It’s inevitable. Sometime this year, Barry Bonds will break Hank Aaron’s home run record.
It’s sad, but true. He will break the most coveted record in sports and show children everywhere that the only real way to succeed in sports is through performance-enhancing drugs.
God is out. Pharmaceuticals are in. And there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. We can whine and complain to the MLB Commissioner Bud Selig, calling for stars, asterisks and possibly an expulsion from baseball. But in the end, the commish is just going to tuck his balls between his legs and celebrate it as a historic milestone.
And for some reason, I have a creeping suspicion that Bonds’ breaking the record will ultimately lead to the deterioration of our society as a whole. Rewarding cheaters with trophies and statues doesn’t seem like it sets a very good example for the kids (I love using that).
I can just see it now. Adidas will come out with a new slogan in 2010. It will change from “Impossible is Nothing” to “Cheating is Everything.”
This will likely be followed by a slew of Little Leaguer violence cases where kids on ‘roid rages take off their hockey skates and try to stab people with them. In hoops, the kids will be punching each other in the gonads. Anything it takes to get that W.
Parents will be shooting their kids up with the latest anabolic before they’re out of diapers. Eventually, doctors will figure out a way to make babies lift weights in the womb. By then, professional athletes will basically be machines and Selig and his compadres will have no choice but to discard their steroid policy.
I’m depressing myself. There has got to be a way to stop Bonds from breaking the record. God struck him down with a bum knee, but somehow the steroids proved to be a bit stronger. What can mere men do to stop a chemically made cyborg from ruining the Earth?
I would suggest infiltrating his secret lair and poisoning the water or oxygen system, but he doesn’t function on those elements so it would do no good.
I really wish we could just put him on a giant guilt trip, telling him that he’s ruining America’s game and sending society into a downward spiral. That wouldn’t work, though, because as I said before, soulless and godless folks like Bonds feel no remorse. They don’t feel at all. They just ruin.
I think the best possible solution to our problem would be to find the man or woman responsible for providing Bonds with the juice and simply cut off the supply. With no steroids, Bonds would shrink back to the skeleton he was in the late ’80s, when he averaged a lukewarm 20 homers per year.
If that doesn’t work, we could just try stalling the home run chase as long as we can and hope he gets diagnosed with testicular cancer (you know it’s going to happen eventually) and therefore has to retire. Realistically, though, there is no way to stop Bonds from capturing that record short of murder and it’s driving me crazy.
Hank Aaron and the rest of the league will probably do the classy thing and congratulate Bonds, but I really wish they wouldn’t. I wish they would let the moment come and go as if nothing had happened.
Maybe then our society would still stand a chance.
