Another Assault on the Records?

Bob's Backstop for February 19, 2004
Rebirth is the legacy Bud Selig wishes to bestow on baseball.. It's an idea he's selling harder than the used cars he once peddled in Milwaukee.

One small problem: Just as the commissioner is trying to become the hero (from the Greek, meaning "to protect and serve"), the renaissance is in danger of scrutiny outside the forgiving walls of the game's insiders..

Forget about Alex Rodriguez. With spring training just around the corner, the darkest clouds in baseball are coming from the BALCO investigation. Four men, including the personal trainer for Barry Bonds, have been charged with distributing performance-enhancing agents, and admissions of wrongdoing have already begun. Even in a society desensitized by scandal, this could become the Enron of sports. The media feeding frenzy could be of epic proportions.

Yet in the court of public opinion, the matter could already be largely decided.

Bonds smashed a record 73 home runs in 2001, a season that came after he hired the indicted Greg Anderson to be his trainer. Mark McGwire's 70 home runs in 1998 came with revelations he was using androstenedione, a supplement subsequently banned by baseball. When one looks at McGuire's body, and his constant physical breakdowns, it's not difficult to imagine that androstenedione was not the only foreign substance he was ingesting. Sammy Sosa, who bashed over 60 home runs three times from 1998-2001, has dropped a few hints that his inflated physique was not earned in the gym, his face swollen to a mask of his appearance, say, eight years ago.

These are the three men credited for lifting a sagging sport, yet they may have killed one of the most sacred bonds fans have with the game. That would be a shared and trusted sense of history, a link to previous generations by way of the record book. Whether or not one can look at what they may eventually be demonstrated to have done as "cheating", the artificial boosts could remain as a stumbling block to real recognition of their achievements.

So along with the all-time hits leader (Pete Rose), Selig may also have a problem with the all-time home run leader. Both Bonds and Sosa have a chance to surpass Hank Aaron's record of 755 home runs, and if it happens, the commissioner may have to deal with the asterisks.

This is slippery stuff, especially when Selig is trying so hard to break free of controversy. He has finally severed his ownership ties with the Brewers. Observers are beginning to think he wants to extend his commissionership past the 2006 season.

In the autumn of life, Selig is trying to sever his puppet strings and stand like a true pioneer, hitching his legacy to this renaissance of baseball. (Unfortunately, it's easy to see exactly whose "hero" Bud has been up until now, and it's not the fans.)

Yet when it comes to drugs and home runs, Selig will have to weigh the new image he is trying to shape - legitimate guardian of the game - with what he's always been in the past, a populist serving the consensus of fellow owners.

"If we can just avoid the mistakes of the past, the game is going to reach unprecedented heights that none of us could have ever dreamed about," Selig has said.

For now, Selig is busying himself with the bloated barge that is George Steinbrenner, whose heavy-handed acquisition of Rodriguez comes just when Selig wants your attention on the wild card, the early potential successes of revenue sharing, and revival of hope in small-market cities like Kansas City.

Yet the BALCO story is threatening to undermine everything, and Selig could be faced with two ugly options:

First option: Put his head in the sand, knowing that a majority of fans really don't care about what athletes put in their bodies. At the end of the day, they still want their freaks and their 500-foot home runs. Joe Sixpack doesn't really care passionately about this issue. After all, how does the Fan in the Street often respond to Pete Rose?

Or: Selig can make a definitive stand on behalf of the game, thus admitting that his renaissance has been partially fueled by drugs..

Of course, the latter would take guts. It would take the act of a true commissioner.

So we can all imagine which way this is going to go.