Let's get something straight here, folks. For those who don't remember, Mr. Bud Selig was in command during the '94 strike, the subsuquent home run explosion of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa in '98, and everything since. Blame Barry if you must, but the fact of the matter is that Selig and his cronies allowed all of this to go on. And in a fitting display, Selig had his hands in his pockets when Bonds hit #755. No one should be surprised by this. It's the same place his hands were when all of this started. Same s***, different year.

Glad you a-holes ran Faye Vincent out of office.

How does that egg taste, Bud? Get used to it. There's lots more where that came from.

Although I have heard all I want to regarding Barry Bonds in the past year, I couldn't help but mull over the ramifications of the latest chapter in the saga. As we are all aware of by now, Game Of Shadows authors Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada were sentenced to serve some time behind bars for not revealing their sources. I applaud them. Any reporter worth his/her salt should do the same in order to maintain credibility. I also have a hard time condemning the source of the information for leaking it to the reporters, though common sense would say that it was not right to do so. But whether the judicial system is flawed or not for imposing this penalty, the source was at fault, or whether the authors handled their situation correctly is not the point of this writing. But it now appears obvious to me that Barry Bonds did in fact use steroids. Not that I needed any further proof in my own mind, but if the facts in Game Of Shadows were erroneous, I find it hard to believe the government would have pursued this matter as fervently as they did. In other words, if the information leaked was not, in fact, what was disclosed in the grand jury hearings and subsequently wound up in the book, the government would not have much of a case against the "leaker" or the authors, would they? It appears to me that the book was indeed factual and was based on actual grand jury testimony, which is no doubt what got the ire of the feds up when the information surfaced in the book. That, and the fact that perhaps they deemed this to be getting in the way of their "investigation," which as we all know is moving along at a record pace.

That sound you just heard was another egg breaking on the face of Major League Baseball. Can I get a towel, please? Make that lots of 'em!

Thanks for taking the time to read.

So Bonds has finally tied Babe. It was inevitable that someone would eventually, I suppose. But Bonds has done so in part with the help of performance enhancing substances. I don't think that can be denied. Say it's alleged, say it hasn't been proven, say whatever you want in Barry's defense. But the cold, hard truth is this: Bonds has not brought any legal action against the writers of the book detailing his steroid use. Nor has anyone who Jose Canseco named in his book. Any person whose name was associated with something like that and are innocent would be suing like there's no tomorrow. Face it. And since he did admit to using the 'clear' and the 'cream' in grand jury testimony, I don't think there's any doubting the fact.

Having said that, the Bonds steroid issue is not what I meant to address here. Rather, records were made to be broken. At the same time, I've always been of the belief that you can't compare athletes or teams from different eras. Instead, one has to look at what an athlete or team did compared to their contemporaries. This blog addresses this subject-Bonds is nowhere near the player Ruth was. Ruth was not only a stellar pitcher before he was moved to the outfield to get his bat in the lineup every day, but he didn't just break records. He destroyed them, annihilated them. Bonds numbers came in an era when home runs were much more commonplace than they were when Ruth played. I believe the single season home run record when Ruth came along was less than 15. He hit 60. The career HR mark? Around 100. Ruth is in a select group of athletes who redefined the game they played. (Incidentally, Ruth's lifetime batting average was .342. A slugger, yes, but perhaps the greatest offensive machine the game has known.) Players who did something so far above and beyond what had been done to that point that it was staggering. Wayne Gretzky, Wilt Chamberlain, and Jim Brown, among others (possibly) also fall into this category.

Barry can have his record. I frankly don't care. Baseball lost me as a passionate fan during their last strike in '94. I went from being a baseball junkie to one who was too hurt for the last time by what the owners and players had done to the game to feel any real attachment to it.

Hopefully all of this controversy regarding Bonds will play itself out and the truth will be known. But MLB is responsible for this whole mess, and now they are reaping what they have sown.

Thanks for taking the time to read.