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Read the latest baseball satire from the warped minds of
The Dugout.

Bonds, Clemens Linked Together Forever

By KEVIN BLACKISTONE,

AOL

Posted: 2007-12-15 10:42:56

Filed Under: MLB

Sports Commentary

They entered this life in summer, the season in which they would define themselves. Both turned down offers from high school to play professional baseball, opting for college instead.

Photo Gallery: Key Investigation Facts and Figures

Bryan Bedder, Getty Images

Sen. George Mitchell, left, was named lead investigator of baseball's steroid probe in March 2006. Since then, he's talked to GMs, team officials and some players about performance-enhancing drug (PED) use in the sport.

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Each earned All-America honors and became first-round Major League Baseball picks. They won their first league MVPs before their fifth season in the bigs.

Most remarkably, both men generated their most-dominant campaigns nearing or in their 40s, long after their peers tailed off or retired, cementing their images in America’s once greatest pastime as the two biggest stars of their generation.

So it was only fitting Thursday that two men whose careers seemed to ride the same wave were reunited during what was undoubtedly a crash landing of their amazingly parallel careers. Roger Clemens was fingered as an abuser of banned performance-enhancing steroids in the much-anticipated Mitchell Report just as Barry Bonds had been weeks earlier in a grand jury indictment and years earlier in the court of public opinion.

The only question Thursday was whether Clemens would be subjected to the venom and vitriol that has spewed Bonds’ way since it was first alleged that Bonds was a steroids’ cheat.

It would only be fair.

It would be something else, however, if Clemens escaped the public unscathed. It would prove another litmus test on race in this country and, once again, the country would flunk. After all, the only difference between the two is skin color. The similarities between Clemens and Bonds when it comes to the steroids’ scandal are just as great as their star careers as baseball players.

Both became central figures in two of the most-scandalous tomes ever written about the sport in which they rose to be the two biggest stars of their generation, Clemens in Jose Canseco’s Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits & How Baseball Got Big and Bonds in Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada’s Game of Shadows.

We learned in the Mitchell Report that Clemens had his own personal rogue trainer, Brian McNamee, just as Bonds had his own, Greg Anderson. Bonds’ guy was just a little more loyal, which may be commentary on Clemens’ out-of-camera personality.

Clemens, McNamee Square Off

Former New York Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens, center, testifies before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., Wednesday, February 13, 2008, where he testified about the illegal use of steroids and other performance enhancing drugs in baseball. (Chuck Kennedy, MCT)

KISSIMMEE, FL - FEBRUARY 27: Koby Clemens looks on as his father, Roger Clemens, throws batting practice to the minor league team at Houston Astros Spring Training at Osceola County Stadium on February 27, 2008 in Kissimmee, Florida. The U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has asked the Justice Department to investigate whether Roger Clemens committed perjury while testifying in front of the committee. (Photo by Scott A. Miller/Getty Images)

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KISSIMMEE, FL - FEBRUARY 27: Koby Clemens smiles as his father, Roger Clemens, throws batting practice to the minor league team at Houston Astros Spring Training at Osceola County Stadium on February 27, 2008 in Kissimmee, Florida. The U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has asked the Justice Department to investigate whether Roger Clemens committed perjury while testifying in front of the committee. (Photo by Scott A. Miller/Getty Images)

Getty Images

KISSIMMEE, FL - FEBRUARY 27: Koby Clemens watches as his father, Roger Clemens, throws batting practice to the minor league team at Houston Astros Spring Training at Osceola County Stadium on February 27, 2008 in Kissimmee, Florida. The U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has asked the Justice Department to investigate whether Roger Clemens committed perjury while testifying in front of the committee. (Photo by Scott A. Miller/Getty Images)

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KISSIMMEE, FL - FEBRUARY 27: Koby Clemens watches as his father, Roger, throws batting practice to the minor league team at Houston Astros Spring Training at Osceola County Stadium on February 27, 2008 in Kissimmee, Florida. The U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has asked the Justice Department to investigate whether Roger Clemens committed perjury while testifying in front of the committee. (Photo by Scott A. Miller/Getty Images)

