Politics and sports go hand in hand. If it wasn't for politics, who would care about the Olympics? There is another side to politics and sport, the side that leaves an ugly reflection upon society, and asks questions about the very fabric of who we are. An issue in sport has divided the nation in this way the past 3 - 5 years, and that issue is steroids, which Barry Bonds being the figurehead for cheating in baseball. Now, through the Mitchell Report, we have come to learn of many others (ex. Roger Clemens) using similar performance enhancing products in the same time frame as Barry Bonds, but without the same anger as we saw with Bonds. Is that fair? Why does society point out one person, without the other, and who is to blame for this behavior?
Fairness is a tough thing to tackle, because life is not fair, and the world of sports is no different. We get lost in the ambiance of sport. Everything within the white lines operates in such an organized manner, that the games have the ability to take us away from our everyday lives and for three hours get lost in the joy of a children's game. The simplicity of the rules provides balance and order that we do not find in the other sectors of our lives.
Now I am not convicting Roger Clemens, or any other player named in the Mitchell Report guilty of anything, besides being mentioned in the Mitchell Report. Just being named in a report does not correlate to guilt in any court, besides the court of public opinion. Barry Bonds has been convicted by the court of public opinion a long time ago. So I ask, what makes Roger Clemens or any other player so different from Barry Bonds. We all know Bonds has been vilified by writers, reporters, fans, and even a book, as the monstrous face of the steroid problem in baseball. Now we see it was a systemic problem with more monsters than Richard Matheson's "I am Legend" novel, with no one in the baseball front office willing to play the Robert Neville character.
Who is to blame for the horrific injustice in the arena of sport? The politics for king-makers are not created by the diamond. The sportscasters, radio shock jocks, and even sports reporters have decided long ago Barry Bonds is public enemy number one. And other the other side of the spectrum Roger Clemens always got a pass, the golden ticket as you will to play the white knight that represents baseball and America at its best. Clemens played the symbol of the product of hard work. While the diamond creates stars and even legends amongst peers and fans, the villains are created somewhere else. In our need to jeer or boo. We feel the need to put some, like Clemens on the pedestal, while we let the monsters feast on players like Bonds. Here is the catch, we are the monsters!
