Baseball Fans - Please Read ASAP

Something inside me finally snapped.

Maybe it was listening to my father scream at the television one too many times. Or maybe it was watching the media circus surround Barry Bonds this past weekend. Maybe it was watching him drill a pitch to the deepest realms of AT&T Park on Friday night against my beloved Yankees. But most likely it was spending the past two days reading the most important baseball book of my generation, Game of Shadows, to finally realize what must be done.

Barry Bonds must be stopped and he must be stopped now.

This isn’t some joking, half-hearted effort, as if to say the Red Sox must be stopped immediately, or my favorite team will not win enough games.

This also is not to suggest that my team is clean by any stretch of the imagination. Jason Giambi did steroids. Former Yankee outfielder Gary Sheffield did steroids. There were probably other Yankees that did. Giambi admitted to knowingly using steroids in an effort to gain performance enhancement. Giambi has since been received with boos and jeers, but fessed up to his mistakes and has gone on with his life.

After reading Game of Shadows, the brilliantly told story of the BALCO scandal by Mark Fainary-Wada and Lance Williams, I was taken aback by the amount of information these two San Francisco Chronicle reporters were able to dig up. The book provides damning evidence regarding the players involved in abuse of performance enhancing drugs.

It’s not as if “Game” is a new book, either. It was initially written in 2006, grabbed national headlines and has become a best seller. Fainaru-Wada and Williams should be hailed as heroes and have been dubbed by many as the Woodward and Bernstein of the sports equivalent to Watergate.

But like the collective sheep that we are, we forget books like “Game.” Sure, many fans condemn Barry Bonds when he enters our ballparks. We’ve seen unruly fans throw syringes, display insulting sings, rain boos down on him and gloriously exult when the aging slugger makes an out.

But two problems still exist.

The first is that while fans are booing, throwing things and making signs condemning the steroid abuse by Bonds, they are still buying his act. Despite having one of the worst records in the National League, the Giants have the fourth highest road attendance in the league and the sixth highest home attendance in all of Major League Baseball. Naturally, fans want to be a part of history and see Mr. Bonds as he nears Hank Aaron's all-time home run record. But between all the booing and hating, the fans are still paying his salary. They can boo all they want, but he’s laughing all the way to his bank.

The second and most important problem is that while all this evidence is out and available, Bonds is still allowed to slaughter the records that our brilliant (and performace enhancing drug free) predecessors set for us.

Bonds already broke the hallowed all-time single season home run record. By hitting 73 home runs in 2001, he surpassed another cheat in Mark McGwire. McGwire finally received some retribution for his actions by being locked out of Baseball’s Hall of Fame last fall.

Bonds has won seven NL MVP awards, three before he started using the juice, and four since. He won four in a row from 2001-2004, set a career walks record and during that time moved to third all-time on the MLB home run list.

Bonds has since moved to second, a measly seven away from hopping the noble and honorable Aaron as baseball’s all-time home run champion.

Granted there is a mood of indifference surrounding the whole event. Non-baseball fans and baseball fans outside of San Francisco could care less.

But it matters to the soul of the game. The indifference to the chase is remarkable, and there is too much of it as a whole in our society. Notorious wrongdoers Pete Rose and “Shoeless” Joe Jackson were banned for life from baseball, Rose for gambling and Jackson for helping to fix the 1919 World Series, after outcries of public resentment. Both scandals rocked the game. Rose even served a jail sentence after his conviction for income tax evasion.

In “Game”, it is reported that Bonds bought a house for his “girlfriend” Kimberly Bell with $80,000 in cash that he received from card shows and never reported to the IRS.

HELLO?! Isn’t that income tax evasion?!

After BALCO was raided, many athletes were subpoenaed to testify under oath, Bonds included. Bonds repeatedly said that he never knowingly took steroids, but Benito Santiago, Bonds' own teammate at the time, claimed that his trainer and notorious steroid dealer, Greg Anderson, provided steroids and growth hormone to him. Bonds said that Anderson gave him nothing but flaxseed oil, but Anderson’s seized documents reveal that he had cycle calendars and tests which included Bonds’ name.

Isn’t lying under oath perjury, a federal offense punishable with jail time? I thought so.

As if these two felonies were not damning enough, Bonds is about to break Aaron’s home run record, and I for one have to put my foot down.

We cannot let our youngsters grow up cheering for cheaters. It is bad enough that my entire childhood of cheering is clouded with controversy, let alone future generations having to wonder about their home run champion being a cheater and a criminal.

We must, as baseball fans, stand up against this trend. It is already too late, but something can be salvaged. We must press the issue and force government and baseball to act.

They both must view the evidence that the grand jury received and the testimony of lies that Bonds gave. The fact that Fainaru-Wada and Williams were sentenced to prison for “obstructing justice”, and Bonds can lie under oath and not get a perjury or obstruction of justice charge is despicable. The fact that Bonds can get a free pass from the justice system and continue to cement his place in baseball history is revolting.

I challenge Bud Selig and the grand jury of San Francisco to do what is right for America. Our president challenges us as Americans to act with justice regarding people who do not abide by what is right. I’m no fan of our president, but in this instance he is right.

Meanwhile I have set up a petition at: http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/keephomerunsclean. Please voice your outcry, and if enough of us make our voices heard loud enough, maybe we can shut this whole performance enhancing drug issue down before it is entirely too late.

We owe it to the ghosts and records of baseball past to keep the game from falling further and further into the sewer. Fainaru-Wada and Williams have done their part. Now it is time for us to do ours.