Bonds ties Aaron's home-run record* but doubts persist
When Barry Bonds dispatched his 755th home run in San Diego's Petco Park on Saturday night, Bud Selig rose to his feet. With the milestone greeted by far more cheers than jeers, the baseball commissioner kept his hands in his pockets and wore a studiously neutral expression as he watched the 43-year-old San Francisco Giant trot around the bases to equal Hank Aaron's hallowed home-run record.
By the time Bonds was locked in a celebratory embrace with his 17-year-old son, Nikolai - a team batboy - at home plate, the commissioner looked like he would rather be anywhere else in the world.
His discomfiture was fitting. For more than a decade Selig presided over the last major sport to refuse to introduce drug-testing, and the game where statistics have always been sacrosanct is now paying a hefty price. As Bonds tipped his cap to the crowd, there were enough fans hoisting aloft asterisk signs to remind everybody that his achievement will always be tainted by suspicion. Whether or not baseball ever places that symbol next to his entry in the record books, the period from 1993 to 2004 is regarded unofficially by many as "the steroid era".
"Out of respect for the tradition of the game, the magnitude of the record and the fact that all citizens in this country are innocent until proven guilty," said Selig in a statement, "either I or a representative of my office will attend the next few games and make every attempt to observe the breaking of the record."
Having caved into pressure and traipsed across the United States to attend nine of the Giants' past 15 games, Selig saw Bonds draw level with Aaron off a fastball from the San Diego Padres' Clay Hensley. There was a delicious irony to that. The player who many believe hit more than 300 of those home runs with the assistance of performance-enhancing substances sent one out of the park off a pitcher who had once served a paltry 15-game suspension for steroid use.
"It's the hardest thing I've had to do in my entire career," said Bonds afterwards. "I had rashes on my head; I felt like I was getting sick at times."
Aaron, who endured terrible racial abuse on his way to dethroning Babe Ruth as home-run king back in 1974, has deliberately absented himself from the Bonds soap opera. He pointedly refused to follow baseball protocol by trying to be present when his record was equalled. "I am making a comment," Aaron said this week when quizzed yet again on the issue, "by not making a comment."
It is telling that at a memorabilia auction in Cleveland on Friday night a signed Aaron jersey fetched $40,000 (£20,000) whereas Bonds' 70th home-run ball from his 2001 season went for only $14,400, a third of what it was once worth.
How much ball No755 sells for may depend on the work of a grand jury investigating whether to bring a perjury charge against Bonds arising from the Balco affair. When its remit was extended for a further six months back in July, that decision meant at least one person was missing from Bonds' entourage. His personal trainer, Greg Anderson, has been an inmate of the Federal Correction Institution in Dublin, California, since November because of his refusal to answer the grand jury's questions about his boyhood friend.
According to Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams' book Game of Shadows, between 1998 and 2004 Anderson supplied Bonds with a cocktail including human growth hormone, erythropoietin, nandrolone, Clomid (a fertility drug for women), stanozolol, trenbolone (used to build muscle in cattle) and a pair of designer steroids from the Balco laboratory. Bonds' contention is that he never knowingly took steroids, claiming that he thought he was taking flaxseed oil when in fact it was the synthetic steroid THG.
Although Bonds has not sued the authors of the book, its impact can perhaps be gauged by his decision to miss yesterday's final game of the series against the Padres. The official story was that he needed a rest but others allege he wanted to ensure he breaks the record in a Giants home game and asterisk-free zone this week.
Hours before No755, the New York Yankees' Alex Rodriguez became the youngest player to hit 500 home runs. Throughout Bonds' pursuit of Aaron, purists have consoled themselves with the thought that it should be only a matter of time before Rodriguez surpasses him. Previously regarded as above reproach, even he may yet be tarnished. Last week the former Yankee José Canseco hinted that his new book would expose Rodriguez as a hypocrite over steroids. Rodriguez has refused to comment on the allegation. The last time Canseco made claims about drug use, people laughed at him but a lot of what he said ended up ringing true. Nobody is laughing now.
