Coming to terms with an incomplete Hall of Fame

I haven't commented on the Hall of Fame election results from last week, and I wasn't sure I would. But I've been reading about the vote totals, perusing others' opinions -- both those eligible to vote and those not -- and mulling it over in my head lately.

Today, I first had a thought that I might write something, but not about Roberto Alomar or Bert Blyleven. I'm happy for Alomar, who certainly was one of the best second basemen to ever play the game, and his humility in discussing the accomplishment was nice to see. I didn't see Blyleven in his prime, so I can't say whether he was the kind of pitcher you either wanted to see when he came to your city to see greatness (or the guy you hoped your hitters wouldn't have to face). I didn't have a strong opinion of his career one way or the other (though he certainly did).

After I read Mets Police's comments on steroids and the Hall of Fame, I felt I had found my starting point. I think what struck me with that post and what I had been formulating over the past few days is that we saw what happened. We watched with our own eyes the numbers put up by Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro and Barry Bonds and all the others. But we also watched how their arms and torsos and legs -- and heads -- seemed to balloon to sometimes comical proportions. We may have suspected less-than-natural means for those changes, but we let them slide, because the home runs and strikeouts and feats of strength were so much fun to watch. As fans, we have some level of deniability. As for the writers ... those who covered the players, those who entered the clubhouses every day, they probably should've let us know something was up a bit sooner than they did. They chose to let it slide then, but now they choose the hard line.

In keeping these less-than-perfect players out of the Hall, the writers are doing more than punishing the players -- they're punishing those of us who watched these guys play. At the time, we thought, "We're watching a Hall of Famer in his prime." Now those feelings can't be validated. It's one thing to debate McGwire's stats or compare Palmeiro's numbers to his contemporaries' (for this argument, I'm speaking of all players as if they had the numbers that, otherwise, would represent a Hall of Fame career), but to cut off the discussion before it even begins just because you don't like the way he put up those numbers is cheating the game's history. The players' actions may have been unethical, but with the one exception of Palmeiro, whose one positive test came at the end of his long career, what they did -- or what we presume they did -- wasn't against the rules of the game at the time.

So now we're supposed to forget that managers were so afraid of what Bonds could do that they walked him twice as much as the next guy (Hank Aaron) in history and three times as much as nearly every other player ... ever. We're supposed to believe that pretty much anything that happened from the mid-'90s until 2005 -- no matter who did it -- can't be believed. We're never going to know how many players were unethical, but the writers have taken it upon themselves to make that decision for us.

I'm not completely against the writers. There was a time I wanted to be one of them, to be a beat reporter covering a Major League team, but along the way I chose to deviate from the path that might've made me one. There's still a part of me that would enjoy it, and I will probably take their side more than not, but as the years go by and McGwire's percentage falls and Palmeiro and even Jeff Bagwell -- a guy who was hardly suspected when he played and certainly has never been proven to be dirty -- have to start so far in the back of the pack on their first ballot, I think I'd rather they just cut down on some of the gray areas on the ballot instructions. There are plenty of unsavory characters already in the Hall. Sure, some of them may have managed to keep their indiscretions under wraps, but surely the antics of Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle and others were known by some of the writers went ahead and voted for them anyway. It is here where I think Mets Police's suggestion (and I'm sure others have offered it as well) is the compromise to be made: Evaluate the players on their numbers, and if there is some clarification that needs to be noted -- McGwire's admission, Palmeiro's failed test, Sammy Sosa's corked bat -- then it should be engraved on the plaque. It's the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of the Pristine, the Hall of the Perfect. It's a museum, a place where the good is often presented along with the bad. Contrast -- context -- can help highlight the true greats.

