Fall of Bonds near completion

11/19/07
It didn’t take long for the fall of Barry Bonds to become official.
It was just a few months ago that he set Major League Baseball’s all-time home run record, a mark he extended each time he went deep the rest of the season. Though he had for years sparked the ire of baseball fans, the media and fellow players, his accomplishment, for one day at least, kept all that at bay. Seven-hundred fifty-six home runs is a lot.
But even then, the asterisks were flying. He had for years been the subject of steroid allegations, and his late-career power surge gave the lie to any notion that his rampage through the National League over the past 10 years was somehow natural. There’s simply no precedent, in the history of the sport, for a player’s best home run years to follow his 35th birthday. That’s when players burn out, not when they take off.
Now he faces a federal indictment, not for taking illegal drugs, but for allegedly lying to a grand jury about taking them. He could face up to 30 years in prison, but will more than likely never get that far. Either way, it’s the final blow to a reputation that has taken more than a few hits over the years.
And it’s equally an indictment, metaphorically, anyway, of the powers at Major League Baseball, who were more than happy to look the other way while their stars ballooned to cartoonlike dimensions as long as the baseballs were flying. There were stadiums to fill, after all.
An indictment is not a conviction, but in the court of public opinion, Bonds has been guilty for years. This is just another step toward confirming those suspicions.