It’s not often that I can load up The Hardball Times web site and say, “Aha! You’re wrong, buddy — wrong!” but Christmas Eve 2008 is such a day. Self-described “Baseball ethicist” Jack Marshall penned a column supporting the continued joblessness of one Barry Lamar Bonds, baseball’s all-time career home run leader. Yes, that Barry Bonds, he of the career OPS+ of 182 including 156 and 170 in 367 and 340 at-bats in 2007 and ‘08, respectively. Unarguably the greatest offensive player of his era and arguably the greatest of all time.

Bonds’ haters, as well as many general managers around baseball, clung to the mantra that the seven-time NL MVP award winner’s injury problems were just too worrisome and that his abrasive personality creates too much conflict in the clubhouse. Of course, before pitchers and catchers report, we will see both Manny Ramirez and Milton Bradley (who tore his ACL arguing with an umpire when he was with the San Diego Padres in 2007) sign impressive contracts.

All of the arguments that support Bonds’ unemployment are rife with hypocrisy and it becomes plain to see that the arguments were never meant to be logical in the first place. With the help of the mainstream media, we have learned to accept without hesitation that Barry Bonds is a selfish, evil man who is single-handedly destroying baseball’s past, present, and future. Just as eagerly, we accepted that steroids and other “performance-enhancing drugs” are bad and should be outlawed, and that Bonds had incessantly consumed them throughout his career. Nevermind evidence — guilty until proven innocent, right?

This is going to be a long column, so let this be the point where I pause and allow you to click that red X at the top-right corner of your screen, or you can grab a snack.

Ready?

As an “ethicist,” Marshall spends a lot of time in his article willingly ignoring the tangible benefits Bonds would bring to any organization — most notably those things that get counted under the “W” column — and instead focusing on the intangible.

Marshall writes, “baseball is the one professional sport that carries with it a duty to the American culture…What it does have that no other professional sport even values very much is integrity, or at least an appreciation that integrity is important.”

Since when has Major League Baseball ever had a duty to anyone other than its owners and stockholders? And since when has it been such a beacon of integrity? Baseball is, after all, the sport that banned blacks until 1947. Babe Ruth, baseball’s most recognizable icon, was a louse! Ty Cobb was a despicable human being, yet lives on in a shining light in baseball lore.

Just as easily as Marshall can cite Adam “Pacman” Jones as an example of embraced immorality in the NFL, I can cite Elijah Dukes or Brett Myers or Brian Giles or Josh Hamilton (everybody’s favorite hero!). The bottom line is that there really is no difference between any professional sports league and their place in the moral spectrum.

“Football and basketball want to sell merchandise to kids. Baseball wants to be an example for kids (and sell merchandise).”

That’s right kids! If you get upset, you can stomp over to the person you’re upset at and yell right in his face. Kick dirt on his shoes… pick stuff up and throw it around. Punch stuff! That’s what baseball players do: they set great examples for kids.

Finally back to the subject of Bonds, Marshall cites the Mitchell Report, which had exactly zero evidence that Bonds ever used steroids or HGH. There hasn’t been any evidence — besides anecdotal, of course, which has the same validity as Chuck. E. Cheese currency does at the bank — that Bonds has ever used steroids or HGH. Marshall never cites any passage of the Mitchell Report that provides evidence (in fact, throughout his accusatory column, he never cites any evidence whatsoever), unless you count that when he pressed Ctrl +F and searched for “Bonds” he got 95 hits! “Selig” comes up 84 times. Brothers in crime, no?

Marshall then makes the insidious argument that it’s just fine to sign mediocre players who have been proven to have used illegal substances, but it’s not okay to sign a historically-great player who has never been proven to have used illegal substances. In his previous paragraph, Marshall had talked about Bonds’ supporters ignoring “logical mass” (that logical mass being evidence that he had used illegal subtances). Pot, have you met Kettle? Marshall even justifies Paul Byrd’s “minimal” use of PED’s.

His point, though, was that Bonds symbolizes the Steroid Era. To sign Bonds would be to tacitly support everything that went on in the Steroid Era. Is it the same with Jason Giambi, an admitted user of illegal substances who will get paid this off-season just as he has every season since his Major League career began?

Of course, all of these arguments Marshall is using hinge on the assumption that Bonds actually used illegal substances. Bonds has only once been suspended for use of an illegal substance (January 2007), but it was not HGH or steroids — it was amphetamines. If you want to demonize Bonds for his use of amphetamines, go right ahead (as long as you also demonize Mike Schmidt, Willie Mays, and Willie Stargell as well), there is solid evidence for that (although the results of Bonds’ drug test was wrongfully leaked by the New York Daily News). However, if you want to demonize him for steroid or HGH use, present the evidence. They’ve been trying to nab Bonds for a few years and all attempts have come up empty. Even the federal indictments have been weak, and have been decreasing in number as the world turns.

All of the pseudo-arguments that “prove” that Bonds used steroids, such as “he looks like he used steroids” (just like Maher Arar looked like a terrorist) or “his numbers jumped like a steroid user’s numbers would jump” (so did Roger Maris’ from 1960 to ‘61) are bunk science.