But if there's one thing that bothers me more than anything else -- not just in baseball writers' Hall of Fame voting, but in all walks of life -- it's hypocrisy. In the past week, you've probably read about the ballot submitted by ESPN news editor Barry Stanton. Forget about his checking off the names of Jack Morris, Edgar Martinez, Don Mattingly, Tino Martinez and B.J. Surhoff (and no one else). That's another debate. My problem is with the fact that, in 2002, he resigned from his position as a sports columnist in Westchester, N.Y., after he was charged with plagiarising a Joe Posnanski column.

So the Baseball Writers' Association of America, which takes it upon itself to decide who has the character worthy of election into the Hall of Fame, cannot or will not judge the character of its own membership? What is the difference in Mark McGwire taking androstenedione or steroids to make his job easier and in a sports writer taking another's words to make his own job easier? There's an element of laziness in both acts -- and a character flaw in both of the men who committed the indiscretions.

The writers need to trim the fat on their electorate. This year, a record 581 ballots were cast, meaning a player needed to be named on 436 of them to gain the 75 percent needed for election. I'm not saying it needs to be a hard number, 100 or 200 or whatever. But why should those who no longer cover baseball or work as an editor for an outlet covering the sport -- such as the political cartoonist in Montreal or the college football writer mentioned in Craig Calcaterra's post -- still be asked to judge the merits of baseball players with regard to the Hall of Fame? And if the players are to be judged on their character, shouldn't those doing the judging have to abide by some standards of character? Or are they permitted to live in glass houses without any fear of repercussions?

Nobody's perfect -- not Hall of Famers, not writers, not fans. Yet we may be bearing a disproportionate amount of the burden for their mistakes.

Stewart, Colbert on McGwire

The Mark McGwire news was big enough to warrant time in the alloted 22 minutes Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert had last night on Comedy Central. Their segments below.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
News of the Weird - Mark McGwire, Game Change & Sarah Palin
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Sport Report - Gilbert Arenas & Mark McGwire
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Economy

Still a fan of the summer of '98

Mark McGwire at Wrigley Field, May 1, 1998

I graduated from college in 1998, so that was a special summer for me, too. I set up my spring semester schedule to only have classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. My friends and I popped champagne on our apartment balcony after our last finals. We caught a Cardinals-Cubs game at Wrigley Field on a pleasant May afternoon. After the commencement ceremony -- which took place on the same day the Yankees gave away Beanie Babies for a game against the Twins (and David Wells pitched pretty well, I believe) -- I came home to New Jersey and spent six weeks going to a few graduation parties and planning my cross-country trip.

And all that summer, as I drove out to California and back, I followed what has become known as the Great Home Run Chase. Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and the ghost of Roger Maris. I saw McGwire hit home run No. 12 that season, a ninth-inning two-run shot off of Rod Beck in a game the Cubs won, 6-5. When I stayed in Major League cities, I checked the schedules to see if the Cardinals were in town, just missing them in San Diego when I was in L.A. and in Colorado when I got into Denver. And in a small bit of personal symmetry, I was back on campus in South Bend, watching the Labor Day afternoon game on ESPN when McGwire hit his 61st long ball that season. An interview for a job with a local newspaper kept me in town the next night, too, when I watched him hit his 62nd. I might've teared up watching it happen.

It was all so compelling: missing first base in the excitement, high-fives from Cubs infielders as he rounded the bases, a bear hug with his son at home plate, Sammy Sosa's sprint in from right field, his tearful embrace with Maris' widow and sons. As baseball fans, how could we not become enthralled? The 1994-95 strike was still pretty raw, robbing fans of the World Series for the first time since John McGraw didn't feel the Boston Red Sox, of the inferior "American League," were a worthy opponent to his National League pennant-winning Giants in 1904. Cal Ripken may have broken Lou Gehrig's consecutive-games streak in '95, but that came too close to the strike -- and he would've broken it sooner if it weren't for the strike -- to help the healing. We didn't have enough distance.

Three years, it seems, was enough distance to bring us back, to capture our attention with a chase at one of the game's great records. We all watched, and few of us, I think, questioned it. Mike Lupica wrote a book about it. I bought it and read it and still love the cover image.

