Yesterday’s sports headline cited Barry Bonds’ promise that he’d definitely play again, possibly this season: the season thus far having proceeding without him following a knee operation. Today’s headline declares Bonds’ "Return Uncertain." The background for these possibilities is not only baseball and Bonds’ recuperation but the Balco steroid scandal. How much pressure is afoot to dissuade Bonds from healing? There are baseball traditionalists who wish out loud that Bonds had never lifted a bat.
We live in an amazing time. Last weekend both Tigar Woods and Jack Nicklaus walked the same golf links. Roger Federer’s march of greatness in tennis rivals Tiger’s in golf.
When Babe Ruth was making himself known as the Sultan of Swat, neither of us were around to see or appreciate it. All we have is a moment of two on film. I was alive throughout Hank Aaron’s career, but I wasn’t paying enough attention to appreciate what was before us. (The army stuck me with people who did pay attention: and their racist comments still rankle my ears. "He sees something white, and he hits it with a stick," was Joe Garagiola’s public comment.)
I am not exactly a baseball fan but by now I know enough to see at least part of Barry Bonds’ method: he’s got strength, speed, eye sight, eye-hand coordination -- and he waits and waits and waits till the ball positions itself for his maximum impact!
Did he take steroids? I don’t see how it’s possible that he didn’t. I also don’t see how it’s possible that many an unnamed star also didn’t. Think of photos of Magic Johnson arriving at the NBA; now think of recent photos of Magic Johnson. Sure he might have still continued to grow into his twenties; but into his thirties? and forties?
It isn’t just Bonds who needs an asterisk in the record books: it’s our whole era.
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