Some thoughts on Barry Bonds.

As a person Barry Bonds is one of the most unlikable people I can think of in public life. Usually you have to take media accounts with a grain of salt, but this guy is universally loathed by media, teammates, damn near everyone who knows him. But he is the best baseball player of his generation. I have read the recent excerpts from Game of Shadows, the book written by two San Francisco chronicle columnists, that appears in this week's Sports Illustrated, and it paints a pretty clear picture of Bonds' steroid use (please keep in mind it is a book). I have very little doubt that Bonds used steroids and used a lot of varieties of them, but he still had to put bat to ball to hit all those home runs. I am in no way condoning what he did, I am just saying that others, notably Jason Giambi and Rafael Palmeiro (not to mention those who didn't get caught or admit such as Mark McGwire or Sammy Sosa), took 'roids and didn't hit the way Bonds does.
This leads me to the a couple of points about what a lot of people want to do about Bonds' chase of Hank Aaron's career home run record of 755, and whether there should be an investigation into his conduct. First on the home run record. Is there an asterisk beside Babe Ruth's 714 home runs because he never had to face a black pitcher the way Aaron did? Is their an asterisk beside Aaron's record because he didn't have to play in suffocating flannel uniforms or the stifling heat of day games the way Ruth did, or face specialized relief pitching the way Bonds does? No there are not. So I don't think there should be an asterisk beside Bonds' career numbers. You have to realize that the game has changed through the ages and it is nearly impossible to compare eras and you need to let records be broken and re-broken. Ultimately Bonds' did not break any baseball rules by taking performance enhancing drugs, which is baseball's problem not his.
On the second point, if there is going to be an investigation into Bonds' steroid use it can not be a witch hunt conducted to get just him. It would have to be conducted into steroids throughout the whole sport from Bonds' on down through guys hitting .150 in the rookie leagues. And it needs to be done by Major League Baseball. Having Congress or a publicity seeking twit like John McCain lead it would be ridiculous because they should really have more important things to worry about. Yes, this is a sad time for baseball, but it will recover because it always does, and I think the average fan doesn't give a rat's arse that Bonds' took 'roids as long as they can watch him keep hitting the ball into the bay.