Bonds deserves every boo he receives

Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Jul 4, 2006 by DAVID RAMSEY Gazette Sports columnist

DENVER - Americans have enough brains, and enough morals, to see Barry Bonds for what he is. We see he's a cheater, a whiner, a bad example for children everywhere and a pharmaceutical freak unworthy of swiping Hank Aaron's home-run record.

Who wants to applaud a man who (according to the meticulously researched book "Game of Shadows") employed Winstrol, Deca- Durabolin, human growth hormone, trenbolone and testosterone decanoate, sometimes known as "Mexican beans," to quicken his collection of home runs?

Almost no one. At least that's the case, thank God, in Colorado.

At 5:50 p.m. Monday, as the San Francisco Giants starting lineup was announced at Coors Field, Bonds endured a thunderous round of jeers. This was the proper welcome for a baseball villain.

Bonds' journey from slender doubles-hitter to bloated-steroids slugger has the feel of an Old Testament morality tale. In 1998, Bonds watched baseball fans swoon as Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa passed Roger Maris on the single-season home run list.

Bonds could have stayed clean. He was rich. He had earned three MVP awards. Yet Bonds coveted the adulation showered on McGwire and Sosa. He surrendered to temptation. He surrendered to the lure of chemicals.

Don't ever doubt the power of steroids. Bonds hit a home run every 16.1 at bats in his first 13 seasons. With a body inflated by steroids, he hit a home run every 8.5 at bats from 1999 to 2004.

Yet even as his body swelled, his legacy shriveled. If Bonds had remained true to his natural blessings, he would be remembered as one of his era's titans.

Instead, he rules only as America's ultimate sports fraud. Nothing -- not even passing Aaron -- will ease the infamy eternally hovering over the name of Barry Bonds.

Monday afternoon, Bonds sat in the visitors locker room, talking and laughing with friends. It was a few hours before opening pitch.

Someone asked Bonds to comment on the Rockies revival. One of the worst teams in baseball last season now flirts with first place in the National League West.

"That's the wrong conversation to be having," Bonds said.

Then he turned to the only other reporter in the vicinity.

That was me.

"Any other questions?" he asked with a smirk.

Well, I did have a question. "Game of Shadows" offers convincing evidence Bonds failed to report cash earned on the autograph circuit to the Internal Revenue Service. You don't mess with your Uncle Sam.

I asked Bonds if he worried about charges of tax evasion.

"You walked all the way over here to ask me that question?" Bonds said.

I nodded yes.

Bonds offered another smirk and turned back to his friends. End of conversation.

But my question, and dozens of others, won't vanish, and the jeers will grow louder. Bonds proclaims, over and over, he doesn't care what we think, but here's a little secret about men who say they don't care.

They care more than anyone else.

We're all left to suffer through this strange, sad spectacle. A cheater, his reputation shrinking by the minute, marches toward America's most precious sports record. We can't erect a barricade around the record. We can't organize a recall election. We can't impeach Bonds.

We're stuck with a fraud.

Pointing out Bonds' sins has nothing to do with race. Aaron, a black man, towers as an American hero. Every last one of his home runs was an honest effort.

Pointing out these sins has nothing to do with suffering from blurry vision as we examine the past. Sure, Babe Ruth guzzled too much booze, gobbled too many hot dogs. Yes, he cheated on his wives.

But the Babe didn't cheat the game. And the Babe didn't lead a crusade to turn America's pastime into a freak show.

Columnist David Ramsey can be reached at 476-4895 or david.ramsey@gazette.com