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KISSIMMEE, FL - FEBRUARY 27: Koby Clemens #22 hits a pitch from his father, Roger, during minor league batting practice at Houston Astros Spring Training at Osceola County Stadium on February 27, 2008 in Kissimmee, Florida. The U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has asked the Justice Department to investigate whether Roger Clemens committed perjury while testifying in front of the committee. (Photo by Scott A. Miller/Getty Images)

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KISSIMMEE, FL - FEBRUARY 27: Roger Clemens catches during minor league batting practice at Houston Spring Training at Osceola County Stadium on February 27, 2008 in Kissimmee, Florida. The U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has asked the Justice Department to investigate whether Clemens committed perjury while testifying in front of the committee. (Photo by Scott A. Miller/Getty Images)

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KISSIMMEE, FL - FEBRUARY 27: Roger Clemens throws during minor league batting practice at Houston Spring Training at Osceola County Stadium on February 27, 2008 in Kissimmee, Florida. The U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has asked the Justice Department to investigate whether Clemens committed perjury while testifying in front of the committee. (Photo by Scott A. Miller/Getty Images)

Getty Images

In the immediate wake of the Mitchell Report, Clemens echoed Bonds whenever Bonds has been pressed about allegations of steroids’ abuse. Or at least Clemens had his lawyer echo Bonds.

“Roger Clemens vehemently denies allegations in the Mitchell Report that he used performance-enhancing steroids,” Clemens’ lawyer Rusty Hardin stated. “Roger has been repeatedly tested for these substances and he has never tested positive. There has never been one shred of tangible evidence that he ever used these substances and yet he is being slandered today.”

Clemens and Bonds long held, too, that their success, especially over the long haul, was due most to time spent in the gym vigorously working out.

Both look now as if they lied.

It is true that Clemens has not been charged with any crime in conjunction with steroids while Bonds has been charged with lying about using steroids to a grand jury. That is a technical distinction.

The bottom line is the greatest pitcher of the last 20 years and the greatest position player from that same period are forever stained by accusations of cheating through drugs. Their records are suspect at best. Clemens and Bonds are one in the same.

They also are emblematic of their generation of ballplayers, or era, the Pharmaceutical Era as many of us have long referred to it. After all, we learned a few years ago through an anonymous survey that five to seven percent of major leaguers used banned, if not illegal, performance-enhancing drugs. Up until Thursday we were already aware of several dozen players linked to abuse of steroids and human growth hormones. The Mitchell Report lengthened that list and deepened its cut.

There are current players and retired players. There are All-Stars and also-rans. There are longtime veterans and cup-o’-coffee guys. There are heretofore good guys like Gary Matthews Jr. and creeps like John Rocker. There are guys who fit the physical profile of steroids’ cheats, like the once-strapping Canseco who already confessed, and guys like the husky former first baseman Mo Vaughn.

There are white players, black players and Latino players. There is everybody, except Mark McGwire, stunningly.

“We identify some of the players who were caught up in this drive to gain a competitive advantage,” Mitchell’s report stated. “Other investigations will no doubt turn up more names and fill in more details, but that is unlikely to significantly alter the description of baseball’s steroids era as set forth in this report.”

As a friend of mine’s wife quipped: “They ought to put an asterisk next to the MLB logo.” It is against that backdrop that this is really the time back off the recriminations and leave the mud on the ground, whether it was about to be thrown at Bonds, Clemens or any other individual who may have helped weave baseball’s steroids’ web or merely got caught in it.

This should never have been about individuals gone bad; it always should’ve been about an institution turned corrupt.

Kevin B. Blackistone is a regular panelist on ESPN's Around the Horn, an XM Satellite Radio host and a frequent sports opinionist on other outlets like National Public Radio and The Politico. A former award-winning sports columnist for The Dallas Morning News, he currently lives in Hyattsville, Md.

