Behind the indictment of Barry Bonds

The grand jury that indicted baseball superstar Barry Bonds Nov. 15 was empowered to investigate steroid sales and distribution by BALCO, a Bay Area drug laboratory. Is Barry Bonds an owner of BALCO? No! Is Barry Bonds a distributor of illegal drugs for BALCO? No! The prosecutors manipulated the investigation of BALCO into an indictment of Barry Bonds.

Barry Bonds

Retired National Basketball Association star Charles Barkley called the Bonds indictment “a selective prosecution witch hunt. ... They don’t think he’s a nice guy. First of all, he’s not paid to be a nice guy. He’s paid to hit home runs. That’s his job. He’s the best player we’ve seen in the last 25 years.” (Los Angeles Times, Nov. 18)

Michael Rains, Barry Bonds’ lawyer said: “Barry got up on the stand and did his best to answer questions and to answer them truthfully. He told them like it is. ... Whether you like him or dislike him, the way the federal government has proceeded in this case is going to be a very, very sad commentary on the enormous power of the government to ruin people’s lives and to scar their reputation for no good reason.” (The Mercury News, Nov. 18)

Taking “supplements” of various sorts, up until very recently, has been considered an accepted part of sports for millennia. According to Professor Charles Yesalis, an expert on performance-enhancing drugs, the ancient Maya chewed cocoa leaves to get them through the aggressive sport of Pok-a-tok and “the ancient Greek Olympians drank mushroom and herb concoctions to give them extra oomph. ... They might eat the testicles of a man or animal to gain potency, or the heart to gain bravery.”

“It wasn’t until the mid-19th century and the advent of modern medicine that performance-enhancing drugs really began to take off. ... Coaches around the world tried to concoct a winning formula to ensure their athlete was first across the finish line. By the 1930s amphetamines were the pill of choice. ... It wasn’t considered cheating back then. ... Soon after, steroids—drugs derived from hormones such as testosterone—arrived on the scene.” (National Geographic News interview, June 22)

The racist lynch mob claims that Barry Bonds’ records are “tainted.” If Barry Bonds’ records are “tainted,” then what about almost every single baseball record from most of the 20th century when the use of performance enhancing drugs was not only not illegal, but an accepted fact? And what about the truly tainted MLB records due to the racist exclusion of great African-American baseball players before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947?

Buck O’Neil, a great player in the Negro Leagues, who later became a Major League Baseball coach and scout, is quoted as stating, “The main reason Negro Leaguers never used steroids was because steroids weren’t available!” (“The Soul of Baseball,” Joe Posnanski, William Morrow, Harper Collins)

Norman Fost, M.D., MPH, states: “The claims that have been made for prohibiting the use of anabolic steroids by competent adults appear to be incoherent, disingenuous, hypocritical, and based on bad facts. ... Anabolic steroids clearly do enhance performance for many athletes, but there is no coherent argument to support the view that enhancing performance is unfair. If it were, we should ban coaching and training.

“Competition can be unfair if there is unequal access to such enhancements, but equal access can be achieved more predictably by deregulation than by prohibition. It is hypocritical for leaders in major league baseball to trumpet their concern about fair competition in a league that allows one team (the Yankees) to have a payroll three times larger than most of its competitors.

“A particularly egregious example of this hypocrisy was the juxtaposition in the 1988 Olympics of Ben Johnson and Janet Evans. Johnson broke the world record for the 100-meter dash and not only had his gold medal taken away but became the permanent poster child for the immorality of steroids, which, though illegal, were available to virtually anyone who wanted them. Evans, after winning her medal in swimming, bragged about the key role of her greasy swimsuit, which the Americans had kept secret from their competitors, and went on a prolonged lecture tour as ‘America’s Sweetheart.’” (American Medical Association Journal of Ethics, Nov. 2005, Vol. 7, Number 11)

Sportswriter Dave Zirin states: “And what is a ‘performance enhancer’? That’s not even a legal or medical term; it’s sports radio shorthand. The cortisone shot into Curt Schilling’s ankle in the 2005 playoffs was a performance enhancer. The Viagra coursing through Bob Dole’s veins is a performance enhancer. Whatever keeps that smile glued to Laura Bush’s face is a performance enhancer. It’s a colloquial phrase that tells us nothing. It only raises the question whether the indictment was written by Mike or the Mad Dog.

“The timing that’s important here is ... the ascension your brand spanking new attorney general, Mike Mukasey, and his desire for a cheap hit. ... The fact is that Bonds is under attack from a collection of torture-loving, Habeas Corpus shredding, illegal wire tapping, political operatives. The idea that a Barry Bonds indictment becomes the first act of Mike Mukasey’s Justice Department only exposes Senators Diane Feinstein and Chuck Schumer, and the other Democratic politicians who backed his confirmation.” (Edge of Sports)

Where is the grand jury to investigate the building of the levees in New Orleans? How about investigating the failure to allow the New Orleans residents to come home and the destruction of public housing in New Orleans? Where is the grand jury to investigate the prosecutor in the Jena 6 case? How about investigating torture at Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib or investigating the Iraq War lies of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney?

How about a grand jury investigation into the police murders of so many Black youth all across the country? If they really wanted to “investigate crime in sports,” where’s the investigation of sports franchise owners for extorting cities by threatening to move their teams unless these cities spend hundreds of millions of our tax dollars on their stadiums, rather than on needed social services? Isn’t extorting entire cities and states a crime?

Barry Bonds is the greatest hitter in the history of baseball, our “National Pastime.” Can we allow the racist ruling class to bring him down? No way! Barry Bonds has refused to bow down to ruling class power. The least we can do is to show him our unqualified support. The writer is a former Major League Baseball consultant on player evaluation.