But even if we did suspect at the time that McGwire might not be all natural, we did so in a less accusatory tone. Yeah, it may have happened, but who can really say? It wasn't like today, when accusations of performance-enhancing are not brushed off so easily and we find ourselves pausing to contemplate whether or not we think the player mentioned compiled his stats solely on his own ability. When McGwire first appeared on the Hall of Fame ballot, Lupica said that he doesn't think McGwire should be elected. Bill Simmons called him on it. We're all still trying to figure this out.

In 80 plate appearances against three admitted or widely suspected performance-enhancing pitchers, McGwire hit four home runs -- two each off of Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte and none against Jason Grimsley. He struck out 14 times vs. Clemens (in 53 at-bats), five vs. Pettitte (in 21) and had none against Grimsley (but with four walks in six at-bats). But now that our suspicions are being proven, will we look at the steroid era any differently? Will it someday come to the point that, yeah, hitters were juicing, but they were facing pitchers who weren't clean, either? Are others going to come forward? Is Sammy Sosa next?

I never thought I'd be saying this, but I may not care anymore who was on steroids. With every new player whose name comes up, I think my outrage subsides a bit. I liked McGwire in the '90s and I can't say I like him any less now. I'm a bit disappointed, both in the fact that he decided to cheat and that he waited so long to come clean. But he still came clean faster than Pete Rose did for his transgressions and some of these other players we've got at the top of our suspected users lists. Knowing what I know now, confirmed, may sadden the 33-year-old me, but the 21-year-old from 1998 still remembers a great summer.

So maybe it's time Bud Selig and the baseball writers just give amnesty to all the steroid and HGH users from the past up until the Mitchell Report came out. If you used then, 'fess up, and all's good. Yeah, the numbers McGwire, Sosa and Barry Bonds put up may not be fair to Roger Maris, Babe Ruth (Sosa broke Ruth's record for home runs in one month) or Hank Aaron, but the 162-game schedule also wasn't fair to Ruth and so many other advances in baseball and technology have also tilted the playing field -- literally, in some cases. From expansion several times over to night games to domed stadiums to maple bats to elbow guards to dietary supplements to training regimens to ballpark design, the game has changed over the decades. Even comparing players of the same era is not fool-proof. Did Ted Williams hit 160 more home runs than Joe DiMaggio because he was more powerful, or did Yankee Stadium's Death Valley in left-center rob DiMaggio of a glut of long balls? Or what if DiMaggio hit left-handed? Sadly, maybe this is another variable to consider. Maybe, as others have written, the Steroid Era has to be treated like antithesis to the Dead Ball Era.

I'm not going to go out and buy a McGwire jersey and I don't see myself making an extra effort to get to batting practice and cheer him as hitting coach when the Cardinals come to New York. But I won't boo him, either. I won't make signs or yell insults. Maybe I've come to accept it, or maybe I'm just scared that the next name will be someone I truly adored, a name that will really upset me and shatter those memories of past summers.

Talkin' Barroid

I was impressed with the sampling of various columns I read following Bonds' milestone. Most acknowledged the record while putting it into the context of the rumors and suspicions.

MLB.com's Mike Bauman:

Barry Bonds' record may be a tribute to something else. Therein rests the problem. The vast weight of evidence, some of it admittedly circumstantial, suggests his usage of performance-enhancing substances. This is, of course, unfortunate. He was going to the Hall of Fame when he weighed 190 pounds, before his body underwent a transformation in what amounted to early middle age.

Michael Witte speculates that Bonds' elbow armor has helped him a great deal:

For years, sportswriters remarked that his massive "protective" gear – unequaled in all of baseball -- permits Bonds to lean over the plate without fear of being hit by a pitch. Thus situated, Bonds can handle the outside pitch (where most pitchers live) unusually well. This is unfair advantage enough, but no longer controversial. However, it is only one of at least seven (largely unexplored) advantages conferred by the apparatus.

