Barry Bonds

Now that this Barry Bonds saga is hopefully working towards a conclusion...

I feel like this persecution of Barry Bonds is a little ridiculous.

First of all, why did Congress ever get involved with baseball in the first place? I've never understood this. It's a fucking SPORT! Why don't they hold a Congressional hearing to investigate the steroid use in professional wrestling next? Our government wastes far too much money and resources over stupid shit. Like Dave's account said in the movie Dave of the government's budget, "If I ran my business like this, I'd be out of business."

Anyway, regarding how baseball ought to view his record and his legacy in general, I think the backlash against him wasn't because of his ethnicity or because he's an asshole to the media - I think there's this backlash against him because of his success! I mean, when McGwire and Sosa broke Maris' record in that famous summer of 1998 that basically brought baseball back into popularity after the strike in 1994 and everything, people were able to turn the other cheek because (1) people were watching baseball again and (2) Roger Maris' record being broken didn't really bother people because other than having that record, Roger Maris was not in the pantheon of great baseball players.

But, Barry Bonds happens to be an unbelievable, all-time-great talent without the steroids. With the steroids, he was superhuman. Forget about the all-time homeruns mark - he won 4 straight MVP awards and set all kind of new precedents. Refusing to pitch to a guy often? Amazing. During that stretch Barry Bonds would get walked in ridiculous situations because they were afraid to pitch to him. He'd get walked in tie games in the 6th inning with runners on first base. And it wasn't a bad idea either!

(Infact, I think that when teams use this strategy it should be called the "Barry Treatment". Like, what the Giants did by not kicking to Devin Hester this past Sunday - they gave Hester the "Barry treatment".)

In any case, my point is: Barry Bonds is no more or less guilty than Jason Giambi, Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, etc, etc... he's just much doper than them. If we asterisk or erase or whatever his records and achievements, then lets erase everything about Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa from MLB history. So for people that care emotionally about this issue, you've been turning your cheek for around 15 years or whatever... Barry Bonds just did it better than all his peers.