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| Jail time | 50% | 116 votes | Total: 232 votes | |
| Fines | 50% | 116 votes |
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Add to FavoritesThis case against Barry Bonds has nothing to do with his taking or not taking performance enhancing drugs. If it did, there would be a division of each major sport based at Riker's Island. This case is about perjury. Barry Bond's has the honor of having become Major League Baseball's Martha Stewart. While the country had endless water-cooler fights about whether she had been a dastardly inside trader, the court was deciding if she was willing to lie her way out of the issue under oath. What was at stake was not the integrity of a $60,000 stock trade, but rather the integrity of the justice system.
Enter Barry.
What will finally be on trial is the arrogance of celebrity. We took his Barcalounger in the clubhouse with his own personal TV in stride. Simply a perk of greatness, an appropriate throne for royalty. His surliness before the media was a proper look down his nose at the heathen parasites who hoped to put food on their table by simply retelling the tales of his greatness to the hoards of adoring subjects. Woe to those parasites who chose to find fault in the great Barry. They would be expelled from his kingdom, no longer having access to him as he recounted the days glory.
But as the heat got turned up on the enhancement stories, and hearings became a regular thing on the Hill, we found out that there is royalty, and there is Royalty. Barry is learning this lesson a bit later in life than most. If it is proved that he was not forthcoming in previous testimony, he will find out that the court system does not like to be mocked. It frequently is, and often successfully, but it REALLY doesn't like it. Martha found that out, lest we choose to make this a race case. It's not. It's about arrogance. When entitlement meets the prevailing power structure in a head to head contest, it is kind of like the Patriots against...almost anybody. Barry will be taught a lesson in humility. He wont learn it, mind you, but he will be taught it.
If our court system is to have a shred of character, it can not allow itself to be shamelessly mocked. If Barry is found guilty, he will serve time, and that is right. As badly as we need heroes of true grandeur, we need institutions that have enough integrity to be worth defending heroically.
Oh where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio.
Learn more about this author, Bruce L. Eaton.
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Fines
As disillusioned and disappointed as I am over the whole sorry affair of steroid use among MLB players, Barry Bonds didn't start it and he won't be the one to end it. Mark McGwire got to revel in all his home run hitting glory years before he shamed himself by refusing to answer questions in front of a congressional committee about his "alleged" steroid use.
A whole lot of players were already in too deep before steroid usage was deemed evil and nasty and an affront to America's favorite past time. Players are paid big bucks to perform. If they don't play well, they don't play and if they don't play, there's no pay. If everyone was doing it then everyone was doing it. Why single out Barry Bonds to sacrifice? Because he was the most successful? Uh, if he was the best player on steroids and every player is on steroids, then that level playing field makes Barry Bonds the best player. Period.
I'm not excusing him. I'm not excusing any of them. They're liars. They're cheats. They've all re-defined the business of baseball(I won't call it a game. There's nothing game-like about baseball anymore). But I also don't want Barry Bonds to be held to a higher standard than any other player. Fine him. Fine him big but don't send him to jail. There's not a big enough cell to house all the other players who would have to be in there with him. And not just players. Serve up an extra helping of bread and water to the baseball owners who pressured the players to play beyond their capabilities in the first place.
Fine the owners. Fine the managers. Fine the coaches. Fine the personal trainers. And devote all those fines to Little League teams nationwide. Invest the money in kids who love the game of baseball because it is a game. Use the money to teach the real rules and a healthy competitive spirit and arm the kids with the equipment they need. Redeem Baseball in the eyes of a now cynical nation through the wide-open and beguiled eyes of our youth. Do that and I'll yearn for the cry of the umpire to
"Play ball!"
Learn more about this author, Harriet Sherman.
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