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The Other Shoe Finally Drops on Barry Bonds
> 3/7/2006 11:46:29 AM

In what has become one of the worst kept secrets, possibly ever, Barry Bonds has been outted today as a steroids user by a Sports Illustrated cover story. There has been speculation of substance abuse for some time, and accusations crested last year during Congress's inquiry into Major League Baseball's growing steroids scandal, but this is the first time that hard evidence has showed its head. While I haven't had the chance to read the entire article, the media reaction has been huge across the board, and this story will be one that you will hear about (probably to the point that you don't want to hear about it ever again).

Barry Bonds is a tremendous baseball player, that much has never been in doubt. But when he broke Mark McGwire's single season homerun record, he did so by eclipsing his own previous best by 24 homers. His body had also seemingly grown in unnaturally ways, unnatural especially for a man in his late 30s. To see a photo history of Bonds growth, click here.

Toward the end of last year we talked about steroids and steroid abuse in addressing the death of a WWE performer, here. This is another very public example of the terrible examples that professional athletes are setting for children in this country. Steroids are a growing problem in high school and AAU level sports. When someone such as Barry Bonds, who is wildly successful at what they do, is exposed as a user, and appears in public unrepentant, it only continues to send negative impressions to children. Major League Baseball has done a terrific job of beginning to clean up their mess. But the damage that is done by the breaking of this story, to Barry Bonds and to baseball as a whole, will take much, much longer to undo.

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