If you bothered to read beyond the Bonds expose and the circus of congressional hearings in 2005, you would have learned that steroids have been used by baseball players as far back as at least the mid 80s, that by 1991, baseball officials were alarmed enough to add steroids to a list of banned substances sent to all teams, and that even with new testing procedures in place since those hearings, any player who wants to enhance can likely do so with little chance of being caught. But most sportswriters and columnists went back to the safest route: blaming the few, extolling the virtues of the game, finding solace in building up new heroes to replace the fallen ones.
Bonds's real sin, in the end, is in making that so difficult. As he continued his assault on Aaron's record, passing Ruth in the bargain, he was a constant, irritating reminder of the shortcomings of the church of baseball, and especially of its priests in the press. And so he had to be punished. Again and again and again.
Won't we all be relieved when it's finally over.
One element of this controversy that I would like to see clarified is what, precisely, was the role of the banned substance list for which there was no testing policy. What were the penalties for violating the list, and without a testing policies, what did such a list mean? Truth be told, I was under the belief that there was no steroid policy at all.
I most appreciate Hoenig's rather pointed dig at the journalists who have consistently led the holier-than-thou brigade. The chase is done, though the recriminations have just begun. The self-righteous await hopefully ARod taking the record away, because they who remained willfully blind suddenly have decided that ARod was never part of the scandal they never saw when it was happening yet see so clearly in outrage-fueled hindsight.
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