Where Do We Go From Here? Redux
When we first heard news about the Bonds book, our first reaction was somewhere along the lines of "oh sh--, there goes the season." Once that passed, we got that sinking feeling in the pits of our belly that this is going to be bad. Like asterisks on records, Giants ownership in trouble, Bonds suspended kind of trouble. But instead, right now, it's not looking that bad. In fact, the reaction seems to be along the lines of "yawn, tell us something we didn't know."
That's not to say that things won't get worse because clearly it will, especially the closer the Barry gets to the 
hallowed records. The Barry Haters are in full froth mode and screaming for chemically grown heads while Giants fans are awash in truthiness. But there does seem to be a consensus building about most of this. Mainly that we all kind of knew what was going on but that it was all in the past and we're moving on. Like a bad haircut from back in the day that we're kind of embarrassed about but that's what they wore back then and we have such a better haircut now.
As for the records, the Hall of Fame, and Barry's place in them, that's mainly getting the patented "Soprano's" " so what are you gonna do about it?" Because, what are you going to do about it? What he did technically wasn't against the rules and everybody was doing it. If the narrative of the book is correct, Barry did it mainly because he watched those two juiced pishers Sosa and McGwire get all these accolades and love for hitting the long ball. So Barry said screw this and joined in. Can you really blame him? Or make him the scapegoat for the sins of an era?
In a way, there's a feeling that what's happening now and what will probably happen to the steroid gang is punishment enough-- out of baseball and pariah-fied. As for Barry pretty much either holding or close to holding all of baseball's most cherished records, he might get them, but he'll have to spend the rest of his life being chased by the skeptics and the naysayers and the critics like Furies besetting Orestes. And would the Sports Guy reference Euripides? We think not.
What then will happen during the season? Well, clearly the press is going to be even harder on the Barry, if that could be possible. And the Barry will probably be even harder than the press. Hapless and unlucky Bud Selig now has the Mother of all Sports P.R. nightmares on his hands as to what he should do if Barry breaks a record. As for the fans, it'll probably be the same ole, same ole, except more so. Except for in SF, the fans will boo and jeer and everyone will bad mouth up until the point he slams a moon shot farther than anyone's seen before and then everyone will sit slack-jawed and cheer in amazement. All those cries of "but what about the integrity of the game?" will have to be taken with a grain of salt the very moment fans elsewhere boo the bejeesus out of some relief pitcher for walking Barry with runners on. You know it'll happen.
As for us? If Barry wasn't juiced, the natural trajectory of his career probably would have been that of an oft-injured, fading superstar putting up decent numbers but nothing like he had in the past and not even close to being what we got. Which means that the run the Giants had between '00 and '03 probably wouldn't have happened. Those three years were some of SFist's favorite sporting years. We went to playoff games, watched them clinch the division in 2000, saw our first World Series game, got our hearts ripped out of us several times, and lived and died on every pitch for about four consecutive years. Would we have given that up just so we can feel good about "the integrity of the game?"
Nope. Not even close.