Buy Bonds!

--From Chicago, IL, where I'm teaching leadership skills to talented Rotarians

It's been said that hitting a baseball is the most difficult thing to do in all of sports.  One of the secrets is to be able to correctly guess if the next pitch is going to be a fast ball, a curve ball or a slider.

It shouldn't be hard for Barry Bonds to guess the next pitch.  Major League Baseball will offer to buy him out.  Commissioner Bud Selig will finally have to deal with the persistant issue of the slugger's alleged steroid use.  "Game of Shadows," a new book by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, has all but convicted Bonds and the book hasn't even been published yet.

Bonds' unique situation is not without precedent.  Slugger Raphael Palmiero was recently forced to retire after repeated allegations of sterioid use.  Things got so bad that even hometown fans jeered Palmiero when it was his turn at the plate.  At one point, the man who had quietly racked up over 3,000 hits was forced to wear earplugs to muffle deafening boos from the crowd. 

Bonds must be under tremendous pressure.  His statistics may be out-of-this-world, but the man still has to eat dinner with his family.  Even if Bonds has no conscience, he is must be somewhat accountable to his old-school Dad (former All-Star, Bobby Bonds) and his "godfather," the legendary Willie Mays. 

So what's the next pitch?  Selig will soon lobby for Bonds to retire and spare everyone the grief of a prolonged investigation.  Bonds is only six home runs shy of Babe Ruth's 714 homers, the second highest total of all time, so bowing out won't be easy.  "Buy Bonds!" will become the new rallying cry for baseball purists and the San Francisco Giants pay the man to go away.

 

Comments

[Tom Gray]

From the March 16, 2006 Sports Section of the Denver Post, "Bonds will need to get plenty of time in left field if the team is going to compete in the NL West." That says it all ... the need to be competitive tends, anymore, to trump our outrage at athletic excesses. The pressure on Bonds to quit for engaging in activities that, at the time, weren't banned by MLB will be alleviated by the desire to win. As long as his presence on the field furthers that goal then the fans will, no doubt, show an 'extraordinary' capacity to forgive...