August 9, 2007

We want our sports heroes to be pure of heart, with an ability to interact with those who pay their salaries. We like nice people. When nice people break hallowed records, we get all fuzzy inside.

Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s home run record shortly before I was born, but any baseball fan has seen the footage of Aaron rounding second, a couple wahoos from the outfield stands slapping him on the back and following his victory jog around the bases.

When Cal Ripken broke Lou Gehrig’s consecutive games played streak in 2001, we lauded his achievement and watched as he circled the stands, shaking hands with fans.

Big records get broken so infrequently that when it happens it is rightfully a big deal.

Then there was Tuesday night, well past 10 at night in Mississippi, and Barry Bonds at the plate. Everyone who follows the game knew eventually Bonds would break Aaron’s record.

The problem is we don’t like Barry. He doesn’t care for us, either. He plays his position, picks fights with reporters and is far from being a fan favorite.

That we don’t like him, though, should not diminish his record. Ty Cobb, who played in the early 20th century, was one of the most hated baseball players on the planet. He routinely went into second base sliding spikes up in an attempt to take out the defender.

There Cobb is, though, immortalized in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Everyone hated him and he hated everyone, but he collected more than 4,000 hits and batted .366 for his career.

We don’t like Barry because we think he is a cheater. Nothing has been proved yet, of course, but the cloud that surrounds him is dark and daunting. Most believe that Bonds cheated by using performance enhancers that turned him from a decent home run hitter into a Goliath.

If he did what he is accused of doing, most of it was not illegal at the time he was doing it. Think about this: If Cobb had been told there was a substance that could be taken or rubbed into his skin to increase his bulk and ability to play the game, does anyone think he would have said no?

So maybe Bonds used steroids to gain an advantage. Does that mean he should be banned from the game? From the Hall of Fame?

Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson and Cy Young all are Hall of Fame pitchers and each dabbled with the spitball. Some made an art out of it because they realized that by applying a little extra moisture to the baseball, the movement of a pitch would be drastically improved.

Spitballs were outlawed in 1920, although 17 pitchers were grandfathered in and continued to throw the pitch. Baseball realized that some of its players found a loophole to gain an advantage. Then baseball outlawed the spitball.

So maybe Bonds used this substance, something baseball either did not know about or turned a blind eye toward. Now steroids and performance enhancers are banned by the major leagues, and this time no one got grandfathered in.

It’s easy to look at Bonds with disdain and disgust, but the fact that we don’t like him and he tried to gain an advantage over everyone else should not keep him from baseball immortality.

If we recess into history, many of our heroes and our fathers’ heroes would be looked upon much like Bonds is now.