The federal trial of Barry Bonds began in March 2022 in San Francisco. Part of the trial focused on Greg Anderson, who started being Bonds’s trainer in 2000 and who allegedly supplied Bonds with steroids and then refused to testify against Bonds. Like Pres. Bill Clinton before him, Bonds had legal troubles that centered not on his actions but on the issue of whether he lied about them. The case examined whether Bonds lied to a grand jury when he said that he thought the substances Anderson gave him were legal. (UPDATE: Following the trial, the jury did not reach a verdict on the perjury accounts but found Bonds guilty of obstruction of justice and he was sentenced to probation.)
Outside the legal debate about perjury, though, an ongoing debate continues about Bonds’s baseball legacy. One of his biggest defenders has been Giants fan and singer-songwriter Dan Bern. In addition to writing some articles about Bonds, Bern has written at least four songs about the slugger: “73,” “Asterisk Nation,” “Rincon,” and “Year By Year Home Run Totals Of The Great Barry Bonds.”
Dan Bern’s Songs About Barry Bonds
My two favorites of these songs are “Rincon” and “Asterisk Nation.” “Rincon” is about a journey to a town to see where Bonds may or may not have a contact for buying steroids, or at least that is how I interpret the beautiful song.
“Rincon” paints the most complicated portrait of Bonds among Bern’s songs. It is a more personal story, more about the narrator than about Bonds, and its ambiguity also makes it one of Bern’s most human and best songs. Like all great songs, it is about something deeper than what you might hear upon the first listen.
“Asterisk Nation” is a much more pointed commentary, where Dan Bern tells us that if we want to point the finger at Bonds, then maybe we should also be pointing it at ourselves. “Asterisk doctors, Asterisk patients, Asterisk erections, Asterisk elections, Asterisk wars. . . Telling Asterisk truths to an Asterisk nation.” Don’t many of us take pills, caffeine, alcohol, medication, etc. to alter the way we exist? And, if so, is it so wrong that Bonds may have used a drug that was not illegal at the time to make him better at his job, like you having that afternoon cup of coffee?
Dan Bern’s song also evokes a new movie released just a few days before the trial of Barry Bonds begins. The movie Limitless (2011), starring Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro, is about a man who is given a drug that lets him use 100% of his mind. If you could take a drug that would give you super-human abilities, would you?
There is not a video for “Asterisk Nation” on YouTube. But you may listen to the song from a Dan Bern live performance from 2006 below.
Dan Bern Asterisk Nation Live 2006-11-09
{ Asterisk Nation – Dan Bern (live 2006-11-09)}
Finally, Dan Bern’s “Year by Year Home Run Totals of Barry Bonds” is brilliant for how simple it is. The song recounts exactly what the title suggests, listing those home run totals. While the 73 home runs in 2001 does stand out, the list illustrates that Bonds was smashing a lot of home runs even before the era where we suspect he was using performance-enhancing drugs.
In the video below, Bern performs “Year by Year Home Run Totals of Barry Bonds” as a sing-a-long at a school. (His lesson to the kids is how they may use a song to help them remember pieces of information, like a list of numbers.)
Defending Barry Bonds?
I do not completely buy Dan Bern’s defense of Barry Bonds. One must wonder whether or not it is fair for some players to use steroids against the rules when there is a limited number of spots for major league baseball players. If some use steroids, other potential major league players may lose their jobs to cheaters. And is it fair if someone who holds a record does not get credit because someone else did not play by the rules?
Still, Dan Bern does make me see Barry Bonds in a different light. I now see Barry Bonds as a tragic human being. During his run at perhaps the greatest record in baseball, he must have anticipated for years the glory of the moment. Instead, as the time approached and left, he was treated like a pariah, perhaps partly deserved, perhaps partly not.
Then, when he wanted to continue playing after the 2007 season, no team would hire him when he was still playing great baseball. And why is he so hated while Lance Armstrong is so loved? I am sure racial biases are at work, but there are other complex factors too.
