"Faced with the most damning, deeply sourced, comprehensive and chilling charges against Barry Bonds yet, courtesy of a new book by the San Francisco Chronicle reporters who have been on him from the start, decision day is here for Bonds, for baseball and for the San Francisco Giants."
The charges are damning, deeply sourced, and comprehensive. I'm not sure why Dan Wetzel thinks they're chilling. I'm also not sure why this is considered new information.
Wetzel himself acknowledges the information is no surprise:
"It is not that the book reveals that Bonds used performance-enhancing drugs to become the most incredible home run hitter of all time. Only the most naive among us didn't already know that, Giants officials included."
So Wetzel is suddenly stunned and chilled, but he already knew Bonds did steroids.
Ummm ... huh?
"There isn't any middle ground. There isn't any room for debate or for situational ethics. There isn't any more time to put off making serious decisions about Bonds' future."
Actually, the entire discussion is middle ground and debate about situational ethics.
I haven't seen Dan Wetzel or anybody else ask the Mariners to bench Matt Lawton. There's your debate about situational ethics right there.
Is Wetzel really saying the contrite cheaters aren't really cheaters? That's sure what he seems to be saying:
"If Barry's reaction is to ignore, to pout, to try to clown it up in a pathetic, public relations-fueled drag act – his hair and boobs as fake as his career stats – then no longer can anyone sit by and idly watch."
That sounds precisely like situational ethics to me.
How about if Barry Bonds talks to the press, takes the newspaper to court, smiles more often, and dresses in men's clothes. Then Wetzel is cool with the steroids?
Besides, even if Dan Wetzel and everybody else in the world treats Barry Bonds with scorn, that's really not that much different than sitting by and idly watching. We'll all be idly watching, except with scorn.
I think everyone knows Bonds got chemical help. But everybody gets chemical help nowadays. The difference between legal drugs endorsed by MLB and illegal drugs? It's situational ethics and middle ground.
"Understand that Bonds is no one's victim, no one's good guy. Don't let the Paula Abdul act that got all the clowns on the 11 o'clock news chortling fool you."
Is it just me or is Wetzel obsessing about Barry Bonds in drag?
Funny Wetzel should mention it, because when I saw Barry Bonds dressed up as Paula Abdul, it totally fooled me.
I thought to myself, "That man is a good guy. Until I saw him dressed up as Paula Abdul, I was unsympathetic to his situation. But now that I've seen him dressed up as Paula Abdul, I am suddenly sympathetic to his situation."
Wetzel is right about one thing: This battle is in the court of public opinion. Bonds lost that battle long ago.
With that in mind, Wetzel's next suggestion is categorically ridiculous and downright disgusting:
"It should motivate Bud Selig to wipe the record book clean of that time frame, even reinstating Roger Maris' 61 home runs as the single-season record. Because baseball relies on having its lore passed down through the generations, and there is no way you'll ever be able to explain all of this to your children or your grandchildren."
This is an amazement statement by Dan Wetzel.
It should be obvious that Selig can't "wipe the record book clean of that time frame" because it's simply not possible. Think about it for five minutes and you tell me where you start. Even if you only go after the premier HR hitters of that era, it is just the tip of the iceberg, and there is no way to figure out which stats should stay and which stats should go.
What is "that time frame," anyway? Is it 1993 when Lenny Dykstra pulled 4 World Series homeruns out of his butt? Is it 1996, with Brady Anderson's 50 homerun season? Does it start with Cecil Fielder in the early '90s?
Which homeruns are steroid homeruns? Does Bonds get to keep his three pre-'98 MVPs? Or does he only get to keep them if he apologizes to Dan Wetzel?
The devil is in the details. The court of public opinion can easily and elegantly wipe Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, Palmeiro, and anybody else from their personal record books. The official codifying of this is not possible.
We still haven't even proven that Bonds took steroids and, if we're going to start eliminating records because of suspicions, then I get to start with Luis Gonzalez in 2001 and give the Yankees their World Series rings. Or at least the Yankees who weren't on the 'roids.
Most alarming is Dan Wetzel's conclusion. He won't be able to explain this to his children or his grandchildren.
Is he serious? There is "no way" Dan Wetzel can explain "all of this" to his children?
Felz can do it in two sentences:
"In the '90s, a fairly substantial number of baseball players evidently took steroids, which made them significantly stronger than they would have been with weight training alone, and seems to have resulted in a lot more homeruns. A lot of people believe this steroid use resulted in an inherently unfair situation because most of the steroid users' contemporaries, and all of the players from pre-steroid times, did not benefit from similarly artificially-enhanced physiques."
Somebody call DYFS right away and get Dan Wetzel's kids out of his house. If he can't explain steroids and their impact on the baseball record books, then I wonder how he explains sex, pot, taxes, death, the infield fly rule, the Civil War, the two-party political system, Roth IRAs, gravity, evolution, algebra, global warming, dialectical materialism, and carrier pigeons.
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