by menomena » 4/9/2006, 11:07 pm
First off, though I do not have concrete evidence of Barry Bonds using steroids, the simple viewing of pictures would do enough. Take a picture from the 2000 season, and Bonds is still rather slim. Take a picture of him from the 2003 season, when he was putting up ungodly numbers, you will see a striking difference.
Now, I am not saying it is impossible for a man to gain large amounts of muscle over a period of years naturally, but the fact that Bonds was in his late 30s and gaining close to 30lbs. of muscle on his frame is not. It is quite hard to believe that a man of his age can gain so much mass without adding any fat, considering the human body does not develop muscle at such an advanced age that well.
Another sign of his steroid use shows up on his face. Most men don't have acne breakouts in their 40s. It's just not natural. And if you view a picture of Bonds without a helmet back from 1991, you will see that his forehead is considerably smaller than it is now.
Also, when a person does steroids for an elongated period of time, the body of the user tends to break down over time. The body tends to be incapable of supporting such gains in muscle mass, and the joints of the body tend to become more frail and tear easily. After drug testing in Major League Baseball began, Bonds started to fall apart. In fact, Bonds missed nearly all of last year due to knee problems, and a couple seasons ago, he missed games due to shoulder and elbow problems. All of his problems resonated in specific joints that can become frail with the added mass from steroids.
Now onto the racial issue.
As much as I don't want to believe it, I do feel that race does have an effect on the attention Bonds is receiving, but not such a large roll.
Major League Baseball could care less if Bonds passes Babe Ruth or Hank Aaron on the home run list. The public, however, does care and does not want to see a supposed cheater hold the record for career home runs.
The reason Bonds is the focal point of the investigation is that he is very close to setting the record, and he is one of the few marquee names in the steroid scandal that is still active. Where as you still have big name players, such as Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield, and Pudge Rodriguez in the league, they are nowhere near setting any significant records, at least not as significant as the home run record.
As for race, I feel comfortable saying that a majority of people in America do not care for a majority of people of other races or nationalities. Most baseball fans still tend to be white (as evidenced by myself at Detroit Tiger games) and, be it subconsciously or not, do not want to see a black man pass a white man in anything. Back when Hank Aaron passed Babe Ruth to set the record, he received death threats and intimidating letters on a daily basis when it came to passing Ruth.
Even though Aaron passed Ruth over 30 years ago, there is still an underlying racial tension in America, be it publicized or not. While Bonds might not receive death threats on a daily basis, and we are even further removed from the race riots and segregation of the 1960s, not much has changed in the attitude of the typical American person. Where the standard person will not go out and belittle a person based on race as frequently in the 1960s or 70s, there is still a great amount of tension and anger based on the past.
But this is all speculation, because I can't prove that racism has fallen over the years, because I can't get into someone's head and see what they are thinking, but I can almost guarantee that anyone that reads this post has at some point made some sort of racist remark or had a racist thought run through their head at some point, myself included. I cannot prove that Barry Bonds or Pudge Rodriguez or Mark McGuire did steroids in the past, but the physical change of these players also makes the standard person think otherwise.