Mixing the United States government with baseball is ugly. Almost as ugly as a bases loaded balk. But it happens, and it’s happening again as the latest round in the Barry Bonds vs. The United States of America (For real. A bit over the top sounding, isn’t it?) slugfest begins.
For those who need a refresher, here’s a quick and dirty rundown: Barry Bonds played baseball for 20 years from the late ‘80s to the late ‘00s. During that time he became the most prolific homerun hitter in Major League baseball history. He also grew a prolific-sized head and almost certainly used steroids. The government put him in front of a grand jury a few years ago and he said he never knowingly used steroids. Federal prosecutors think it was a lie (they’re probably right). So, now he’s on trial for perjury.
But to what end?
People shouldn’t lie, and they shouldn’t lie to a grand jury, but the whole steroids investigation by the government has been flawed from the very beginning. It’s a wild goose chase of sorts with often little evidence, and the evidence they do have is often lacking because of Major League Baseball’s efforts early on to—I won’t say cover it up—deal discreetly with the situation.
Further, this isn’t really about perjury. In fact, it’s not even really about steroids. (And for the record, a whole lot of baseball players have lied about using steroids, some to the government, some not.) It’s about making someone pay; making someone pay for “duping” America into thinking the grand renaissance of homer-happy baseball in the ‘90s was “real.”
It’s a classic case of the government meddling where it doesn’t belong. But it’s high profile, and the government has stepped in to right the supposed wrongs perpetrated on baseball fans.
And Barry Bonds is the perfect target. He’s almost universally regarded as a jerk, and by all accounts it’s probably a fair assessment. He never interacted with fans, even in San Francisco, the only place where the Home Run King was really adored. He was cold, and often actively boorish, to the media. He was widely known as a pretty horrible teammate.
I have no love lost for Barry Bonds. As a Pittsburgh Pirates fan, he began an almost 20-year drought for my beloved Bucs by failing to throw out a guy who basically had no knees at home plate, denying the Pirates a shot at the World Series, and then bolting to the Giants via free agency over the offseason.
All this is to say that Barry Bonds isn’t, by all accounts, a world class guy (also, he crushed eight-year-old me, and in a roundabout way, he continues to crush grown-up me for his role in destroying the once-glorious Pirates); he’s a jerk who lied about taking steroids. But the government just needs to stay away. It’s a flimsy case in an area where the government should have never been involved in the first place.
Supposedly this trial will shed light on the overarching steroid problem in baseball, but I don’t see it. We already know everything of import: baseball players hit a ton of homeruns a few years ago; turns out a bunch of them were on steroids; also turns out that MLB looked the other way.
It’s a battle not worth fighting. It’s a waste of time and government resources. Worst of all, it reeks of pettiness and vindictiveness. The defense will reportedly even draw on Bonds’ sexual history with former mistress, and witness, Kimberly Bell. It’s a gross overuse of government power that will likely end in embarrassment, as Joe Posnanski rightly observes.
Barry Bonds is a jerk, but this trial will end up making the government look at least as bad as they carry out their unnecessary, trivial, and vindictive case against Bonds.
It’s going to be a circus, the only outcome of which will be to further highlight a wasteful government with pointless and excessive priorities.
