King Kaufman's Sports Daily

Barry Bonds' first hit just missed going out, so he must be off the juice, right? Sure, life's just that simple.

Sep 14, 2005 | Several readers wrote to say they found it amusing that in his first game back after missing most of the season with a knee injury, Barry Bonds almost hit a home run in his first at-bat, settling for a double off the top of the left-center-field fence, then later hit a fly ball that would have been a homer in most parks but was an out in SBC Park's vast right-center field.

What was amusing was what I left unsaid: If Bonds were still on steroids, that baby would have been gone!

I left it unsaid for the same reason I leave a lot of things unsaid: I didn't think it was true.

I'll let reader Tim Potter stand in for the small group -- I'm probably making more of them than I should, but I love this subject -- who expressed this sentiment:

"It's funny that you say 'Later in the game he hit a fly ball to deepest right-center that would have been a home run in most parks,'" he writes. "I say it's funny because you miss the obvious point. In past years when Bonds was pumped full of steroids, that would have been a home run. He would have hit it 40 feet farther.

"But it is more of the typical fawning you display when writing about Bonds. Next thing we know you'll be nominating him for this year's MVP."

Well, second point first, the Giants are undefeated with Bonds in the lineup.

But seriously, is this how we're supposed to think about Barry Bonds for the rest of our lives? That without steroids, he'd have been nothing?

Just as I didn't know that Bonds had taken steroids before his grand jury testimony was leaked, I don't know now that he's off them.

He was reportedly tested in September 2004 and May 2005, and while baseball takes its sweet time handing down suspensions, it presumably would have gotten around to doing so by now if Bonds had failed. But all a passed steroid test means is that Bonds isn't taking anything the tests know how to turn up.

For all my fawning, I'm not giving Bonds the same benefit of the doubt that his critics seem to be giving him.

I also am going to guess that this benefit of the doubt will dry up as soon as Bonds hits his first homer. The difference between the presumption of current innocence or guilt for Bonds is those few inches by which his first fly ball failed to clear the fence. It's absurd.

Next Page: Imagining a Barry Bonds without steroids

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