HALLOWED GAME NOT SO PRISTINE

Back in the golden age of baseball, a time that existed mostly between
my ears, I marveled at how Pete Rose ran to first base after a walk.

Now I wonder if it was the amphetamines that made Charlie Hustle, the
drugs he admitted taking during a career played well above the speed
limit.

Welcome to the icky, sticky era of enlightenment in Major League
Baseball, where skeletons are flying out of closets, truths are
leaking out of syringes and a married baseball player and his female
companion just got outed on the cover of a New York newspaper. And in
this wrecking-ball reality, the weirdest thing has happened on the
field of dreams inside my head:

I have lost my indignation for Barry Bonds.

Oh, I still consider 756 a spiritual number, and unlike cretins who
wish him injured, I merely request that when Bonds reaches home run
No. 754, any ball he hits thereafter goes unheeded by the defense. Let
it roll, let it sit, don't touch it. This would make Bonds' two
milestone home runs - the tying and breaking of Hank Aaron's record -
come on two inside-the-park jobs. Strutting Barry would have to leg
them out.

Perfect, no?

But it's the bigger picture that matters, and after all these years,
it is becoming clear that baseball has long been a beautiful, dirty
game fueled by drugs, played by cheaters and run by people who care
only about money. The record book already is shamefully diluted, its
pages tilted by dead ball eras, raised mounds and countless other
vagaries. Home-field advantage in the World Series now is determined
by the All-Star Game, and since the advent of interleague play, a
batter can hit a home run against an American League pitcher in an
American League park and have it count in National League statistics.

This is sacred?

Jason Giambi (reportedly) and the late Ken Caminiti admitted using
steroids, although neither felt compelled to return his MVP trophy.
Sammy Sosa still holds the record for most home runs in a month (20!),
even if the more he grew, the less English he knew. Who knows if any
of the 1986 Mets snorted a line before a game the way the 2004 Red Sox
did shots of whiskey, or if Babe Ruth really broke the law by drinking
during Prohibition.

But, mercy, can you imagine what Dock Ellis saw the day he threw a
no-hitter while tripping on LSD?

The shady, staining behavior has been in the game forever, long before
Bonds and the coffee pots labeled "Leaded" and "Unleaded."

Although a select group of high-profile hitters have shouldered much
of the purists' outrage, countless pitchers surely added miles per
hour to their fastball with performance-enhancing drugs.

And the current conspiracy of silence that started that shameful day
on Capitol Hill and continues through George Mitchell's investigation
proves just how big this problem is and was.

Yet Bonds has been vilified because he usually is an unaccommodating
jerk and because he's chasing a magic number. This has increased
racial tensions because, when Black people see a Black athlete
persecuted while men of equal guilt and different color are not, they
instinctively and understandably smell trouble. And it sends a
ridiculous message to everyone. Like, it's OK to use drugs if (a)
you're not very good; (b) you give a half-baked apology, like Giambi;
or (c) you don't threaten hallowed records.

I have seen enough. I am turning in my hypocrisy card, and here is
why:

The record book is not the Holy Grail. It never has been. It is
romantic only to a select few generations of baseball fans who attach
outrageous symbolism and meaning to this sport because it once bonded
our fathers to their fathers to their fathers . . . because it
represents the best of our childhoods and a country that no longer
exists.

But the game never has been as good or as pure as our fantasies, and
this sport long ago severed the precious generational link with labor
strikes and World Series games that go past midnight. Just ask the
kids in the audience, the ones who hold little contempt for Bonds
because the record book doesn't mean squat to them, because baseball
doesn't go that deep any more.

Still, my epiphany regarding Bonds occurred just the other day, when
during an interview with USA Today, Giambi encouraged everyone in
baseball to stand up like men and apologize for what they have done to
the game. Then he got hauled into the commissioner's office, where
they would have removed his vocal chords, if possible.

Which tells me that baseball does not want honesty, full disclosure or
the whole truth. They want to skate through the Steroids Era with our
focus solely on Bonds, who couldn't be a more perfect villain. They
want to pin this whole thing on him when this always has been a we
problem.

So, I am no longer inflating the meaning of a single number or the
sanctity of baseball's record books. I am merely a calloused yet
interested observer. And when Bonds breaks the record, I'll bow my
head in shame, and hope the embarrassment is universal.