All Blog Posts from Public Eye

Tick, tick, tick … the clock is ticking down to tomorrow’s bombshell report on performance-enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball. And the drumbeat of the narrative keeps getting louder, day by day.

Tick … Last week’s report of baseball suspending Baltimore Oriole Jay Gibbons and Kansas City Royal Jose Guillen.

Tick … Barry Bonds pleads not guilty to perjury and obstruction charges in a federal investigation of performance-enhancing drugs.

Tick … American Olympic track and field star Marion Jones is stripped of her 5 medals from the 2000 Olympics.

Tick .. Today’s New York Times reports that over fifty baseball players are going to get fingered by the report.

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Game, set, match, asterisk. The contest/discussion about who or what will be Time’s “Person of the Year” is over.

It’s Steroids. Yesterday’s federal indictment of Barry Bonds only sealed the deal.

From the home run king to 2000 Olympic champion Marion Jones’s public confession to professional wrestler Chris Benoit’s double murder-suicide to the forthcoming George Mitchell investigation to Americas competitive bicyclists, steroids have been in the news every month of this year, casting a pall over the sports worlds and American culture as a whole.

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America’s writers are taking home run swings at the home run king – even when it’s a bit outside the journalistic strike zone.

With Barry Bonds having tied the all-time longball record Saturday night – he'll be looking to break it tonight through Thursday against my Nats – it's gotten to the point where almost anything that can be said about him is being said about him.

Take for example today’s exclusive -- Oh, wait. I mean: take for example today’s EXCLUSIVE story about Bonds. (You know something’s big when it’s all caps.)

In today’s piece, Barry Bonds is not just a steroid user, but also something of a cyborg. A mechanical protective guard he places on his right elbow is now being viewed with suspicion. According to the EXCLUSIVE from Michael Witte, an illustrator who studies pitcher’s mechanics for baseball teams:

Beyond his alleged steroid use, Barry Bonds is unquestionably guilty of the use of something that confers extraordinarily unfair mechanical advantage: the “armor” that he wears on his right elbow. Amid the press frenzy over Bonds’ unnatural bulk, the true role of the object on his right arm has simply gone unnoticed.

This is unfortunate, because by my estimate, Bonds’ front arm “armor” has contributed no fewer than 75 to 100 home runs to his already steroid-questionable total.

I’d heard a lot of things about Barry Bonds – being a frequent and pathetic listener of sports radio – but had never heard somebody try to pin down an exact number of homers that his arm guard helped with. And I wasn’t quite sure how one would generate such a number.

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With predecessors like the “Summer of the Shark” and the “Summer of Chandra” guiding my judgement, a few weeks ago I attempted in this space to predict a “Summer of...” story that we’d be force fed from here to Labor Day.

My prognostication – that of a “Summer of Steroids” — was based on potential steroid involvement in the double murder/suicide of professional wrestler Chris Benoit and Barry Bond’s chase of Major League Baseball’s home run record.

Turns out I was only half right. The Chris Benoit story has faded from public view, as the Georgia medical examiner determined that steroids did not play a role in the tragedy. But the Barry Bonds story continues to resonate in the news media, so … Okay, so maybe half right is a stretch. It looks like I was one-sixth right, as the Bonds story is one of three that have taken over American newscasts in the past week.

Yes, the summer story has finally made itself known, at least as far as The Microsoft Network is concerned: the Summer of 2007 is now the “Summer of Scandal,” with three stories from the sports world stirring up a tide of outrage in America.

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America’s cultural discussion about steroids in sports – already hitting its stride with a Major League Baseball investigation – is about to shift into high gear. The story of professional wrestler Chris Benoit killing his wife and son before hanging himself has jarred America from a state of detached concern to all-out worry.

Media sensations are a difficult calculus to break down, but chances are we’re about to begin a larger discussion about performance-enhancing drugs, along with their social and physical costs. Five elements could raise this story into the Summer of Steroids.

First off: In the wake of the intensely-researched book “Game of Shadows” – a look at the role of steroids in baseball, and San Francisco Giant Barry Bonds’s relationship with a firm called BALCO -- Former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell was tapped by Major League Baseball to lead an investigation into the matter. Their work has been hampered by the fact that current players haven’t been willing to participate. Until now. New York Yankee slugger Jason Giambi announced last week that he will be the first active athlete to comply with the panel’s fact-finding mission. As Newsday reported:

"I will address my own personal history regarding steroids. I will not discuss in any fashion any other individual," Giambi said in a statement.

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