Prometheus 6

Bonds deserves far better than to sit out the season unsigned.The overriding ethos of the sports world is that of a meritocracy. If you are good enough, you get to play. Yet a man who got on base 48% of the time last year can't find a new home.

The possible blackballing of Bonds by baseball owners is about more than a baseball player. It's about people in power deciding on grounds unrelated to talent and performance who gets to take the field, who gets to be heard and even who gets to be remembered in history. And it smacks of Stalin.

Erasing Barry Bonds from baseball history
The former slugger hasn't just been sidelined from baseball, it's as if he has never played.
By Dave Zirin
May 18, 2008

'The Commissar Vanishes" is not your usual coffee-table book. Using photographs, it shows how Josef Stalin systematically erased memories of his chief political opponents from the history of the Russian revolution. In one photo, the dictator appears next to Leon Trotsky. In others, the images of Trotsky have been either airbrushed or crudely blacked out.

Barry Bonds has become the Leon Trotsky of Major League Baseball.

Last year, the San Francisco Giant broke the most hallowed record in baseball, passing Henry Aaron's career home-run record. When he wasn't injured, Bonds filled AT&T Park despite a team that languished in the cellar. At season's end, the Giants refused to sign him for another year, with owner Peter Magowan saying: "We're going in a new direction; that would not be going in a new direction [to sign Bonds]. The time has come to turn the page."

Of course, Magowan can do what he wants, but the page on Bonds hasn't just been turned in San Francisco -- it has been erased. All traces of Bonds, arguably the greatest player in baseball history, have vanished at AT&T Park. The left-field wall no longer bears an image of Bonds chasing Aaron for the home-run crown. There is no marker indicating where Bonds' record-breaking homer crossed over the outfield wall. There is no marker signifying that Bonds even wore a Giants uniform.

But it's not just the Giants' owner who seems to be trying to erase the memory of Bonds. The other team owners seem to have the same mission -- to pretend Bonds doesn't exist by not signing him to a free-agent contract.

They may have felt some vindication for their position last week. The home-run king was charged in a revised indictment with lying to a grand jury in 2003 about using performance-enhancing drugs and obstructing a government investigation of doping among athletes.

But, as investigative reporter and author Mark Fainaru-Wada recently wrote on ESPN.com, "No new lies were alleged in the new indictment, and Bonds won't serve additional prison time if convicted." The next hearing is June 5, one that Bonds does not have to attend.