By John W. Lillpop
Barry Bonds and the San Francisco Giants started the 2007 baseball season very slowly, and for a while seemed more likely to end in up in the Senior Bowl than the World Series.
The Senior Bowl would actually be quite fitting for a team where the median player age is deceased!
Most major league rosters are comprised of young men obsessed with wild women, rock music, and multi-million dollar, no trade contracts.
By contrast, in San Francisco the players covet walkers, hearing aids, and contracts that cover embalming fees and funeral expenses.
But after a slow start, the Giants and Barry Bonds rebounded and managed to win eight straight games, including an improbable three game sweep of the hated Dodgers in Los Angeles.
Barry Bonds has been an integral part of the Giants' surge, and has homered eight times. He now has 742 career homers, just 13 behind baseball's all time home run champ, Henry Aaron, AKA "Hammering Hank."
Which is not too shabby for a 42-year-old with attitude, gimpy knees, and, presumably, no steroids to lean on.
But with Bonds, the larger, unanswered question is:
How many home runs did Barry Bonds hit when he was pumped up with steroids or other performance-enhancing substances?
200? Or closer to 300?
But while Bonds continues to smash prodigious home runs, the really big news this past week was made by an ex-bat boy for the New York Mets.
On April 27, former Mets' employee Kirk J. Radomski hit one out of the park when he admitted to selling a variety of performance-enhancing drugs to dozens of Major League baseball players over a 10-year period beginning in 1995.
In addition, Radomski threw baseball owners and players a big-league curve when he agreed to provide information to the group led by former senator George Mitchell that is investigating drug use in Major League Baseball.
All of this played out in a San Francisco courtroom as part of Radomski's plea agreement, which was accepted at the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California.
Radomski's testimony may blow the lid off the steroids scandal and, if things get progressively worse, might even succeed in waking up baseball's alleged Commissioner, the redoubtable Bud Selig.
Commissioner Selig is actually a used car salesperson by education, experience, aptitude, and genetics. He is an insufferable boob, precisely the worse man to be in charge of defending baseball during the game's darkest hours.
Still, there is supposed to be a silver lining even around the darkest cloud. So perhaps the brewing scandal will result in Bud Selig being booted out of the Commissioner's office?
But fret not, Bud. There are probably plenty of jobs available to someone with your skill sets.
All you need is to find an ad in the New York Times reading something like this: Used Car Salesman Wanted: Experience as a Failed Baseball Commissioner a Plus!
Good luck, and Good Riddance!
John Lillpop is a recovering liberal.
