Barry Bonds - Hero or Fraud?

As Barry, or is it Mr. Bonds?, tries to hit his 714th career homerun to tie the Babe, there is a lot of negative publicity about him. The media that covers MLB (and those who don't know what a baseball is) has a history of trying to crush players personally when they are close to breaking any records set by Babe Ruth. Baseball is a game and records are made to be broken, similar to laws, so why does the media try to villify people trying to achieve greatness?

In '61 when Maris and Mantle were chasing the single season homerun record (previously held by the Babe), there was an uproar about a longer season. This time around the controversy revolves around a banned substance, steroids. The league knew about the use of steriods for years (at least a decade but probably more) and did nothing about it, in fact they helped the players hide it. After the strike of 1994 (the year the Expos were robbed of their World Series) attendance fell dramatically and the league was in desperate need of some trick to entice the fans to return. Lucky for them a natural born home run hitter named Mark McGwire flirted with 60 home runs in 1996 and 1997 and actually broke the single season home run record with 70 (before Bonds beat that a few years later). These home runs drew people from everywhere, coming out to see McGwire put balls into the Big Mac Land of old Busch Stadium. The league has found it's trick to get the fans back, home runs. Meanwhile, quietly in San Francisco, an aging Barry Bonds jumped on the home run band wagon and started pumping iron (and possibly with a little help) and building muscle. And why not, everyone else started to bulk up too and 32 home runs a season just isn't good enough anymore.

So now the league's attendance started to rise with all these mammoth home runs and the league was starting to blossom. The money started coming in and the league along with the team owners couldn't be happier. But then a question of steroids use in MLB came up and the league denied that there was a problem. MLB was drug free they said. But we all know the reality now. Now that the league has reached, and possibly even surpassed, pre 1994 attendance levels, the steriod use of ball players comes to light.

That brings me to my point...finally. Barry Bonds was one of many players that might have used steriods (I am sure he did but I don't know if there is any solid proof of that so I have to cover my butt) so why do we persecute him alone. After all it is a problem throughout the league isn't it? Ah, but not everyone is about to pass a baseball God on any other all-time list let alone the most sacred. We have to pretend we don't want to see this happen at all, especially by someone who might have used steriods, so the media won't let us forget that. The funny thing of this whole situation is that Babe Ruth isn't on top in career home runs so when Bonds eventually hits home run number 715 he will only be taking over the second spot on the all-time home run list.

So I ask, is Bonds a hero or a fraud? I consider a hero to be someone for us mere mortals to look up to so if Bonds did use illegal drugs then he isn't someone to look up to. So he might not be a hero. If we go by the definition of a hero, then it is possible that he is a hero of baseball. How about a fraud? I doubt that he is a fraud either, he did actually hit the pitches that ended up in McCovey's cove and on the other side of so many other fences in the Major Leagues. His home runs weren't deceptive or a trick, in fact the more recent ones were undisputably home runs. He isn't an imposter either, he really is a baseball player. Not a hero or a fraud then what is he? Just a human being that can hit a round ball with a round bat and do it well. I heard somewhere the hardest thing to do in this world is to hit a round ball with a round bat squarely. Hmmm!

Whatever we classify him as, I still say cudos to him for getting so close to the all-time home run record and giving the baseball world something big to talk about, something that doesn't happen everyday.