ESPN.com's Gene Wojciechowski:

There was a time, regardless of how you felt about Bonds, when you couldn't ignore the width and breadth of his talent. Those were during his days with the Pittsburgh Pirates and early in his Giants career. Now you can't ignore the width and breadth of his cap size.

ESPN.com's Tim Kurkjian:

It is true that if Bonds were clean, but still a disagreeable or disrespectful guy, a lot of people still would have preferred that he hadn't broken Aaron's record. Rickey Henderson wasn't exactly embraced when he broke Lou Brock's record for career stolen bases, then held the third base bag above his head and exclaimed, "Today, I am the greatest."

Various ESPN analysts:

You can trust your eyes in baseball. An error is an error. A missed bunt attempt is just that. What you see is, well, what you see. A pitcher who is throwing 88 mph at the end of one season and is magically hitting 98 on the gun the next spring? That's just not humanly possible, at least not without some form of help. Same goes for home run hitters, and Bonds tops this list.

ESPN's Buster Olney:

After the game, Bonds was asked whether his home run record is tainted, and he answered bluntly. "This record is not tainted at all," he said. "At all. Period." That is what he believes. Either way, the word "steroids" is going to appear in the first two paragraphs of Bonds' obituary -- fairly or not, whether you like it or not.

SI.com's Jon Heyman, who has said he will vote for Bonds on his Hall of Fame ballot in five or six years:

Perhaps one day baseball or the feds will catch up to Bonds. But if they do, it won't be in time to save Aaron's record, or baseball from an all-time record that deserves an asterisk but will never get one.

SI.com's John Donovan:

And now, we are left to reflect on the man, the moment and the significance of it all. Bonds has millions of fans, as his selection to this year's All-Star game indicates. His supporters are vocal and relentless. But there are millions of fans today, too, that are completely, radically disgusted at baseball and at the idea of Bonds, of all people, holding this important record. They call him a cheat. They call him a disgrace. They call this whole thing a sham.

CBS Sportsline's Scott Miller, who punctuates each mention of Bonds:

What once was the most cherished record in all of sports lost its luster at 8:51 PT on Tuesday night, Aug. 7, when Bonds* blasted the home run that had never been hit in 100-plus years of major league history, career No. 756, on a full-count, fifth-inning fastball from Washington pitcher Mike Bacsik.

Sportsline's Gregg Doyel bashes all of baseball, so he's not that nice a guy, but you could tell that from his doofy headshot:

Bonds is an accused steroid user and convicted jerk whose record will be acknowledged warily by some and not at all by others, none of which seems right. He joined on Tuesday night a long list of perceived bad guys -- scumbags and racists, cheaters and gamblers -- atop baseball's most cherished individual lists. Bonds doesn't stick out. He fits in.

Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal:

In the rush to revisionist history, some will try to sweeten this lemon of a moment. But with the notable exception of weepy Giants owner Peter Magowan, most were left feeling predictably ambivalent, cheering with the mute button on.

The steroids era reaches its climax

The fans of San Francisco can have their little moment. Good for them, being all cheery and adulatory when Barry Bonds sent his tainted home run into the AT&T Park bleachers. At least someone was happy.

I know there's supposed to be a presumption of innocence until proven guilty, but considering the facts as we know them and the glaring omission of any kind of evidence from Bonds to prove that he never took steroids -- simply rehashing, "I've never failed a drug test," only works for the last few years, not the "record" 73 season -- we certainly cannot simply dismiss any rumors or accusations regarding Bonds' mysterious marked improvement as he got older. Remember: Bonds admitted he took steroids, but he claimed he didn't know what they were. That's like believing George Bush started the war in Iraq without knowing there was oil there. Why would Bonds, who is supposedly so diligent with his training and workout schedule and so careful and controlling with his body and his health, take something he wasn't completely familiar with? That just doesn't make sense to me. And let's not forget that baseball still has no test for HGH, though it does ban the drug.

