Baseball's Rage Over 'Roids

HOLLANDER: This was bound to happen. I'm glad it happened now. If Major League Baseball does not investigate Barry Bonds, then what will it ever take to investigate him?

The compelling new book Game of Shadows (Gotham Books, scheduled to be in bookstores on March 17) was written by two San Francisco Chronicle reporters, Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, who have followed Bonds' career. The book shows that you don't need a urine test to prove Bonds used steroids.

This book culls together a mountain of corroborative evidence, including un-redacted affidavits from sealed files, interviews with federal agents, transcripts of the secret grand jury testimony, tape-recorded messages from Bonds, seized evidence from the BALCO investigation, e-mails from Victor Conte and meticulous common-sense circumstantial evidence regarding the changes in Bond's body.

For me, one of the most stunning revelations in the book was how prosecutors failed to press Bonds on his "I didn't now what I was putting in my body" defense during their grand jury inquiry. As Game of Shadows points out: "To people who knew Bonds' meticulous and controlling nature, [his] claim was absurd, but the prosecutors didn't pursue the point."

Just because the federal prosecutorial team didn't do its job doesn't mean Major League Baseball shouldn't do what's right and necessary. MLB has worked hard to remain an autonomous body, free from outside intervention-including government fiat. As it did with Pete Rose, Baseball should hire John Dowd. Or Charlie Chan. Or anyone else from the outside to clean house.

You and so many others like to tell me that there were no rules about steroids prior to last year, so Bonds did nothing "wrong." In the absence of specific league rules, MLB is bound by one guiding principle: What is in the best interests of baseball?

It is not in the best interests of baseball to have this hateful freak surpass Babe Ruth and possibly Hank Aaron for the hallowed career home-run record amidst a chorus of boos and public disgust.

You and so many others will tell me that singling out Bonds is unfair. Bonds is the most defiant symbol of an era when players, owners, fans and media were all complicit in guilt and denial. A full, public investigation of Bonds will be Major League Baseball's Nuremberg Trials and South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission rolled into one.

It will be healing. Sidestepping the Bonds problem will forever be the game's historic infamy.

SULLIVAN: There is nothing so nasty as the wrath of the self-righteous. Let us now take a real look at Barry Bonds. Let us say he "took" steroids in '99 or '98, or whenever those San Francisco muckrakers claim.

Do we now forget what a stellar career the man had before that?

Bonds had 411 home runs coming into the 1999 season. He was a power hitter with speed and also had a decent average-he is a lifetime .300 hitter. He's also the only baseball player that has over 500 steals and 500 home runs.

So let us say steroids helped his power. Only in 2001 did it put him out of the bubble of his career totals when he hit an unworldly 73 home runs. He never has hit over 50 since or before then. And if his mark in 2001 is tainted, so is Sosa's and McGwire's 1998 record year.

Maybe the wrath of the sportswriters is aimed at Bonds because he is outspoken and a man who seemingly doesn't like white people-or specifically white home run hitters like Ruth and McGwire. Bonds has said he wants to hit over 714 home runs to shut up white sportswriters about Babe Ruth. Is this why they are now out to get him?

Bonds didn't lie to Congress as Rafael Palmiero did. Nor does he pander like Mark McGwire, who only talks about the past when it suits him.

The rules are now in place and testing is done so if Bonds slips he will be caught. Bonds did what he did. His life may likely be shortened by his supplement choices.

But there is no steroid in the world that can make a man a better batter.

Yes, they can give more power. But you have to have the natural ability to begin with. This is still America, and a man has a right to make his own choices and say whatever he will.

Bonds has a target on his

back and the wimps on the sidelines are taking great glee at taking shots at a man who never really cared what they wrote or said. Major League Baseball is fine with or without Bonds.

HOLLANDER: The facts are helpful in a discussion like this. No one is claiming steroids will turn a spaz like you into a Major League Baseball player. What steroids do is make a good player great.

Yes, Bonds already amassed Hall of Fame numbers prior to taking steroids. But his production numbers went off the charts, hitting 45 home runs or more (he'd only done that once before) in the last five years of his career while in his late thirties/early forties, historically a time when the production of every other player of his caliber substantially declined.

'Roids improve your eyesight. They turn pop-ups into home runs. If steroids didn't work, players wouldn't take them. If not for steroids, Bonds wouldn't even be approaching Ruth or Aaron-to say nothing of breaking the single-season home-run mark.

Of course, McGwire and Sosa are tainted. And no, Bonds didn't lie to Congress. But he would have had he been subpoenaed, just like he perjured himself before the grand jury.

This is not about freedom of speech or freedom to ingest steroids. In America, Bonds has the right to be a miserable man, and he has the right to shrink his own testes. (I'm sure you can relate to the latter.) In Major League Baseball, he does not have the right to cheat the game.

This is not about race either. (I guess when you're losing on the merits, you can always accuse your opponent of racism. Very Sharpton of you.)

Baseball should also investigate San Francisco Giants owner Bill McGowan (he's white), who not only looked the other way as his ballpark was filled to capacity, but aided and abetted Bond's pusher, Greg Anderson, making him part of the Giant's staff, with a parking space, to boot.

Maybe you don't care. But Major League Baseball should. It's their obligation to care.

SULLIVAN: Since when did steroids "improve" your eyesight? Your juvenile jabs about my testes do not prove a thing. They put the rules in place and now there are boundaries.

Did the sports writers of the 1920s howl when the dead ball got some "juice" to it and home runs by Babe Ruth went through the roof?

Bonds is a great player and as far as we know, he hasn't done anything wrong. This, as I said, is America, and a man is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Not by the media, but by a jury of his peers.

A book by your dweeby friends out in Frisco doesn't "prove" anything. Your opinion -and all the other so-called "experts"-does not prove a thing.

Bonds' big bobble head doesn't prove anything. Leave the man alone. He will pay the price for his decisions.