Please, save baseball, bud

You’ve got seven home runs left to make a difference, Bud Selig.

Tim Brosnan, the executive… You’ve got seven home runs left to make a difference, Bud Selig.

Tim Brosnan, the executive vice president of business of Major League Baseball, said earlier this week that MLB would celebrate Barry Bonds’ 715th home run, should it occur. Bonds currently sits at 708 career homers, leaving just a handful before he can pass the immortal Babe Ruth’s mark of 714 and move into second on the all-time home run list behind Hank Aaron.

You can’t just ignore this, Bud. You have to stop the man, and you now have the tools to do it.

“Game of Shadows” – a book detailing Barry Bonds’ steroid use – came out earlier this month. At that time, you said baseball might have to investigate, and you seemed like you might just follow through. But now you seem wishy-washy about what you want to do.

Please, don’t back down now. Go after this guy. Bonds is a scar on the body of baseball right now, and he’s seven home runs away from breaking a record he shouldn’t even be near. Seven home runs, and he passes Babe Ruth. Seven home runs, and he has gotten away with more than anyone to have ever played the game.

Yes, Aaron is still dozens of home runs beyond that at 755, but this is still important. It’s probably the most famous second-best statistic in all of sports.

You can keep it that way. The book outlines in vivid detail Bonds’ steroid regimen, and he and his lawyers practically gave you a license to kill. When they sued over the book’s publishing, they didn’t sue for libel. Instead, they focused on the book’s use of illegally obtained grand jury testimony.

In short, Bonds isn’t taking issue with the fact that he used steroids. This is begging to be addressed, and you need to address it, Bud!

You know what folks did when suspicions arose that Pete Rose was gambling? They investigated him. And do you remember what happened? They banned him for life. And they did so with less than what you have to work with.

When Bart Giamatti sat down in 1989 to launch an investigation of Pete Rose, he didn’t do it after he had already built a case against Rose. He launched his investigation because rumors had been circulating for months about his gambling, according to a USA Today interview with John Dowd, the lead investigator in the case.

Let’s for the moment assume that “Game of Shadows” is all just rumors. Fine. That means there are more than 200 rumors in the book. That should be more than enough by Major League Baseball investigatory standards. And you can level any punishment you want, one without precedence. You can put the bar where you’ve wanted it all along – high.

Sure, you’ll face criticism. I understand that it would be hard to set this standard and then not pursue others who have used/are suspected of using steroids. But ignore the people saying, “Don’t investigate Bonds so heavily if you’re not going to do anything like this to those who actually tested positive.”

He’s on a whole different scale. The people who tested positive already paid with 10-game suspensions. For most of those guys – with the exception of one notable finger-wagger – that’s pretty harsh, given where their careers will go. Ten games means a lot to them because they probably aren’t going to be turning out terribly long careers in the majors.

Bonds will rank with Hall of Famers. He could break the records of some of the greatest players in the history of the American Pastime, wind up with more homers than Ruth, maybe even Aaron. Put that against the other steroid users who were busted. How do they compare?

Hey man, I just read that if Ryan Franklin doesn’t stop doping, he might end up with more career wins than Bob Patterson, maybe even Bruce Chen!

Just make it happen, Bud. You do this, and your approval rating skyrockets. You’ve currently got a lot in your legacy – three divisions, the Wild Card, interleague play, All-Star Games determining home-field advantage in the World Series. You’ve made a lot of significant changes to the game that would all pale in comparison to what you do here.

You can save baseball.

Lots of people thought the game recovered from the 1994 strike when Big Mac and Slammin’ Sammy slugged it out in the ’98 home run race. But the more we uncover about steroids, the more we realize that amazing summer is less and less amazing. Mark McGwire doesn’t want to talk about the past, and Sammy “I swear, I only use Flintstones Vitamins” Sosa won’t answer anything about steroids.

Plus, Bonds went and broke McGwire’s record anyway. All that fun is starting to disappear behind a fog of steroids. The fog is thin right now, but as drug tests nail more people, it’s becoming a lot thicker. If you make an example of Bonds, and don’t let him reach this milestone, you break up the fog, and baseball can finally be looking at a cloudless sky.

You can be Kenesaw Mountain Landis reincarnate. You take out cheating and you send one of the most powerful messages in the history of baseball.

Steroids is the biggest scandal since the Black Sox, and if you put away Bonds, you’ll be remembered as the man who made sure it didn’t get any bigger. You’ll be a hero.

But you’ve only got seven home runs left.

Brian Weaver is the assistant sports editor for The Pitt News. E-mail him at bweaves_pittnews@hotmail.com.