Junk Bonds

Barry Bonds is sitting on 713 career home runs. This leaves him one dinger shy of the most famous home run hitter of all time, Babe Ruth. Ruth finished his career with 714 home runs, a record that stood for nearly 40 years until it was broken by Hank Aaron on April 8th, 1974. Aaron tacked on 41 more for good measure and ended with 755 career home runs. Bonds will likely tie and pass Ruth in the next week or so.

In case you've been in your mom's basement playing Doom for the last couple years, you probably know that Barry Bonds is a big cheater. According to the recent book, Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports, Bonds injected himself with so many steroids that the 1976 East Germany women's field hockey team said, "Ja, das ist too much steroids." Then they all shaved off their beards.

Since the allegations against Barry predate the newly enacted drug rules in Major League Baseball, it appears that Bud Selig's hands are tied leaving the door wide open for Barry to cruise into the record books un-asterisked.

As a last ditch effort, Selig has asked former senator George Mitchell to independently investigate the use of steroids in the Majors before the new rules were put in place, including, one can only assume, one Barry Bonds. Whether or not this commission will have any teeth or whether the commission will reach its conclusions in time remain to be seen. Experts are skeptical.

As I see it, there is one man and one man alone who can prevent Barry Bonds from breaking Henry Aaron's record of 755 home runs. That is Henry Aaron. The time is now for the Hammer to seek a court-ordered injunction to prevent Bonds from breaking his record before the commission can complete its investigation. Aaron may be hesitant to do so for fear that some will think him a sore-loser but if the investigation does, indeed, find that Bonds was chemically enhanced during the last few years, Aaron will be quickly forgiven by everyone. If Bonds is cleared by the commission, he'll then be allowed to continue chasing the record. Will any court be brave enough to unilaterally "suspend" Bonds until Mitchell's investigation is complete? What could it hurt to find out?

There are many reasons for Aaron to do this, not the least of which being that Major League Baseball will suffer irreparable harm if Bonds is allowed to break the record and subsequently found to be a big fat cheater. But Aaron must also think a little more selfishly. No single person will lose out more by allowing Bonds to break the record than Aaron himself. As the all-time home run king, Aaron and his name are a marketable commodities. Without the record, Aaron is merely another retired ball player (okay, so he's a Hall of Famer. So is Ryne Sandberg. I rest my case.) It can be argued that without the record, Hank Aaron will suffer irrepairable financial harm whether or not Bonds breaks it fairly. Aaron must act now to save baseball, and to save himself.