Barry Bonds and the Sacredness of Baseball's Numbers

As Barry Bonds begins the 2006 season on the brink of passing Babe Ruth's mark of 714 career home runs and Hank Aaron's all-time record of 755, there has been a lot of talk about Commissioner Bud Selig invalidating Bonds's achievements in light of the suspicions about his steroid use. Since steroids were not even forbidden in baseball until 2002 and since even after that Bonds has never tested positive for using them, Selig cannot justifiably suspend the slugger or kick him out of the game. In light of that fact, many have hoped that Selig will declare any records set by Bonds to be ill-gotten and unofficial, which he has the power to do as the head of the game. While I understand that many feel hurt and betrayed by Bonds, I do not think this is the way to go.

I am not denying that Bonds is a braggart, a malcontent, and a jerk. I am also not saying that didn't take steroids, because it seems like he did. And if it is proved that he lied to a federal grand jury in the BALCO investigation, I think he should receive whatever penalty is due to him. What I am saying is that Bonds's accomplishments should not be invalidated because of the rules of baseball at the time. All records in baseball are conditional and contextual. Babe Ruth hit 714 career home runs, yes, but for most of his career he never played in a night game or on a west coast road trip. He didn't do these things because the rules and structure of baseball were not set up that way in his day. Do we say, “Yeah, he hit 714 homers, but he never played at night, so his records shouldn't count?” Of course not. And with Hank Aaron, he played in the era before the relief pitcher, where often haggard and tired starters pitched complete games, bringing less than stellar stuff into the later innings, which certainly inflated his home run total. Again, no asterisk there either. We like to think that we can reasonably compare numbers across generations, if only steroids wouldn't muck up the works, but it is not that simple.

With the case of Barry Bonds (and Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, for that matter), I don't think they should be penalized for gaining a competitive advantage in a way that was not against the rules at the time they did it. Lying about it afterwards I don't agree with, but if anyone is to blame, it is Major League Baseball and not the individual players. If steroids truly do tarnish the game as much as MLB claims, then they should have done something about it much much sooner. I fear that in casting Bonds as the villain in this story (which is very easy to do) is to lose sight of the larger picture: that Major League Baseball sat by and let the steroid scandal run wildly out of control because all those home runs were putting fans in the stands, and now that cat's out of the bag, Selig is going to leave Bonds out in the cold. For any side to take some sort of moral high ground in this situation is a joke.

Babe Ruth played in a time of day games, Hank Aaron in a time of no relief pitchers, and Barry Bonds in a time of accepted steroid use. Every supposedly sacred and timeless baseball statistic is a product of its time. Yes, Barry Bonds may hit more home runs than anyone else who ever played the game, but I don't think that tarnishes the sport or ruins his legacy. We will just have to process and understand whatever numbers he puts up with the era in which he played in mind, just as we have every other record set in the game's history.