Barry Bonds' crime--being black

I find it hard to even write about something like this, as usually I just throw things in anger whenever I think about people who think like Howard Bryant.


McGwire fell sharply, from robust and hulking, a famous dad who made time for his son, to his nationally televised demise as an American icon on March 17, 2005. His tragic verbal denouement -- "I'm not here to talk about the past" -- has since defined him, even more than his own name does.

That's because he wasn't there to talk about the past. If you're not prepared to talk about something in court, you don't talk about it, because then you risk saying the wrong thing. McGwire was called into court to testify about the current situation in baseball. That's all.

Both men are in the position they are today -- Bonds perhaps facing prison, McGwire a fallen legend -- because they looked in the faces of powerful, law-enforcing, law-making bodies (never mind their millions of admirers) and did not convince the public they were telling the truth.

Again, that's not why Mark McGwire was called into court. He was not there to convince the public he didn't do steroids. Granted, others took the liberty to do so (Palmeiro of course lied about it, and Frank Thomas apparently told the truth). But did they have to do that? Not at all.

And in the years that have followed, neither has been able to "man up." McGwire ran under the back porch and hid like a child, and he's been hiding ever since.

Mark McGwire retired from the game of baseball. As a human being who is no longer a baseball player, I think he deserves the right to not have to talk to the media about what he did when he played. Some can say they think he ignores everything because he's hiding the truth. I like to think that it's because no matter what he says (and there's two choices: "I did steroids", or "I didn't do steroids"), the media is going to be in every aspect of his and his family's life for at least six months, and then every year around Hall of Fame voting time. So rather than deal with that, he exercises his right as an American to remain silent and live in peace.

Bonds bullied, went on the offensive to say he was being singled out because of his race, even though it is common knowledge in the game that Bonds is, at best, indifferent to other blacks in baseball.

A common thread exists for both men; race is a secondary, but still important, spool. McGwire did not exactly lie under oath, but he wasn't forthcoming that cold day in Washington, the day he stood under oath and verged on moral collapse, weighted by his guilt. That day, he grew as defiant as Bonds has ever been, his answers short, his tone quick and arrogant. He looked into the faces of millions of his countrymen and women and under oath refused to defend one day of hard work, or any of his 583 home runs, against steroid allegations. He refused to say that even one single moment of his career came honestly.

Why should he defend that? In a court of law, which is where he was, he is innocent until proven guilty. It is not the defense's responsibility to prove innocence. It's only their job to refute the prosecution. And McGwire was not being prosecuted. So why defend himself?

And here comes the part I can't believe...

He rejected his hero position then as much as he runs from it now. That's why, as a person of public substance, he's been finished for two-and-a-half years, having plummeted mercilessly to earth, a flaming, redheaded Sputnik, unlikely to return.

Bonds effectively dared prosecutors to take him down. He spent the past four years using his wealth, his talent and his position to buttress a defense that has gone no deeper than "because I said so." Exposing him was a challenge federal prosecutors readily accepted and one the public, tired of easy escapes by powerful people, hungrily relished.

They also are linked because they provide an unforgiving mirror for the American blemishes that do not fade. One is white, the other is black.

Wow. First of all, apparently someone really hates Mark McGwire. That first paragraph is just disdainfully poetic. Then, Barry Bonds is portrayed as the classic protagonist, daring and brave, ready to strike down those who oppose him with his blade of fury!

And one is white and one is black. Howard Bryant, the author of this, is also black. I wonder where this is going.

There are many tributaries along this river of disgrace. They range from the thought that the federal government wanted to "get" Bonds more than the rest, to the flimsy notion that neither of them ever failed an official Major League Baseball drug test and so somehow both are $100 million victims, to the idea that Bonds' blackness is the reason he has been hit the hardest, been treated more harshly than McGwire, has received the least amount of public sympathy.

None of these issues lacks merit. In fact, it is impossible to conduct a full, rounded discussion without their mention. Race plays a factor in every discussion between blacks and whites, whether it's about Friday night poker, Bonds, O.J., Michael Vick, Don Imus or McGwire. Accept this for no other reason than the country was built on a foundation of the races being split, a foundation that never has been -- and likely never will be -- properly retrofitted.

None of those issues lacks merit? I think they do plenty. I don't want to be racist, but black people: please stop thinking the government is out to get you. McGwire is not targeted like Bonds because McGwire doesn't play anymore. He also didn't break the biggest milestone in the history of milestones. He also didn't go from a scrawny, grit-filled base-stealer who would be lucky to hit 20 home runs, to all of a sudden being able to hit 73 at age 37. McGwire was always a big guy. He hit 49 home runs as a rookie (MLB record). These are reasons why Bonds is targeted. His race has NOTHING to do with it. Not one single bit.


