by B. B. James

Created on: January 12, 2010

Barry Bonds hit 762 home runs in his illustrious major league career.  Nobody has hit more - yet.  But many people want to deny recognition of the home run record to Bonds because he used steroids and, possibly, other performance-enhancing drugs during the second half of his career. 

I believe that Bonds' record should stand, and it should be listed in baseball's official records without any type of footnote.  While Bonds is hardly a sympathetic figure (he is an arrogant, obnoxious philanderer and malcontent), he broke Hank Aaron's home run record while abiding by the rules of baseball that existed during his playing career.  There is no suggestion that Bonds did anything that was outside the boundaries of the sport at the time.  The fact that the rules have been changed should not invalidate his performance retroactively.

Let's start with an admission: Bonds did use steroids.  Although he has denied it, the evidence against him is overwhelming.  Bonds' denials are stupid and self-defeating, and it's certain that he will admit the truth at some point.  Defense of his records does not have to stand on the spurious claim that he did not use steroids.

But now let's look at the rest of the facts.  First, steroids were not illegal when Bonds was playing.  Baseball should have banned steroids, but it didn't.  Whether the fault lies with the owners or with the players' union (or both), the fact is that baseball did not have a policy in place that penalized players who used steroids until 2005.  From 2002-2005, players were occasionally tested for steroids, but the penalty for a first offense was counseling and treatment.  Prior to 2002, there was no real policy at all.

So, using steroid allegations to void Bonds' marks would necessitate showing that he used steroids after 2005, when the league had a reasonably strong policy against them.  That's never been shown nor even alleged against Bonds. 

The other accusation is that he switched to even more advanced drugs in about 2005 when the steroid ban went into effect.  This relates to evidence seized from California drug lab Balco.  However, once again, baseball was not banning any substances that Bonds is alleged to have used.  So why should he be penalized?

Those are the fact-based objections to sanctioning Bonds.  The other objections are more subjective, but they carry weight, too:

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