Bloated Athletes And Anemic Ethics

Bud Selig gets his hair cut once a week--so there's no doubt he'll look neat and clean when he poses with Barry Bonds after the San Francisco slugger strokes career home run number 756 sometime this summer.

What, you say...Mr. Selig won't be there?

He ought to be. Selig had a lot to do with the history Bonds is on the cusp of making (as I write this, he just jacked number 736 in Pittsburgh). Selig, the players union, fans and the media had better be ready to take ownership of this questionable achievement since all played a part in letting it happen.

Bonds is thoroughly unlikeable as a player, teammate or man. The best-selling book "Game of Shadows" pretty much confirms this, detailing Bonds' "alleged" use of steroids as well as his deficiencies as a human being. Aside from the perennial chip on the shoulder that he sports, he is the poster child for the jock-entitlement mentality that most of us project onto athletes without ever really getting to know them. Bonds makes that puppet come to life.

Conventional wisdom is that Selig doesn't want to be caught in photos or on film shaking the slugger's hand, only to find out later on that the juicing allegations are true. Then, it becomes the modern sports version of "Dewey Beats Truman", the photo-equivalent of Milli Vanilli: fraudulent, wrong, phony, engineered.

Trouble is, baseball was only too eager to embrace Bonds and other alleged users when it needed them in the days after the 1994 strike.

Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa thrilled us all as they fought to bust Roger Maris' mark, starting a horsehide renaissance that continues today.

No one asked any questions as their puffy, bloated caricatures swatted spheres monstrous distances and shattered all manner of records because, after all, "chicks dig the long ball."

The media fell in lockstep, too--failing to ask the tough questions, doing features instead about juiced balls. Only one--S-I's Rick Reilly--had the stones to confront Sosa at his locker, pleading with him to submit to a urine test on the spot to put the whispered allegations to rest. It made for a great column in his magazine, but it almost cost Reilly his teeth.

Fans and front offices all turned the other way, too: next time the Cardinals are in Milwaukee, be sure to ask the St. Louis faithful what happened to the McGwire jerseys they used to sport.

And then there's Bud--true, he's presided over a crackdown on both steroids and amphetamines, a belated set of moves that won't change the set of tainted records that now dot baseball's books. Selig and the player's union went along for the ride in the 90's when it was convenient for both to look the other way. Now, it's time to reap what's been sown.

Sack up, Bud, and take it like a man--one of the game's most cherished records is about to fall, and Bonds won't be breaking it alone. Failing to show up convicts Bonds of something the courts have yet to find him guilty of. And, don't offer up the bull about the commissioner being a no-show when Aaron hit number 715: Bowie Kuhn's colossal gaffe is nothing to emulate. It was a tragedy in '74 and the ultimate diss to a man who deserved much better for all he went through in shattering the mark.

Can't you just hear the photographers now?

"One more, Mr. Selig--only this time, shake Barry's hand without gagging."