The Zong

I finally got a chance to read through the Bonds indictment this evening, and I’ll tell you something: It sure is boring. I’m glad I’m not a fucking lawyer or anything.

That said, I can understand some of the words, and I think the worst ones for Bonds occur on page 3, line 2:

9. During the criminal investigation, evidence was obtained including positive tests for the presence of anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing substances for Bonds and other professional athletes.

Now, I know there have to be a few fans left somewhere in this town who will find some way to deny that any of this is true, and these are all unproven allegations at this point, but that seems like a pretty big fucking discovery to me. If it turns out that it’s true, and that there are vials of Barry’s piss tinged with PEDs in an evidence locker waiting to be presented at trial, then all those people who used the “He’s never tested positive for anything” horseshit are gonna have to avoid their Bonds-hating friends at the bars for awhile.

If convicted, and I’m sure that’s a long way away, but it’s fun to imagine, Bonds faces a maximum of 30 years in prison and fines amounting to about three innings of salary for Alex Rodriguez next year. Jeffrey Toobin is on CNN right now, and I trust his legal opinion slightly more than my own. He’s not coming out and saying it, but you can kind of tell from the look in his eyes that he thinks Barry’s fucked.

What isn’t being discussed just yet, but will be soon, is the ramifications for Bonds’ career. He has almost certainly played his last major league baseball game, obviously, but what of the Hall of Fame? All the speculation, asterisks and surly interviews didn’t seem to hurt his chances of getting in (some idiots even flip-flopped a few days before the indictment), but without any further deliberation, verdicts or proof, if a positive test for steroids exists with Barry’s name on it, I don’t think there’s any way the man gets in. He can write letters of commiseration to Pete Rose and Mark McGwire from the cell he’s sharing with Scooter Libby.

Personally, I’ll just say what I have before about this: It’s a shame. Nobody, even those who hate the man, can look at his early career and deny that he was one of the greatest natural talents the game has ever seen. He was unquestionably the greatest player of an entire generation, and I think it’s fairly certain that even without the juice, he’d easily wear that mantle forever. His father was a great player and a patriarch in the Giants’ organization, and his godfather was Willie Mays, perhaps the greatest player ever and certainly the greatest to ever wear the San Francisco uniform. If the allegations are true, after all the posturing and denials, in spite of his great pedigree, in spite of the greatness endowed to him by genetics and nature and in spite of his status as a legend playing for his hometown team, Barry Bonds will have squandered it all and become a pariah unequaled by anyone in the history of the game since the 1919 Black Sox.

The sheer Shakespearean nature of it all will put erections in the pants of journalists across the country, and will provide fodder for years of stupid specials on ESPN, all the while putting a smelly, rotten cherry on top of the shittiest sundae ever served to the long-suffering fans of the San Francisco Baseball Giants.

- M.G.