But all those suspicions aside, the fact that Bonds "broke" the record in front of his home fans is good for baseball. The record was going to be broken, so it certainly helps the sport's image to have it accomplished in front of the friendly home crowd, instead of in Atlanta, Dodger Stadium or New York, where the opposition would've surely been heard. I'm not happy it had to happen, but I'd resigned myself to it at the end of last season, when he put together a strong final two months and showed he was clearly healthy -- enough -- to get there. At least it happened in the middle of the night, when I was asleep, my phone off and the text message from MLB.com undelivered. I only found out this morning, when I turned on my computer.

I saw the photographs and watched the video clip, and it's a shame that Bonds has to be so brash and arrogant about it. Hank Aaron was humble, no doubt in part because of the threats and backlash he received, and while Bonds is clearly not anywhere near Aaron's stature in terms of class, reverence and humility, it would have been nice to see him hit the ball and watch it soar into the seats while he jogged around the bases. Instead, he stood at the plate, raised his arms, and upon touching home plate, gave an exaggerated two-fingered point to the sky. A salute to dad, no doubt, but a simple gesture still would've gotten the point across.

Baseball got what it deserved, too. "Commissioner" Bud Selig refused to be in attendance, sending two representatives instead and releasing a brief statement following the game. For a sport that ignored whatever evidence and warning signs it had while steroid use expanded out of control through the 90s, it deserves to have its most cherished record held under such suspicion. The commissioner and the owners could've taken action sooner, the players association could have policed itself sooner, so now whatever light they're perceived in is the result of their own inaction. They can clear themselves over time, but for now, that's the way it is.

With this home run comes relief. No more Bonds Watch, no more Pedro Gomez reports on the Giants' left fielder sitting out day games after night games. No more Giants games as circus, no more daily press conferences to avoid -- or at least they'll be less prevalent and easier to avoid. Each home run now is rather insignificant, another notch on a tainted record and merely one more added to the eventual benchmark that will be surpassed by Alex Rodriguez, then Albert Pujols and then Ryan Howard, Prince Fielder or some fresh-faced minor leaguer we've yet to realize is the heir to the home run king's crown.

Now we get to spend three weeks wondering if the Giants will try to get something for Bonds, to slide him through waivers and deal him to a contending team before the Sept. 1 postseason roster deadline. Surely no team will claim him to block the deal and risk assuming so much money for a controversial and aged slugger, so it's possible. It's just not likely. I don't see it happening, but it's fun to speculate nonetheless.

The ball Bonds hit landed in a crowded section of bleachers at AT&T Park, where it ended up in the hands of a Mets fan literally passing through town. That puts a smile on my face and some symmetry to the moment, considering the Giants' roots in New York City. I'm not quite sure why a Mets fan on his way to Australia who apparently went to the game on a whim during his layover was bringing his Jose Reyes jersey to the Southern Hemisphere in winter, but I guess that's part of his regular wardrobe. At least he has as much right to the ball as Bonds does hitting it.

But it's only just for now.

Which part of Palmeiro's story do we believe?

I have to say I'm stunned. Shocked. Knock me over with a feather.

It's not so much that Rafael Palmeiro tested positive a banned substance under MLB's new drug policy, it's that so many people are being so damn quick to crucify him for it. To be clear, I agree that this is a blow to his career and his accomplishments. Furthermore, perhaps most importantly, he certainly could answer a lot of questions — and perhaps clear his name a little bit — if he elaborated on his comments that he "never knowingly took steroids" and that he would love to explain what he tested positive for and why he took whatever it was he took, but he won't by saying he can't.

