Choose Your Adjectives Wisely.

I had not been particularly aware just how far off the reservation Jeff Pearlman had gone in regards to Barry Bonds’ breaking of the home run record. Look, I am perfectly willing to acknowledge what Bonds is accused of is serious shit, and the record will be questioned because of it (that is, until Alex Rodriguez breaks it, if most of the media’s guesses have any implication on what actually happens.) I will also be the first, and not the last, to admit that the records in sports and the games themselves often hold significance outside of the narrow arena that is the athletic-industrial complex. But I draw the line at calling a man accused mostly of being a cheat and an asshole evil. Deadspin reprinted an interview with Pearlman today, and this was the money shot:

Now that I’m well beyond the researching and writing; now that I’m beyond the promotional, 20-second soundbite push, I feel liberated to express my conclusion of the whole experience.

It is this: Barry Bonds is evil.

Alongside Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, he is responsible for the illegal, unethical tattering of the most important page of the baseball record book. I grew up knowing what 755 meant. Hell, my mom–who knows nothing about sports–understands 755. I hate–absolutely, positively hate–that Barry Bonds is doing this. I’m mad if my 6-year-old nephew cheats in first grade. So for Bonds to come along and cheat to surpass Aaron–it’s criminal. I read writers like Bill Rhoden and Dave Zirin–guys I respect–and I just don’t understand what the hell they’re doing. They maintain there’s no proof that Bonds used, so how can we condemn him? If we used that mode of thinking in day-to-day life, there’d be no need for juries. You either catch a person in the act of committing a crime or he’s innocent. Factually–and I mean, 100% factually–Bonds used, and the evidence is overwhelming. Game of Shadows, my book, his ties to Greg Anderson and Victor Conte, the expansion (impossible, unless he used HGH or suffers from Acromegaly) of his skull, a former teammlate like Jay Canizaro telling me how Anderson said he can design a steroid cocktail for him that would be just like Barry’s, so on and so on. Every time someone writes that there’s no “proof,” he/she is gifting the designers of masking agents. If we reward and praise the cheaters in sports, what are we saying to the kids who follow the games? What are we saying about decency and integrity?

I don’t root against Bonds because he’s a bad man. I root against him because he’s a dishonest one. For me personally, this isn’t an issue of race or class or status. It’s an issue of someone taking the game I truly love and making a mockery of the whole thing.

Poor analogy on Pearlman’s part, as far as Rhoden and Zirin’s writings go — the reason juries work is because the evidence is provided in a (supposedly) neutral forum (the courtroom) where evidence and testimony can be presented and challenged to ensure a fair hearing. Public judgment can often turn into a mob mentality. One of the commenters in the thread noted that Pearlman should be campaigning to get Gaylord Perry thrown out of the Hall of Fame, if cheating is going to be the standard of evil. Sure, it’s not the wins record, but he cheated!

But that’s not the point. To use the adjective “evil” in the description of a baseball player, when concrete evidence in history informs us of the things done by despots like Hitler and Stalin, and the Europeans and Americans who enslaved generations of Africans and moved them to unfamiliar countries, does a disservice to the power of the word. Yes, there are evil people who are less prominent, but they kill, rape, and commit unspeakable crimes.

To lump Barry Bonds in with that defined evil is an absolute joke, and reminds me of Dan Jenkins’ modification of Ring Lardner: “Nothing on earth is more depressing than an old baseball writer.”