2007-12-14 18:41:03

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248 comments

cjemanuel 02:01:15 PM Jan 03 2008

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You people are living in a dream world. What Clemens and his defenders want us to believe is that out of all the players in baseball this guy pulled his name out of a hat to implicate as using steroids. Why Clemens? Why not Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson or some other big name pitcher. If you could just arbitrarily pick someone, which is what you have to believe if it wasn't true, why Clemens? Get real. If Clemens goes into the HOF then Bonds goes too. It's only fair. At least Bonds said he used something, this guy is in total denial. (Ala Pete Rose before he couldn't lie anymore.) This guy couldn't even admit he threw the ball at Piazzas' head or that he threw the broken bat at him either. So don't believe your lying eyes.

wttrppr 08:56:58 AM Jan 03 2008

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The difference between Bonds and Clemens is: Clemens is likable... Bonds is not. Bonds made himself out to be a jerk his whole career. He only became "nice" when he was approaching the single year home run record. Afterwards, as the questioning of his use of steriods intensified, he reverted to his more natual arrogant self. It's a personality thing.

What is Bond's legacy? He's making Pete Rose seem likable.

leavatzi 03:19:12 AM Dec 30 2007

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oh and "creeps lke John Roker?" Are you an idiot? He spoke against something a lifestyle, not someone race. Living in beruit woud be horrible and depressing, sitting next to someone with AIDs is depressing, sitting next to some guy who just go out of prison for he 4th time would be disturbing, and yes sitting next to a 20 year old mom with 4 kids would be depressing! why in the world are people so afraid of truth in this country? Sensitivity my friends is going to be the downfall of this country. Rocker said in times square you can go several blocks and not hear a word of english. its true. I know, in the name of not hurting anyones feelings lets do away with Megans law!

leavatzi 03:06:41 AM Dec 30 2007

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you have been "given he right." to think in the former is plain arrogance.

leavatzi 03:04:50 AM Dec 30 2007

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Let me say this, I and most of everybody else in this country are tired of having race issues thrown in our face every time a black man gets in trouble. Basically, we've had it up to our damn ears. If Roger Clemens did use steroids he will be caught...he claims he didn't so if it is found that he did, he will get basically the same punishment. It has nothing to do with the color of his skin. For one, bonds is an a-hole, plain and simple. He is under more scutiny not because he's black but because he was after the most desired and prestigious record in sports. Oh, and he lied under oath. We get so caught up in blaiming accusers of being biased to race in this country that we completely set aside the fact the law was broken. Don't lose sight of the facts! the author of this literary piece of crap needs to get in another line of work. There is freedom of speech and press sir, but there are people that are better off not practicing this right. Remember, you don't "have the right"

worby1 05:31:46 PM Dec 28 2007

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Now of course they are looking at the white guys no one wants to belive they did anything but Bonds because he is a brother of course you belive he did it. Always
we can count on the USA to be the USA.

leao71 07:37:42 PM Dec 27 2007

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what makes people think that you know what i`m talking about????

cordelldm 07:45:49 AM Dec 27 2007

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Blackistone stated: "It is true that Clemens has not been charged with any crime in conjunction with steroids while Bonds has been charged with lying about using steroids to a grand jury. That is a technical distinction." No, it isn't. Ask Martha Stewart and Scooter Libby. Neither was ever convicted of the crime they were accused of. Both were convicted for lying about it.
David Cordell
Lubbock, TX

cwbysownredskins 12:31:00 PM Dec 26 2007

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Why the racist comments??????? I thought we are all americans????? If you don't like the USA than get the hell out!!!!!!! geezzzzzzzzz

mychildren45 12:18:33 PM Dec 26 2007

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well, why are so many people surprised? here are two men that are the two most obnoxious athletes of any sport. Clemens," $28,000,000 I don't want to go on the road when the team is away". and you have,"the world is against me, and it is the presses' fault Bonds. what great team mates these two are. I am really happy that this is now coming out. let's for now forget about the apparent drug use, they just aren't nice people, and that to me is the biggest issue of all.

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248 comments