Why the Long Face?

Barry Bonds is laughing. He's laughing at anyone who thinks that these latest allegations of steroids and HGH are going to make one bit of difference to him. He's laughing at baseball fans that think that the home run record shouldn't belong to someone who cheats. He's laughing at the commissioner of baseball who is powerless to stop him from breaking the home run record. He's laughing at Hank Aaron. He's laughing at the ghost of Babe Ruth. He's even laughing at his Godfather, Willie Mays, whose 660 HR's he passed a couple of seasons ago. He's laughing at all of us.

He's going to go on laughing at as and there's nothing that we can do about it. The Commissioner's office should have done something about this years ago. When a 35 year old who is already producing at a Hall of Fame level suddenly makes a quantum leap in ability, clearly there is something out of the ordinary going on. Bud Selig and the rest of the baseball establishment chose to look the other way. While Bonds turned himself into the Incredible Hulk, they just sat by and enjoyed the show. Every objective baseball fan could see that something was going on. Everyone in baseball knew that something was going on. They chose to ignore it. Bud Selig, with his "let's not rock the boat" attitude, should take the blame for this one. His job as commissioner is to protect the integrity of the game. He has failed to do that. Record attendance numbers apparently clouded his mind to what was going on with steroids in the game.

The most ironic thing about this whole situation is that Jose Canseco is going to go down as the hero in all of this. Canseco, who was one of the first proponents of steroids in baseball, is going to get the credit for blowing the whistle on the abuse of steroids. It's a little like the pot calling the kettle black, but it worked.

However, Barry is going to keep on laughing. He's going to laugh all the way to the bank (The Giants owe him $18 million for this year). If there is any justice in the world, his knee will give out before he can play another game. Of course we live in the real world and that probably won't happen, so Barry will get his money and probably the record as well. And that sound you hear in the middle of night will be laughter coming from somewhere in San Francisco.