Barry Bonds is on track to surpass Babe Ruth’s all-time homerun record of 715 four-baggers. Just a few more at bats, just a few more blasts and Bonds will have gone where no one but Hank Aaron has ever gone before. But does anyone really care?
Barry Bonds is just a human being like the rest of us, but he was blessed with major athletic talent. Sadly, for him, for professional baseball, and for us, he squandered it on steroids, human growth hormones, and a host of other chemical muscle enhancers. In other words, he cheated. Then he lied about it—repeatedly.
Bonds will never be heralded as a sports hero, and he has no one to blame but himself. He’d do well to take a Dale Carnegie course on how to win friends and influence people. Bonds is an irascible, unpleasant personality, angry at a world that gave him so much opportunity.
Pete Rose was the major league baseball disappointment of my youth. Barry Bonds is the disappointment of my middle age.
© Rex M. Rogers - All Rights Reserved, 2006
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