Mr. Bonds,

I am writing this speech as a way of showing affection, the affection that a cat has for a dog. I don’t like you, I never did, I never will, you can count on that. You were Hall of Fame bound long ago, back in the uniform of the Pirates. Do pirates wear uniforms? Alas... For those early years of your career, you were like a giant of the game, and I guess you figured that meant you had to head to San Francisco. I won’t mention the fact that as the years went on you got bigger from head to toe, literally. Your hat size actually increased when you were in your mid-30s. I thought you were supposed to have stopped growing by then. You made McCovey Cove look like a kiddy pool, easily reached by the swing of a bat that was much too powerful. You once hit 73 home runs in a season, back in 2001. Tell me, why do you think no one had ever reached that mark? Prodigious power hitters and some of the best players in the history of America’s Pastime never reached that mark. There was Ruth, Gehrig, Foxx, Williams, DiMaggio, Mantle, Mays, Maris, Aaron, Killebrew, Mr. October, Thome, Griffey, even a fellow juicer, A-roid. What made you think you had the right to cheat in order to surpass them all? You would have been right with them anyways. Why did you find it necessary to beat them? You knew the world would find out, you had to. The magical mystery of the magnificent might of Barry Bonds would not always be a mystery. I guess the reason you always seemed so detached from the fans of the game is that you were hiding something. Something you knew wouldn’t make anybody love you. You figured if you were good on the field, everyone would look up to you. It’s too bad for you that the world doesn’t look kindly upon cheaters.

Tell me Barry, what made you do it? What bad role model in this immaculate American game thought to pass steroids along to you? Was it the two guys just across the bay from San Fran? Was it one of the first admitted juicers, Canseco? Or was it that guy whose homerun record you broke, McGwire? How about the kid from Chicago, Sammy, who battled McGwire for the record that had long been held by Maris in that fateful summer of ’98? Some people, logical people, started to become suspicious then. How could the game have never seen such power before? The wicked whacks of wonderful hitters who had come before you hadn’t done it. Even your godfather, the immortal Willie Mays, he of the famous Catch, he of the 660 career homeruns, was passed by you. Imagine the distraught your father must have felt when you, Barry, the kid who so generously was godfathered by the greatest centerfielder of all time at the request of Bobby, were exposed as a cheater. Just imagine that. Man, your father was a heck of a player. You had some serious baseball blood in you, and you grew up around the game. You would have been better than your father without cheating, that’s what everyone knew early in your career. There was that something special. Back in ’96, you went 40-40. Only four players ever have done that: Canseco, A-rod, Soriano and you. Isn’t it sad that we can look at that short list today and say 75% for sure were cheaters? Based on what we know, you, along with those players, may not have been cheating during that season. But why, what gave you the desire to cheat thereafter? Another record that you hold, intentional walks, is also amusing, to say the least. It’s like the fear of the pitcher transferred to the ball, which fled way into the right-handed batter’s box to meet the catcher’s glove. How many pitchers’ careers did you ruin with your cheating? Think about it… You hit 762 homeruns. Which one of those was the one that put the opposing general manager into fits and made him release a pitcher? Which guy had to hang up his cleats because of the stress you caused him?
Barry… Your cheating hurt more than yourself and your reputation. It hurt the game. People will look at you and not know what to think. Hardly anyone thinks about the magnificent early years any more. All they remember is the late years, the oversized Barry Bonds, the man who crushed the baseball as if it were 10 ounces lighter, the man who made opposing pitchers cower in fear. Is that how you wanted to be remembered? Because if it were me, I’d want better. Some would want to succeed or fail justly, succeeding or failing justly you did not want.