Column: Only proof on Bonds is hysterical reaction

Dan Le Batard
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Published Sunday, March 21, 2004

MIAMI -- What is happening to Barry Bonds and his brethren isn't fair.

Bonds' bloated face is on the cover of Sports Illustrated with an asterisk superimposed on his forehead, and this serial smearing we're doing feels myopic, bloodthirsty, irresponsible and wrong.

We don't have proof. Wouldn't you like to have some of that? We have a lot of circumstantial evidence we've made admissible in the court of public opinion, but an indictment of Bonds' trainer is not an indictment of Bonds. How does this work? Is everyone who has ever trained with indicted Greg Anderson now guilty by association? That's fair?

The current application of steroid-metrics we're doing, shouting "Cheat!" at anyone whose weight or power numbers go up or down, forgets a basic principle journalists are taught to remember: Accusations are not arrests; arrests are not indictments; and indictments aren't convictions. Doesn't it feel like we've fast-forwarded through some of the responsible parts of judgment and convicted Bonds already with the magazine covers even though, um, well, the one indicted was his trainer?

Not to mention that this steroid issue is far too complicated for us all to be reduced to screaming second-graders about it (Steroids! Bad! Cheater, cheater, pants on fire!). An example: Mark McGwire was using andro, which has steroid-like effects and wasn't banned by our government until last week. At the time McGwire was using it, it could be bought in any vitamin store in the United States. That made it legal in his workplace and in his country. How does something perfectly legal taint his 70? Or let's say, hypothetically, Bonds has been using THG? The government didn't ban it until October of last season. So he, and any other player, could use it without breaking any rules the season he hit 73 homers.

Makes sense that personalities as competitive as athletes would use any means available to try and improve, right? Let's say there was a pill out there that might make Cote a better sportswriter (Please, science, stop with the cloning and concentrate on this). Let's say it would make his flimsy arguments stronger, which would then result in higher pay. And let's say the government and The Miami Herald said it was fine for him to use that pill. Why wouldn't he use it?

Health risks? We're OK with Kirk Gibson hitting a famous home run while on a steroid (cortisone) but not OK with the anabolic kind. Gibson is a hero for caring so much that he stops his body's screaming with medicine (the body screaming, generally a pretty good indication something isn't right), but Bonds and his brethren can't care quite so much that they would use andro.

Oh, never mind all that. Let's just shout and blame and be hysterical. It's so much more fun. And it's not our reputation. We'd be perfectly fine being on a magazine cover being blamed for something we didn't necessarily do, right?

Bonds is already guilty, no matter what happens now. And that's a shame.

Because we've already gone too far. There's no way to go back and apologize on the off chance we're wrong.