And just for kicks, Michael Vick? He was targeted because he committed a crime. Plain and simple. Race didn't enter into it. If he were white, the government would not have said "Oh, well in that case you're allowed to kill dogs. In fact, here's a baseball bat and a kennel of puppies. Have fun."

And you even cite O.J., and I'll cite another: Ray Lewis. Two black men who got off the hook. So race clearly doesn't have any merit here.

The difference isn't that Bonds has been treated differently because he happens to be black. The difference is in how McGwire has been treated because he happens to be white, and it started with the decided lack of bloodlust to pursue him after he folded before Congress. It should be recalled that while the press has lauded the federal government for its apparent netting of Bonds, it attacked Congress for meddling with baseball that day in March two years ago -- I remember, because I was there -- even when it was McGwire who was betraying the public trust.


How does being white enter into this? He wasn't pursued as much as Bonds, and he happens to be white, so we make the conclusion that being white got him off the hook? That's so narrow-minded I want to choke myself. But instead I'm just going to keep typing words here.
Look, again...the reason McGwire wasn't chased as much as Bonds is because Bonds was still playing baseball and breaking huge astronomical records. McGwire retired from baseball 4 years prior to the hearing. Also, he didn't attack the media when the media attacked him. Bonds simply egged the media so much that he became a much bigger target. It's like poking at a bee-hive. The more you hit it, the more they want to sting you, and the more of them that do so.

There are other factors that are not insignificant. McGwire stopped playing a full three seasons before his testimony in front of Congress. He retired after the 2001 season and therefore escaped the game's new drug testing policy, as well as the harsher, more cynical treatment that awaited players in the following years. He got off the stage, while Bonds kept climbing and infuriating.


You even acknowledge the real reason why they didn't pursue McGwire. That reason is definitive and absolute. Race no longer enters into it. Accept it!!

One is the black Bonds, whose "bad Negro" defiance inspires a certain kind of basic hatred toward him, especially when combined with his enormous wealth and unwillingness to play the hero game, even for the millions of fans who pay to watch him play. Bonds knows that only he stands in the batter's box. For him, his success is not a shared experience.

The other is the white McGwire, less confrontational but equally suspect, with one special distinction: Too many fans and members of the press, especially, willfully deluded themselves with the McGwire myth, built by them because of their shared whiteness, their belief in his false purity. To turn on McGwire would be to admit he took steroids in '98, that the whole thing was a testosterone-fueled act. Unlike with Bonds, whose record-breaking years of 2001 and 2007 came long after the public had learned the joke was on them, it was too hard for them to outright reject McGwire. The legend became fact, so they printed the legend.

This could actually be a reason why people don't care as much about McGwire. This is a somewhat logical reasoning (which doesn't have anything to do with him being white). Of course, it could also be because the public saw Bonds go from tiny to enormous in the span of one or two years, and they saw McGwire hit 49 home runs as a rookie, staying relatively the same size throughout his career. They also saw McGwire break a single season home run record, only for it to be beaten by Bonds, and the original record to be beaten more than once by other players, whereas Bonds broke the biggest record ever in anything. One certainly weighs a lot more than the other. To say the breaking of Roger Maris's record was equal, or even anywhere near 756 is just ludicrous. And I don't mean that as in crazy. I mean that as in the rapper. To make such a comparison is as big a joke as listening to his music.

As whites are with McGwire, blacks want to believe in Bonds, to hold on to the different but similarly destructive myth that their shared blackness makes his problems the same as theirs. The racial prism through which the two men are viewed so differently will always say more about us as a whole than it ever could about the two of them. But on this senseless day and the days to come, when Bonds' fate is in the hands of the law and McGwire has lost the only thing worth owning -- a reputation -- they are the same man, disgracing their sport and themselves.


Poor Mark McGwire has lost everything. In losing his reputation, he no longer has the millions of dollars, a loving family, and the support of still millions of fans (even if he lost a substantial amount of them). Oh wait, he still has those. And he still has his reputation. When I think of Mark McGwire, I think of gargantuan home runs, crushing line drives, exciting All-Star Weekend festivities, and heck, I even think of Big Macs from McDonalds before I think of his refusal to talk about his past in court.

Man does it pain me to read that people actually believe race makes a difference in things like this. I'm going to go hurt things now.