I\'ve always been a huge baseball fan, but I disagree that all of these guys are a bunch of "fuckos". I\'d love for the game to still hold total integrity when it comes to substance, but it hasn\'t for a long time and to be honest, I don\'t hold it against them. If you spend your whole life completely dedicated to baseball, wanting to get better, wanting to be the best, and all of the sudden your natural talent can\'t sustain itself against the cream of the crop, and then someone offers a solution to that problem--it\'d be hard very, very hard not to bite the apple.
Bonds is in the situation he\'s in because he watched McGwire and Sosa take over the league when he knew he was a better baseball player. He levelled the playing field and showed it was true. And think about the mediocre ballplayers (relatively speaking in the MLB) who saw a light at the end of the tunnel flashing "Wanna\' Be An All-Star? Come Join...."
What I have a problem with is the poor character many have shown once they\'re in the dog-house. It\'s a sad situation, no doubt, and kids especially for the first time have a realistic, tarnished view of their heroes, but ultimately the athletes are fulfilling their life\'s desire which would be impossible naturally (given the competition), they\'re feeding the fans what they hope to be paying for--500 foot dongs, and in the end their reputations might suffer while their bodies certainly will.
It\'s a price they\'re obviously willing to pay because on their deathbed they won\'t drift away with images of the courtroom, they\'ll dream of those summer days where all seemed perfect as they trotted around third base hearing their name chanted by thousands and probably still think, "It was worth it for that piece of heaven I never would\'ve tasted."
I\'m not saying this is a desirable tale by any means, but I also don\'t know what it\'s like to be in a position where you\'re so close to reaching a potential you once thought impossible of achieving. I think the mind of a professional athlete is something to explore rather than just writing them off as a bunch of scumbags because they "cheated".
Now I ask myself, "Nick, if you could shoot yourself up with some magical shit that will make you rip a guitar like Tim Palmieri and sing like Rod Stewart, given you\'ll live a shorter life and may suffer physical anguish when the glory days are over, would you?"..... My answer: :chin:
Call me stupid, silly, maybe even cynical, whatever, but it\'s a dilemma that people seem to only want to scratch the surface on.
