Barry Bonds and Hypocrisy Redux

Barry Bonds, Steroids, and Hypocrisy is far and away the most trafficed post on Hello, Typepad. Since the San Francisco Chronicle and Sports Illustrated published excerpts of an upcoming book that alleges an absurdly high amount of Steroid use on the part of Bonds and other athletes associated with Balco (including Hello, Typepad favorite Marion Jones), interest in this topic has peaked (see my measure map graph for this post, to the left) so I thought I'd just reiterate my opinion, because I'm stubborn like that.

If indeed Bonds is guilty of everything the Chronicle reporters say that he is, and more, he is at least behaving consistently. There's blood in the water around Bonds, but there's money too, and don't think for a second that reporters wouldn't be covering this story if there wasn't. We know this because it's been going on for twenty years and no one started talking about it until Jose Canseco came out with his book. What's more, Baseball didn't even have a real Steroids policy until three years ago.

The fans and press are exactly as hypocritical as Bonds himself in this case. As sad as it makes me that he clearly cheated, his behavior is a symptom, not a disease.