BlackNotBlack.com

Ballooning Bodies and Bank Accounts

I got a query from Tony Brown in the comments section of my post A Torso from the Past. He said: "By the way, I am hungry for your comment on the whole Barry Bonds thing!" I've actually started posts on this subject a couple of times, and both times decided not to bother. But asked a direct question, I'll go ahead and answer before getting back to stories about carousing in the third world. So thanks for the prompt TB.

My main thought is that it amuses me how, in a country that values money above all other things, people continue to be surprised by what people will do to get it. Cheating is not just part of sports, but part and parcel of American life. Anyone who thinks otherwise needs to pick up a history book and turn to the chapters marked "Indian Treaties", and then flip forward to the chapters marked "Enron" and "Hedge Fund". America's top income earner last year was a hedge fund manager who made 1.1 billion dollars. Yes, you read that figure correctly. He did it by selling shady investment packages, the same ones that now threaten to destroy the U.S. economy.

So, if we're discussing this like adults, rather than like flagwavers or moral watchdogs (Won't somebody please think of the CHILDREN!) then I'd point out that baseball players who used steroids were rewarded handsomely. Take Ken Caminiti, who posted an MVP season on steroids. He was a solid but unspectacular player who, after the juice, became bionic. He was given a fat contract as a reward for his stats and profited, I'd guess, ten million dollars just for taking some chemicals. Most people would eat a bowl of feces for one hundredth that amount.

Take a good look at the photo of Bonds below. That is what he looked like upon joining the Pittsburgh Pirates. And he possessed the same physique, pretty much, for the next few years of his career. He was hitting maybe twenty-five, thirty homers a season, stealing some bases, playing good defense. He was a very good all-around player. But it was the homers everyone wanted. Now imagine it's 1995 or 1996 and baseball contracts are skyrocketing. You've performed well, but your clubhouse has some guys who are taking steroids and, league wide, team owners are rewarding these guys by dumping millions on them. Some of these guys strike out 150 times a year, wasting 150 at bats, but in forty five of those at bats they connect for homers, and for that they get enough money to last them ten lifetimes. And while it's true you're making good money too, it could all end tomorrow, with one injury. You've got a nest egg, but your expenses are through the roof, which means that with a little bad luck you could still end up doing used car commercials when you're 60. So fuck it, you give these drugs a try. Other guys are earning mints while your 30/30 seasons get you treated like some kind of warm-up act. And the drugs are legal, so what's the worry?

A few years later, after you've transformed into the Hulk, baseball starts to worry about steroids and bans them. But the substances keep evolving and the new ones aren't banned. And, by the way, you got that massive contract you were looking for, so you trust this stuff because it made you, and your children, and their children financially secure—for life. And let's not forget, if you quit and your numbers drop you'll have to deal with a raft of grief for not putting up your usual numbers. And lastly, not every player is planning to quit, as far as you can tell. If everyone quit, okay, maybe you would, too. But why give other players an advantage when it'll just hurt your earning power?

Another year or two passes and, weird as it seems, public opinion is turning against steroid use even as the crowds cheer you on. And somehow—maybe you didn't even believe it at first—the most hallowed record in American sports is dangling before your eyes like a ripe pomegranate. It's right there. Baseball is coming down hard on steroids now, but your chance to quit the juice with no questions asked was two years ago, or maybe three, so you're on the chopping block either way. You saw what happened to Mark McGuire. They crucified that guy and he never broke the law or the rules of baseball. He was smarter than you, though. He retired. The same record was within his reach and he walked away. Unbelievable. You should have done the same, but it's too late now. Fuck it. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.

Abandoning my dramatization of Barry Bonds' baseball life for a moment, we have to ask, does anything I wrote make steroid usage okay? Well, I don't believe any sort of drug use is inherently right or wrong, but you obey laws and rules—even stupid ones—if you don't want to get in trouble. Bonds didn't obey, and now he's in trouble. However if anyone out there believes the morality of the situation is black and white, I suggest they try to get the same corner table at Nobu that Bonds gets. They'll learn the harsh lesson that it is better in America to be rich than good or moral. Money is America's God, and Bonds worships it no more and no less than others. After he is ridiculed, after he is asterisked, and after his life is dragged through the mud, he'll stroll into Nobu and still get that corner table. He'll get it every day of his life. The politician, the slimy hedge fund manager, the juiced up athlete, and the tax cheat are all of similar stripe, doing what they do for the exact same reasons. So who can really throw stones?

Bonds took a risk, and though in one respect he may get caught, in a much more important respect—money—he succeeded spectacularly. So did Martha Stewart, and Oliver North, and thousands of other all-American liars who, when all was said and done, still got to keep the cash they cheated to get. Bonds may appear to whine about his current circumstances, but this is to be expected, for denial followed by contrition are required by the American public. Thus repentance becomes part of the stage show. In the words of the immortal William Butler Yeats, "How can we know the dancer from the dance?"

Bonds got the money, and he got the record he wanted. It was a struggle. He had to chase the sacred number while living inside a pressure cooker, under extraordinary scrutiny from fans and with prosecutors digging through his personal history. Although he has already admitted taking something given to him by his trainer, there is no doubt that performance enhancing substances were not available to him in 2007 as he gained on recordholder Hank Aaron. He'd have been busted if he came within ten miles of a steroid. Meanwhile every piece of dirty laundry he possessed was aired out in public—the affair, every bad thing he ever did. And what happened? He broke the record while having the greatest season ever by a forty-three year old player. Which conjures a most bittersweet thought: maybe if he had never taken anything he would have achieved it all anyway.

Labels: barry bonds, hank aaron, steroids

posted by Egan Ehlers @ 11:50 AM