Being Barry Bonds

What if you broke the most hallowed record in all of sports...and almost everyone was angry at you for doing it? What if you became the Fall Guy for a generation of drug abusers? What if you were arguably your generation's best in the sport you played, but had very little chance of making the Hall of Fame?

What if you were Barry Bonds?

I know, you wouldn't be. You're too squeaky clean, too honorable, to committed to the integrity of your industry. You never cheated. Not on your taxes. Not on your wife. You never stepped outside the lines of propriety in order to get ahead. You never looked for that angle, however immoral or illegal, to give yourself a leg up on your competition.

Plenty have. Plenty have paid for it, too. They got their pink slip or their prison jumper for their troubles. So, you don't feel sorry for Barry Bonds. The guy could have been the least bit likeable and maybe this would never have happened. He could have stayed clean...or at least come clean when he was interrogated under oath. Jason Giambi did. He took his lumps for it, too. But he won't face prison time. Barry may.

I am in no way defending Barry Bonds. I'm not. But I refuse to celebrate the indictment of the man who is the face of a problem much greater than himself. He wasn't alone in his cheating. He wasn't the only one shooting up so he could bulk up. He was just the only one who did it while assaulting a hallowed record.

I imagine it isn't much fun, being Barry Bonds. I doubt it was a great deal of fun even when he was smashing the record-setting tater. Probably wasn't any fun when his achievement was mocked and an asterisk burned into the historic ball he hit out of the park. It was even less fun when he was served notice that a grand jury had indicted him.

Being Barry Bonds has to be a pretty lonely feeling. But somebody had to be Barry. Somebody had to bring this house of cards tumbling down. Who knows where it will end? How many will be forced to own their mistakes, their duplicity, their cheating, their law-breaking?

Maybe...just maybe, this turns the tide. Or, maybe it at least stems the tide. Perhaps, at long last, the playing fields will be level again, and the athletes who do it the right way will have a crying chance. Maybe the madness will end...and we can all return to believing in Santa Claus, happy endings, and the integrity of professional sports.

If so, I will celebrate that.

But I will not celebrate the fall of Barry Bonds. Self-destruction is not a pretty thing. It isn't fun...or funny. It's just...sad.