Sure Bonds did whatever he did for himself, but we all gained the entertainment, both from his incredible playing and from later having fun debating about steroids. Ever since he was a kid with a professional baseball-playing father, Bonds learned that society would pay him large amounts of money to run around on a field and hit a ball with a stick. If society is set up so we pay millions of dollars to people who play games, while social workers and teachers barely scrape by and other people are homeless, is it such a great sin by comparison that he took some medicine to play better? Is his sin worse than ours for creating such a society?
Barry Bonds was always there for our entertainment, and like the rest of us, he is a flawed human being. His steroids helped entertain you, and I received a topic for a blog post today. And we do not even have to suffer the health consequences from taking the drug.
While I enjoy discussing the morality issues involved because I love baseball and debates about morals, what it ultimately comes down to for me is one question: Who am I to judge him? And perhaps the most interesting part for me is wondering whether he has any regrets and whether or not he would do everything the same if starting all over again. Maybe some day we will get answers to these and other questions from him, but probably not for a long time, if ever.
I am going to try to cleanse my mind of thoughts about tainted baseball records by watching a video from the 1996 Home Run Derby before Barry Bonds allegedly started using steroids, back when we were all much more innocent. Man, he was good against. . . Mark McGuire.
What do you think of Barry Bonds? What should be done with his home run record? Leave a comment.
(Some Related Chimesfreedom Posts)
This post includes many things I do not like. But the two main things are Barry Bonds and Dan Bern. That’s right, I dislike both so much they are identified as things, not people. I don’t know which dislike came first, but it’s fitting that they are tied together.
And I dislike them so much that while I think there’s a lot of grist for the mill in this post, I just want to say a couple of things.
1) I think it’s a mistake to say that an athlete taking steroids–a powerfully dangerous substance that has killed some awesome people including my favorite of them, Lyle Alzado–to a regular person taking coffee for an afternoon pick me up.
2) I am usually the first to jump on the people/media-are-racist bandwagon, but here I’d say that if Bonds didn’t present himself as such a giant dildo to the press he probably would be perceived a lot differently. Come on man, Lance Armstrong survived testicular cancer and a relationship with Sheryl Crow! You gotta cut the man some slack. . . or something like that. Remember when Andy Petite and Roger Clemens both got into some heat over the steroids thing in the same season? (You may have heard of them, they were on the New York Yankees.) Andy Petite gave his best hangdog expression and aw-gee-wiz’d his way out of the scrape and we still hate Clemens for his defiance.
Which is telling and maybe even a future post. We watch baseball to be entertained, but by more than just the actual mechanics of the game. We want to aspire to be like the players–superhuman on the field and humble and loveable off of it. It’s a tricky field to navigate and those who do it best might not have the best statistics, but have something else that compels us to love him. And of course here I’m thinking about Derek Jeter. (Gee, can you tell which team I like?) I’m sure there are countless examples of guys with pretty good stats that are loved, and I can think of several guys who are supposed to be the best ever that are such jerks that folks just don’t take to them. Ricky Henderson being the most obvious example.
Anyways.
Yes, complaints about Bonds’s personality were part of what I was alluding to regarding other factors playing a role in why people don’t like him. I think you are partly right that we want our baseball heroes to be humble and lovable. I root for those players that fit that category too. But the sport may be more entertaining for the variety of personalities too. If everyone were perfect and humble, how would we manage enough enthusiasm to root against another team? So while Derek Jeter is admirable in many ways as you mention, many people who roots for another team than you needs look no further than up the line at third base to find someone they may vilify. That’s entertainment. Similarly, I suspect feelings about Bonds is affected partly by whether one rooted for the Giants or against them.
Overall, though, my point is that there is a tragic element to Bonds’s situation, even though he made his choices and was who he was. But that’s Shakespearean tragedy all the way.