Bonds Played Role In Steroid Policy

When he retires and gives us a moment to reflect, we will applaud Barry Bonds for his all-time home run record, his sterling MVP collection and his staggering performance in the stretch run of his career, but mostly for his greatest contribution to baseball: the new, pumped-up steroid policy.

Because we know that without Barry, there’s no way baseball owners and the players’ union, who exist to disagree, would’ve locked themselves in a room and done something last week that was long overdue.

There’s no way these people, who look the other way more often than a school crossing guard, would have made an effort to clean up the game. There’s no way the rulers of baseball would have delivered a deterrent to drug use without the unintentional cooperation of Barry.

With a big assist from Jason Giambi.

So when you see these former artificially enhanced ballplayers this spring, don’t boo. Welcome them with open minds and arms. Without their participation in the BALCO scandal and the universal scream that followed, baseball still would be strung out on dope and suffering from a major integrity problem.

Something or someone had to persuade baseball and the union to get moving on a drug policy with teeth, because baseball was under no financial pressure to clean up its act.

In recent years, the fans were so suckered by the home run that they ignored the hints. They kept rushing to the ballparks in record numbers and made it easy for baseball to sweep aside the drug issue. There was no incentive for baseball to twist the union’s arm and get a drug policy with teeth because the game was prospering, mostly because of the steroid-fueled home runs.

Then the BALCO scandal broke, and it involved one of the game’s greatest players, and suddenly baseball had a good reason to act swiftly.

What gave them that urgency? History did.

Baseball cherishes history, and history was prepared to portray the home-run era in a very unflattering light. The dreaded “asterisk” was circling above, like a hungry vulture, ready to swoop and snip away at all the current-day power records, especially those belonging to Bonds.

This potential embarrassment was something the commissioner, the owners and the union didn’t want to be linked with forever. They didn’t want to have Bonds bearing down on Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron under the dark cloud of drugs and have history wonder whether something was up.

They wanted no more repeats of what happened last fall, when Bonds won the Hank Aaron Award as the NL’s most outstanding offensive performer, appeared at a news conference, made a brief statement and then got hustled out of the building before someone could ask the inevitable questions.

That’s why you had Commissioner Bud Selig and union chief Donald Fehr together Thursday in a kumbaya show of support regarding the state of baseball and the steps taken to make it believable again.

“My goal for this industry is zero tolerance for steroid use,” Selig said.

“I will be surprised if, over time, this doesn’t take care of the problem virtually completely,” Fehr said.

The new policy isn’t as tough as the one adopted by the Olympics. But for baseball, it represents a major concession and a positive step in an era in which steroids are responsible for creating bogus numbers and fake athletic feats.

Distancing itself from steroids is important for baseball, which places a premium on statistical numbers and tradition and history.

Baseball just gave us a reason to trust it again. This wasn’t the case when the ball first began soaring from ballparks in record numbers and players began to look like cover boys for muscle and fitness magazines.

Even worse, the steroid issue, fair or not, was raised whenever someone’s home run numbers suddenly jumped. Everyone was guilty before being proven innocent, and until now, there wasn’t a method in place to prove innocence.

The real victims were the players who used hard work, instead of hard drugs, to make themselves better. Until baseball put a solid policy in action, drug suspicion was everyone’s unwanted company.

The geniuses who run the union had to get serious about steroids before any progress could be made. Instead of hiding behind the issue of privacy rights, which discouraged a true testing procedure, the union had to place the integrity of the game at the forefront.

That’s what happened in the last few months, helped largely by Bonds’ role in BALCO, and now baseball has suspensions for first-time offenders and year-round testing.

You might notice a difference in the game this season. The home runs could decrease, but the credibility of baseball can only increase. For this, we must give credit where it’s due and give props to the man who made it possible.

Thank you Barry, Barry much.