To read Scott Miller's column, you'd think Miller himself walked in on Palmeiro holding the needle. Buster Olney calls for Palmeiro to explain himself and at least tosses in the conditional "might" before saying his Congressional testimony in March does not appear to have been truthful. The fact of the matter is, we don't know what Palmeiro tested positive for, and we don't know that he was telling anything but the truth before Congress. Apparently, such details were not passed on to Miller. It bothers me when journalists are so quick to get their opinion out there, eager to inflate their reputation with strong words and a definitive stance. It's a tired, repeated refrain (just take a look at any conservative site with regard to the war in Iraq) that the media is so quick to report on the negative and overlook the positive, but it seems not to be restricted to world politics. (And how much does the internet play a role? Would some of these columns look any different if they weren't rushed "to post" less than six hours after the announcement?)

In my opinion, I think MLB rushed into this policy because it wanted to save face. It had ignored the problem for so long, but now that Congress was getting involved, it had to do something. Almost as soon as the details were announced, they were criticized.

To this day, I wonder if the players have been provided with a definitive list of what will cause their urine sample to come back positive when tested under baseball's drug policy. Torii Hunter was initially scared to drink Red Bull and I wonder if he's received any assurances that it's OK. Senator Joe Biden (Democrat of Delaware) issued a statement in January saying, "The new testing system sounds better than the flimsy one they had before. But the penalties are weak and it is still unclear what substances will be banned under this new agreement." And in the NFL, they had already learned that some banned substances are not clear on the labels of the supplements they take.

Back to Palmeiro. If it weren't for Jose Canseco's book, I don't think Raffy would have been among the usual suspects with regard to steroids. To me, his career just doesn't scream "steroid user." His home run output never had the jump that, say, Barry Bonds' did when he suddenly hit 73 after never reaching 50 before (or since). He increased his 1992 total of 23 by 15 in 1993, an impressive bump, but not a suspicious one to me. He was 28 that season, too, and how many baseball men will tell you that strong arms and quick wrists that produce lots of line drives and doubles can turn into home runs with a minor adjustment that puts a little more loft on the ball? Sure, it doesn't help Raffy's case that the 37 home runs came in the year after Jose Canseco arrived (I'm not going to ignore a fact just to prove my point), but again, it's not like there were no other possible explanations for the power boost.

Palmeiro played five years in Baltimore — somewhat seen as a welcoming park for the left-handed hitters — and then returned to Texas and its new hitters haven. He was solid and consistent, as are the hitters on his comparable players list. Nothing but reliable Hall of Famers there.

I don't think Palmeiro's stupid. I don't think the combination of his lawyers, agent and wife are, either. Even if he had done something he shouldn't have in the past, before his appearance before Congress, how could he put himself in such a position to be caught like this? Seriously, do you think a man who has continued to work with Congress, participating in a conference call just a few weeks ago, would accept that invitation while knowingly breaking the rules at the same time?

Last summer in Houston, I stood in a conference room at Minute Maid Park with every living member of the 500 home run club. Steroids had again become a hot topic to the point where that night on Baseball Tonight, I watched Karl Ravech interview Mark McGwire, a conversation that must have happened either moments before or after the press conference I attended. Each hitter had a table to which he went after the initial introduction and camera crews and print reporters alike approached the players as they needed. Aside from the great Willie Mays and the outspoken Reggie Jackson, the players who drew the biggest crowds — and, in the instances I dropped in and heard bits of conversation as I made sure I stopped at each table, fielded the steroids questions — were Bonds, Sammy Sosa and McGwire, the players who then, as now, have drawn the most suspicion.

Among the most accessible tables were those of Ken Griffey Jr. and Palmeiro. In fact, some of Bonds' overflow spilled into Griffey's space. In my mind, I still tend to think of Palmeiro as part of that group, the one that included Mike Schmidt, Harmon Killebrew, Willie McCovey and Frank Robinson; not the group of Bonds, Sosa, McGwire. I'm sure Palmeiro is guilty of something; I don't think he's a patsy, I don't think he's being set up by MLB. There's no conspiracy. But I do wonder if we'll ever know the truth, if every suspended player who says he never took anything more than a supplement will be vindicated or exposed.