Consider that Major League Baseball has been testing its players since 2003, and Barry Bonds has been in Major League Baseball from 2003-2007. Never once has Bonds tested positive for steroids and it’s never been reported that he skipped out on a test. So, if Bonds never tested positive in that time period, it means that he wasn’t using steroids, right? Wouldn’t we expect a decline in his statistics? Excluding 2005, when he played in just 14 games (and still had a 174 OPS+), he put up a 156 or better OPS+ since drug testing was implemented, including 156 and 170 in his age 41 and 42 seasons.

Steroids don’t last forever, so once you get off steroids, it’s not like you keep the magical abilities they supposedly give a baseball player. For Bonds-haters to justify his success between 2003-07, they have to make the assumption that the substances Bonds was allegedly using were undetectable. And that’s the point where they have to present to you their evidence, yet again (expect to leave empty-handed). Or they can say that Bonds’ success from 2003-07 was done with his natural talent.

The four-year stretch where Bonds put up an OPS+ over 200 occurred from 2001-04, meaning that two of those historic seasons came before the drug-testing and two came afterwards. In other words, there’s no correlation in Bonds’ greatest years between drug-testing and his success.

How do you explain the success he’s had throughout his entire career if there is absolutely no correlation found?

There’s also the matter of proving that these illegal substances are, in fact, performance-enhancing. Certainly Alex Sanchez wouldn’t argue that steroids enhanced his performance. Ryan Franklin’s best seasons came after he tested positive. Jorge Piedra wonders why steroids didn’t help him earn any more than 262 Major League at-bats.

These substances aren’t performance-enhancing just because Major League Baseball says they are. And their illegality doesn’t justify anything other than that Major League Baseball has authoritative power.

Once we determine if these substances are performance-enhancing, we must determine why they are performance-enhancing. For instance, let’s follow some of the logic the anti-steroids crowd will use:

• Steroids enhance the player’s eyesight: So do sunglasses and contacts (especially Maxsight contacts, which Brian Roberts, among others, have openly admitted to using).
• Steroids build muscle mass that wasn’t achieved naturally: What definition of “natural” are we using? If it’s unnatural if you consume a substance that spurs protein synthesis (which is what anabolic steroids do), then isn’t it equally as unnatural to consume protein shakes or eggs? If it’s unnatural to consume a substance that was artificially created in a lab, then isn’t it equally as unnatural for a player to take an aspirin or a vitamin?
• Steroids are harmful: So are cigarettes, alcohol, motorcycles (ask Ben Roethlisberger), fast food, legal prescription and over-the-counter drugs, box cutters (ask Adam Eaton), etc.

In order for the illegality of these substances to be justified, it must be logically consistent and unhypocritical. If we outlaw steroids because they enhance the player’s eyesight, then we also have to outlaw sunglasses and Maxsight contacts. If we are going to outlaw steroids because they help the player build muscle mass that wasn’t achieved naturally, then we must also ban protein shakes, eggs, aspirins, and vitamins. In other words, we have a lot of players to condemn besides just Barry Lamar Bonds, and we have a lot of stuff to ban besides steroids, HGH, and amphetamines.

Cultural lag is the incongruence between technology and morality. That is the problem we face with drugs right now, not just in Major League Baseball but in society as a whole. Arthur C. Clarke stated that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” We can’t tell the difference between steroids and that saw-a-lady-in-half trick.

Of course, Bonds makes it so easy for us to hate him and point our fingers at him. He’s not the most cuddly ballplayer on or off the field but let’s remember that very few of us have ever met the guy for any length of time where it becomes acceptable to make assumptions about the kind of person he is.

It’s not surprising that the ideology Marshall seems to espouse is virtue ethics, easily the most flimsy of moral philosophies — it’s circular logic. What is a virtuous act? It is an act which a virtuous person would not avoid doing. What is a virtuous person? Someone who performs virtuous acts. The virtue ethicist then plugs in whatever he or she believes to be virtuous and exclaims, “Voila!” It is utterly convenient for someone who has taken a stance one way or another, and at the same time does not advance us in our understanding of the morality of an issue.

There is no definitive answer to the question “Is the use of steroids or HGH immoral?” We understand too little about the subject and pretend to know too much. Instead of knee-jerk legislation and figurehead demonization, let’s admit that we’re still dipping our toes in the pool on this issue. To pretend that outlawing steroids and HGH, and keeping Barry Bonds out of baseball will rid not just Major League Baseball but the United States of America of its drug problems is nothing if not naive.

Did we think banning Pete Rose from baseball for betting on sports would rid us of our “gambling problem”? It didn’t work. Sports betting is an extremely lucrative industry and has only grown now that it’s commonplace for American homes to have at least one computer with Internet access. Poker has been televised on ESPN and ESPN2, FSN (or Comcast SportsNet in some areas), the Travel Channel, Bravo!, NBC, and the Game Show Network.

Prohibition only intensifies the problem, as the prohibition of alcohol from 1920-33 and the still ongoing War on Drugs (the only war that has failed more miserably than the War in Iraq) will testify.

There is no panacea to the issues that come with these substances. We need to turn from Superman back into Clark Kent, and simply find out as much as we can about these substances and formulate logically-driven solutions to these issues. No need to rewrite history by blotting out Barry Bonds’ name or make knee-jerk decisions like colluding and preventing him from signing with a Major League organization.

In due time, we will realize how badly Bonds has been treated by the public and the media. There will be no way to undo the damage to his name and reputation, and no way to compensate him. Bonds had a reputation for not being warm to the fans and media. Little did we know that with our behavior we’d be justifying every ill feeling he ever had.