the Bonds controversy has always had a dichotomous feel to it.
Being there was an experience just seeing the whole park focus all of their attention to the field when Bonds was at bat. I had never seen that before and my frame of reference is Yankee, Shea and Fenway and they take their baseball seriously. The lines to the restroom disappeared, workers abandoned their posts, vendors stopped selling their over priced wares and the arguments about whether Bonds deserved this moment faded away.
Three times Bonds came up to bat, two chip shots out into the outfield and then finally the big one. After a series of balls, foul tips and a bonafide strike, he drilled the ball into center under the trolley. From my vantage point I knew he did it when he paused after connecting because he knew he had just did it. The crowd screaming and going wild over the moment, fog horns blaring and lights and confetti all made it seem somewhat surreal and in some way enhanced the controversy surrounding the record breaking hit.
Then, after the crowd died down and the brief interlude for Bonds and Aaron to say their respective pieces finished (where bonds, in that mismatched high pitched voice of his, very clumsily thanked the Nationals for having to put up with it, and likely for just giving him the chance to hit the ball), there was a game to finish. Bonds sat back down on the bench with a state of shock painted on his face. A few more batters and the inning was over. Bonds came back out to cheers and another standing ovation with glove in hand (and an awkward entourage of camera crews circling around him like buzzards), as if to say, "OK, lets get back to work." But he was pulled after warmup while the Giants replaced their pitcher.
At that moment, I began to look around and realized, despite my disappointment at having Bonds be pulled from the game, that everyone else was relieved. A third of the park headed out to home, folks stood up and posed for pictures with their buddies with little regard to those whose line of sight they were blocking. The stands cleared as folks headed to the concession stands to buy some of the "I was there" memorabilia including shirts, bats, hats, beer cups and anything else they could quickly turn out to capitalize on the moment. The game went on and no one cared. They were more interested in living in their own moment with little care about the game or what the night meant to the overall sport of baseball, sports in general, steroid abuse, etc. They were engrossed in their own moment, on their own terms, in their own space. They were there for one reason and they got what they wanted.
After the game, when asked what was next for him, Bonds said "a lot more baseball... hell yeah, I ain't quitting anytime soon." For anyone who was curious, the Giants lost the game by 2.
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Human, all too human
Kaufman's stance on Bonds strikes me as too abstract, too theoretical. The viewpoint of many that says that "well, it's complicated, and besides--everyone else was (probably) doing it too" overlooks one incredibly important aspect: performance-enhancing drug use by athletes is a human tragedy.
Whatever philosophical debates rage over the distinction between training and doping, the fact is that the effects of almost all of the drugs athletes use to cheat is at best unknown and at worst destructive. So athletes are voluntarily harming their own health with PEDs in a myopic drive for glory and fame. Why are they allowed to do this? Because the sponsors, team owners, apparel producers, etc., have a huge financial interest in seeing athletes accomplish unbelievable feats--and don't care what means are used to help them get there.
This is really a human issue. And a workers' rights issue, in a sense. What if Kaufman worked for a publisher where there was a culture of people working 20 hours per day to produce bigger, better stories, and the management knew some people coped with this demand by using drugs but turned a blind eye? Would his stance on that situation be any less abstract and ambivalent?
Say what you will about all the cheats in cycling, at least they're being honest with themselves and trying to do something to clean it up.
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Fair enough...
I disagree with you, King. I think it is perfectly fair to focus on Bonds in outrage over steroids. Not because he was particularly egregious in his use or some such thing, but simply because he's taken on the most important role in U.S. sports: homerun king. That makes him exceptional. Given that baseball is all about history and comparisons with greats - that's what I love about the sport - we shouldn't be surprised that Bonds is singled out.
In the end, I'd argue (and I did last week at my site) that Bonds has taken away from most baseball fans what is so pleasurable about being a fan: our relation to history. We really can't enjoy this moment because the performance is incompatible with how we imagine baseball history, accurately imagined or not.
I'd say Bonds' achievement is actually incompatible with what we know about history...can we really compare amphets or racism or general a-holeishness with using drugs that make you so much stronger, quicker, and less susceptible to injury? Hardly.
Then again, there is the matter of playing segregated baseball, excluding so many great athletes from competition...that has real footing. But that's not Bonds' dilemma, as he just beat out Hank, not Babe.