Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Who woulda think it? (Barry Bonds' indictment)

According to SI.com, Bonds [is] relieved not to be indicted. Who woulda thunk it? I'd have thought he'd be eager to spend time in court listening to government prosecutors repeat over and over again how he's guilty of something he contends he's not.

NOT.

Actually, I wouldn't believe Barry Bonds if he tells me there's solid ground under my feet even as I feel it there for myself. I say this because due to a medical situation I have to take steroids myself, though not anabolic, and I've already had to have surgery on my hips after less than a year on the meds. His intermittent hobbling around on bad knees, bad enough at one time to have cost him almost a whole season, are a dead giveaway of steroid use.

Steroids block delivery of oxygen to blood vessels in joints. It can happen in any joint but is most common in the shoulders, hips, and knees. Bonds has never been overweight, per se, and probably had little or no knee trouble before 1998, when Mark McGuire (and Sammy Sosa) threatened to make him an afterthought. But when Bonds saw what "andro" did for McGwire's production (and the attention he got), he decided to go in that direction himself, even as it became obvious that McGwire's body was breaking down prematurely because of the stuff.

Now, I know Bonds has steadily denied knowingly using steroids, and that he has never failed a drug test. But from my own experience I have to believe he's using, no matter what he says. It's just too bad that his own stubbornness won't allow him to fess up to what he's done and take his punishment like a man.

Equally shameful is the fact that fake-commissioner Selig hems and haws and hopes the federal government takes Bonds off his hands, so he won't have to make a decision himself. He knows that the Bonds situation is bad for baseball, but I wonder if he has given any thought to the possibility that the delay by the Feds could simply be part of making a case against continuing baseball's anti-trust exemption? He should give that some thought, because if the exemption is revoked, Selig is sure to be out of a job. If that were to happen, it would quickly point out the sham of the so-called blind trust that owns the Brewers, openly owned by Selig until his occupation of the commissioner's office (not the Commissioner's Office -- he's not doing the job, he's just using the room). Because Selig would be back in Milwaukee running the Brewers as if nothing had happened.

Because nothing has.

Who knows? Things could turn around. Now that the Washington Nationals have more-or-less been bought by someone, finally, there will be less excuse for Selig's refusal to do something about the Bonds situation. Selig has to have a roomful of advisors for even the most trivial decision. Let's see if he or his advisors will realize everything that could be at stake here, and finally do something about Bonds, before the rug gets pulled from under them.

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