Obligatory Sports Post

Barry Bonds made quite a 'splash' when he arrived at the Giants' spring training facility this week (Pardon the pun, but we've been getting a lot more rain than usual this winter. Couldn't help it!). A columnist in SF has stepped up to the plate and responded to Barry's diatribe-disguised-as-press-conference:


Barry Bonds is right. I have lied. A lot of sportswriters lie. We cover for athletes all the time.

We did it when we followed Mark McGwire in 1998 and failed to ask the appropriate questions. I was especially guilty, because I believed back then what Jose Canseco is writing now: That McGwire didn't hit 70 home runs on hard work alone. Yet, I said nothing. I thought my silence amounted to fairness, because I didn't have proof. But I remember very clearly thinking: If I were Barry Bonds, watching this spectacle, knowing what is being left unsaid, knowing that I'm twice the player McGwire is, I would spend my offseason looking for the same power boost.

The press, by celebrating McGwire's home-run record without scrutiny, invited every other ballplayer into the world of doping. That's why I have never seen the steroid scandal as Barry-centric. He is responsible for whatever he has done, but he's not uniquely villainous or dishonest. We are all complicit.

I have lied about Bonds, too, but not in the way he meant when he went after the media at his spring-training debut on Tuesday. The first time I saw him in 2001, I said to myself: "He's juiced.'' I didn't say it in this column because, again, I didn't have proof. But I was sure of it.

And there you go. How 'bout it Barry, should the press tell the truth all the time, in every situation? Me thinks I know your answer.