Should Barry Bonds face further punishments by Major League Baseball?

No

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by T.C Leonard

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The greatest punishment that Barry Bonds will ever face is when A-Rod shatters his home run record. It will be a matter of one egomaniac passing the torch to the next one. However, it is important to remember baseball's place in the great scheme of things. There are a number of atrocities occurring worldwide on a daily basis, but somehow a mere baseball player manages to grab the headlines for an alleged "crime" that has been a part of professional sports for decades. Just ask Lyle Alzado and Mike Webster. Never mind. That's impossible, and when Bonds' body falls apart, that will be the beginning of phase two of his punishment.

I'm not here to praise Barry Bonds, but before judgment is passed, I would like to see the results of the drug test that he failed. The man has never been fingered beyond the shadow of a doubt for steroids, even if his use of enhancements seems to be a foregone conclusion. It's easy to liken the steroid situation to the Salem witch trials, and Bonds is the "Tituba", or central character that the Puritans want to burn at the stake. He has been indicted, and if the case goes to trial, we can only hope that it will be a fair one. We are an angry nation these days, and somebody has to pay for Iraq, illegal immigration, and the recent downturn in the stock market. But should it be a baseball player?

There is tile on this website called "Heroes: Barry Bonds Will Destroy the World" or something like that. That seems a little bit farfetched, but things like this happen when the media tries somebody in the court of public opinion. Somehow Bonds is a bigger pariah these days than Osama Bin Laden, and to me this is incredible. Our priorities need to be straightened out a bit, and the most important of these is the idea that ANY man is considered innocent until he is proven guilty. This includes Barry Bonds.

Yes, it's true that an asterisk may rightly be affixed to Bonds' record, but this needs to be sorted out in due time. The witnesses who will be called to testify against the home run king are dubious in their own right. Apparently, one of these is going to be an ex-mistress. Yeah, like she doesn't have an axe to grind. As for GAME OF SHADOWS, it's a book. The authors (Fainaru-Wada and Williams) were most assuredly motivated by profit when writing it. Do you remember all of those books that came out after Oliver Stone's JFK? There were pretty convincing arguments that LBJ, Castro, Carlos Marcello, the CIA, etc. killed Kennedy. All or most of them were pure BS. A book has to be taken for what it's worth. It's all a part of a writer's literary license.

What punishments can Bonds face at the hands of MLB? The home runs have been hit, and the games have been played. They can't be struck from the record books. With that said, a banishment from the game and being kept out of the Hall of Fame are the most obvious retributions. If Bonds is proven guilty beyond the shadow of a doubt, these punishments are justifiable. However, if one is to believe in our system of justice, an innocent verdict should put the matter to rest. If this happens, baseball has no right to continue its vendetta against Barry Bonds. For the moment, Bonds is innocent, and any actions can wait. It's just a part of the democratic process.

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