While I'm not going to go off half-cocked and absurdly say Palmeiro lied in front of Congress when there is absolutely no such proof to support that accusation, I do wonder just what part of his story I should believe. Unfortunately, I don't think Raffy will ever tell us, for sure.

Juicy

I've wanted to stay away from commenting on this whole steroids issue. I'm not trying to ignore it and think that it will go away, because it clearly won't. But I felt I didn't have much to say that wasn't already being thrown about, and that's still probably the case. But on the heels of last week's congressional hearing, it's taken a new turn.

First, there was the delicious sight of Bud Selig squirming and Donald Fehr sounding simply sleazy and heartless. "Progressive punishment?" God. The best thing that came out of the D.C. grandstanding was the exposure of the true wording of baseball's supposedly "tougher" steroid policy.

As for the players, it was shameful on both sides of the photographers' pit. The politicians fawned over the players and acted like they'd invited their athletic heroes into their homes and were amazed by their mere presence. For the athletes' part, they backtracked on everything they've said and done in the past few weeks or years. Jose Canseco backed off everything he's ever said or written about steroids and even Curt Schilling -- perhaps the biggest politician in the MLB players' association -- backtracked from what he's been saying for months about steroids.

But the saddest sights were Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. As Tom Verducci said, here's a guy who felt free and comfortable talking in English since the 1998 home run chase, and now he doesn't even open his mouth in his own defense? I have yet to see a news clip since that shows Sosa saying anything. He looks like a mentally challenged hulk sitting there in his suit while his gray-haired lawyer serves as his mouthpiece. And, of course, everyone's already pointed out his use of the word "illegal" when saying he'd never used "illegal drugs."

As for McGwire, a player I once enjoyed to watch and marvel over, it was clearly a sad scene -- this once Paul Bunyan-esque slugger now appearing smaller, his face markedly clearer, dressed up (it seemed) in grandpa's reading glasses. All he had to do was come out and say it, say he never used steroids, and he'd be validated. But he didn't, probably because he couldn't, and now everyone -- Buster Olney, Jayson Stark, the news articles have jumped on the player everyone praised six summers ago.

Except one. Interestingly, Ben McGrath's "Talk of the Town" piece in The New Yorker is the one column I've seen that's portrayed McGwire in a positive light. But as Verducci said, hasn't McGwire learned the importance of history, of learning from the past? Clearly, we won't be learning from him.

* * *
Now what to make of Barry Bonds? Which is the act? His brash bravado during his press conference when he arrived in spring training? Or his quiet, humble, whimpering sob story yesterday? If not somewhere in between, I am going with history here and leaning toward the former. Will Bonds miss the entire season? Doubtful. Is he really done? Probably not. He's frustrated. True, he has been beaten down by allegations and accusations, but much of it he's brought upon himself. He berates the media, the sportswriters for bringing him to this point, but he had a choice in how he dealt with the reporters who, for the most part, were simply doing their jobs. He hasn't been cordial with any of them, or with many fans.

Blaming the writers for his woes, for his family's "pain," is weak. It's part of your job, your privileged career, that you have to live with. With McGwire's Hall of Fame resume clearly tarnished, in the minds of many, what will we make of Bonds'? Eddie Murray was known to be surly with the press, but he had little trouble getting to Cooperstown. Bonds shouldn't either, just because -- steroids or not -- his numbers are so eye-popping.

I, for one, won't be counting the days until Bonds is back on the field. I'll monitor his rehab, if only because of the fantasy baseball implications. But if he's hit his last home run, or if he comes back but still falls short of Hank Aaron's respectable 755, baseball will be better off. If not, if he gets healthy and passes Babe Ruth this year and Aaron in 2006, it will be a fitting mark on Selig's tenure -- perhaps his lasting impression. Baseball's greatest record, its home run crown, will be shrouded in a fog of suspicion, forever.