From the WSJ Opinion Archives
LEISURE & ARTS
Baseball's Lucky Break
Bud Selig must be praying that Barry Bonds retires.
Barry Bonds appeared before reporters Tuesday on crutches, an appropriate metaphor since many are now wondering if he is using the media as a crutch. Mr. Bonds had just come from his second knee operation; the procedure is deemed minor and the recuperation time estimated at anywhere from three weeks to, at most, two months. But Mr. Bonds strongly suggested that he would be sitting out the season and perhaps the next one as well. If he did, said the San Francisco Giants seven-time Most Valuable Player, it would be the media's fault: "You wanted me to jump off the bridge; I finally have jumped. You wanted to bring me down; you finally brought me and my family down."
Mr. Bonds was far more subdued than last month, when he lashed out at the news media in a carefully staged press conference. The message this week, though, was exactly the same: Barry Bonds acknowledges no accountability for any of the troubles that have befallen him, whether from his connection with BALCO and the continuing investigation into the use of illegal steroids or the testimony of his alleged former girlfriend, Kimberly Bell, that Mr. Bonds gave her $80,000 in cash with careful instructions on how to hide it from the Internal Revenue Service.
At first glance, the latest Bonds fiasco looks as if it could not have come at a worse time for baseball. Last week, Mark McGwire faced a congressional hearing and, with tears in his eyes, refused to deny charges that he had used illegal steroids. If there was any luster left on the 1998 season (in which Mr. McGwire broke Roger Maris's single-season home run record), Mr. McGwire's testimony erased it. Since 1998 was supposed to be the year that baseball finally came back from the near-disastrous 1994 strike, baseball--in theory at least--is now back where it was 10 years ago. No, it's worse than that. Now all the achievements of Mr. Bonds, who broke Mr. McGwire's single-season home run record, are tainted as well.
That's in theory, though. In fact, Mr. Bonds's bombshell may have come at the best possible time for baseball. Surely one person elated by the news--and who is no doubt praying that Mr. Bonds's retirement talk was genuine--is Commissioner Bud Selig. No public-relations crisis in years--some say since the Black Sox scandal of 1919--looked to be as ugly as the one looming for MLB as Mr. Bonds approaches Babe Ruth's career mark of 714 home runs (he currently has 703). And that would be just the beginning: Mr. Bonds's next target would be Hank Aaron's all-time record of 755 home runs.
For the past several months, Commissioner Selig has insisted that baseball's new drug-testing policy has alleviated, if not eliminated, the steroid problem. And, in all fairness, there is no proof as yet that he isn't right. However, Mr. Bonds's assault on baseball's two most cherished statistics, Babe Ruth's and Hank Aaron's, will bring questions about his past drug use back into the news, regardless of how players fare in this season's drug tests.
No player in the history of baseball has ever achieved anything even close to what Mr. Bonds has at his age. In 1999--at 35, an age when most players begin to fade--Mr. Bonds hit just .262, his lowest batting average in 10 seasons, with 34 home runs. In 2000, the year Ms. Bell claims he admitted to steroid use, his batting average shot up to .306 with 49 home runs. The next season, he hit .328 with 73 home runs, and since then his statistics have continued to be astronomical.
At age 34, Hank Aaron had 510 home runs; at the same age, Mr. Bonds had 422. From age 35 on, though, Mr. Aaron had 245 home runs while Mr. Bonds has already hit 281. Given the overwhelming amount of circumstantial evidence tying Mr. Bonds to steroids, there is simply no way that baseball fans would react to Mr. Bonds's surpassing Mr. Aaron with anything less than cynicism and disgust.
Moreover, Mr. Bonds can't continue to play the race card as he did in his press conference last month, when he suggested that many writers were hostile toward him because a black player was closing in on Babe Ruth. Last December, commenting on Mr. Bonds's insistence that he was not aware he was using illegal drugs, Hank Aaron said, "Any way you look at it, it's wrong," and "Is this thing involving Barry Bonds in the same category as the guy who gambled on baseball?"--obviously referring to the game's embarrassment over Pete Rose. It isn't likely that Mr. Aaron, baseball's elder statesman, would be sharing photo ops with Mr. Bonds after home run 756.
The Internet is rife with rumors that MLB has put pressure on Mr. Bonds to retire. Joe Sheehan, senior writer for Baseball Prospectus, thinks the rumors are nonsense. "Right now Barry Bonds's knee problems at 40 are enough of a reason for him to say he may never return." Mr. Sheehan may be right, but baseball and the media may be the least of Bonds's worries. Even though he has been granted immunity in the BALCO investigation, Ms. Bell's testimony could have Mr. Bonds looking at charges of perjury, tax evasion, and perhaps even money-laundering. If the government does step in, Bud Selig could wake up to find his worst nightmare over. For baseball, the steroid problem will not be at an end, but it may be the beginning of the end.
Mr. Barra writes about sports for The Wall Street Journal.
