Barry Bonds

There's a lot of talk right now, as Barry Bonds approaches the home run record, as to whether or not his record should be asterisked. Bud Selig, the much maligned commissioner of baseball, has expressed uncertainty as to whether or not he'll be present for Barry breaking Hank Aaron's record. In a situation where people might generally be celebrating Barry's offensive awesomeness pretty much everybody except Giants fans are bemoaning Barry's march to 755. I just wanted to go on record with my opinion in the matter, because I know you have all been wondering where the incredibly important Jackson Perdue weighs in here.

It seems pretty clear (no pun intended) to me that Barry used some performance enhancing substances that any sane person would consider cheating. It also seems pretty clear to me that he is by no means the only player to have done so, and I have no doubt there were countless players using steroids over the last 10+ years. But because Barry is the most successful he's the one absorbing the hatred of the baseball community, despite never having tested positive. If Barry didn't have the talent no amount of steroids would have taken him to this point. I'm sure they played a role in his game, but in a steroid-filled era we're stuck with what we're stuck with. Pretending he's the only steroid user and crucifying him over this, despite the fact that he is a reputed jerk, is dumb. He's going to break the record, and he cheated. He hasn't cheated more than bunches of other less successful players.

So I think he should be celebrated for what he's done once he breaks the record, but we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking he did it au natural. Sure he used steroids to do it, but so did some large percentage of players and they aren't even sniffing his numbers. So stop playing the moral outrage game - baseball isn't some pure sport and it hasn't been for a long time. A-Rod is going to be breaking Barry's record in a few years anyway.