Maybe I’m still in the minority; I know I was while I lived in San Francisco. The fact that Bonds finally admitted that he uses performance enhancing steroids is not surprising. If you look at Bonds physique in his first three years in major league baseball and look at his last three, he has bulked up considerably. I’m not talking “an extra set of bench presses” bulk either. I’m talking ripping-out-a-horse’s-thyroid-putting-it in-a-blender-with-various-other-chemicals-and-shooting-it-into-your-bloodstream-
bulking. I’ve known he was a roider from the moment I saw him in person after he left the Pittsburgh Pirates!
Now, the question is whether or not baseball has been tainted by this admission. The answer is, where was there any sign of integrity in the MLB before? To say something has lost its luster means that it had one previously and let me tell you, baseball hasn’t had any form of integrity since the early 70s. That is around the time where owners and players alike began to think of it as a business and not as America’s Pastime.
I think Bonds, Giambi and Sheffield (three players who were named by BALCO execs as accepting steroids from them), should be banned from baseball. Heck, the MLB Owners had no problem handing down a lifetime ban on Pete Rose for gambling, yet they balk at throwing the death penalty on players who have cheated? Is cheating to win any different than gambling on the sport you participate in? I don’t think so and the league officials shouldn’t either.