BONDS...BARRY BONDS

I grew up loving baseball and hoping someday to hit more home runs than anyone ever had. We played home run derby every day in the summer and I'm sure I achieved my goal unofficially. Babe Ruth was our hero and seemed almost untouchable in the number of home runs he hit in his career.  That didn't mean players didn't try.  I have lived through four successful attempts to break the all-time home run records set by Babe Ruth of 60 in a single season in 1927 and 714 lifetime round trippers. 

The first was in 1961when Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle vied to break the Babe's 60 home runs in a single season record. Roger Maris finally did it on the last day of the regular season ending up with 61 home runs and an asterisk by his name in the record book (since removed) because his 61 homers were accomplished in 162 games and Ruth set his record in 156 games. 

The second attempt at dethroning Ruth was when Hank Aaron strove to move ahead of Babe Ruth's 20 seasons lifetime total of 714 home runs.  He accomplished this on April 8, 1974, on his way to slamming 755 four-baggers in 23 big league seasons.

The third was the race between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa in 1998 as they attempted to surpass Ruth's 60 and Roger Maris's 61 single-season home run record.  Both of them did with McGwire hitting 70 that year and Sosa hitting 65.

Then along came Barry Bonds. In 2001 he hit 73 home runs in a single-season. Astounding! I was caught up in the excitement, the drama, and all the intentional walks he had to go through to hit those 73 home runs.

Then came the accusations of performance-enhancing drugs used by McGwire, Sosa, and Bonds along with many other major league baseball players.  What they did was kill the enjoyment I had for the game.  How can anyone beat their records without stooping to the same tactics they used?  Their records are tainted as is the entire sport of baseball.  

Well, it's been eight years since the federal government began its efforts to pin charges of perjury on Barry Bonds for his denial under oath of using steroids. Now we have the verdict and the punishment for his alleged crimes:
     1. Thirty days of house arrest in his luxury home. (Yes that's 30 whole days)  
      2. Two hundred and fifty (250) hours of community service. (That's an additional 10 1/2 days) 
      3. A whopping $4,000 dollar fine. ( That is   0.00002083333 percent of the 192 million he made while playing baseball)

    4. They deserved to have the book thrown at them and at least denied access to the Baseball Hall of Fame. (That's still holding as of 2024)

If Roger Clemens had pitched to Barry Bonds and he had hit a towering blast where the ball cleared the stadium fence and came down on top of the head of a pit bull handled by Michael Vick knocking it senseless, then maybe the powers that be would have issued a punishment commensurate with the crime.