Barry Bonds: I got you, Babe!

By: Larry Fitzgerald
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
Originally posted 5/24/2006

No great American athlete since Jackie Robinson, Henry Aaron, Jack Johnson, Muhammad Ali and Roger Maris has had to deal with more pure unmitigated hatred than Barry Bonds.

 

Only because we live in a country where Black men and women have suffered from centuries of oppression can we truly understand what we have witnessed over the last year, as Bonds pursued the immortal Babe Ruth’s historic 714th homerun mark.

 

Ruth was number two in lifetime homeruns to Aaron. However, Ruth, unlike Bonds, never played against any athletes who weren’t Caucasians. The game of Major League Baseball (MLB) when the Babe played was as White as snow. Obviously, that all changed in 1947 thanks to Jackie Robinson and the desire of MLB to generate more money. Unfortunately, human nature is like steam from a teapot: it comes out eventually, as it did when MLB made a decision three years ago to make Bonds enemy No. 1.

 

Over the last eight years, we have witnessed what will be regarded as the steroid era in MLB. It is my view that MLB turned its back on the widespread use of steroids by many of its players because MLB had fallen so far behind the National Football League in popularity among all races and age groups. They can blame the Major League Players Association, but in reality MLB knew what was going on.

 

When Congress last year held its now-famous hearings on steroids, Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro took the witness stand — all because of José Canseco’s book Juiced. The steroid controversy damaged the game again and clearly brought into question some of the all-time records and how they should be viewed.

 

Hopefully, you don’t believe that MLB did not know that some of the players that broke or pursued those records clearly used steroids. Remember this: In our society, there is always a scapegoat. (Can you say Lee Harvey Oswald?) And it is my view that MLB — with the help of many of my colleagues in the media — made Bonds the face of and target for the steroid controversy, even though he has never tested positive for the use of steroids since MLB testing began in 2003. Never! Not once.

 

This spring, MLB launched an investigation into alleged steroid use by Bonds — not any other player, just Bonds. And they did this during the same year that he passes the Babe. So no matter what Bonds has done (seven-time MVP, most homeruns in one season) and continues to do, he will be tarnished in the minds of many.

 

Bonds is viewed by some as dirty and arrogant, but so was Muhammad Ali at one time. However, look how the world views Ali today. Bonds, like Aaron, has passed the Babe; when you are a Black man who does that, you pay an unfair price. You have to deal with the power of human nature — after all, this is America.

 

I believe in Bonds, and I salute him for his greatness. In my view, he is the greatest baseball player to ever play the game. Why? Because Bonds has played against all of the great baseball players of his time — players who were of all races.