Bonds knows how to walk
Our society has seen a massive increase of judicial cases. It seems this is perhaps most common in the world of athletes, where seemingly everyday one of these “”idols”” is (rightfully or wrongfully) accused of something illegal. Nonetheless, with all these cases, each one still manages to muster up attention and never fades away into a blasé state. The case de jour is the Barry Bonds perjury trial.
In short, and for those of you who are legitimately completely ignorant of the world around you, Bonds is a baseball player who suddenly saw a sky rocket not only in his athletic performance, but also in his shirt, neck, and hat size. Seriously, this guy went from Lil Wayne to 50 Cent in a year. Oh, I’m sorry, for all you “”Twilight”” fans out there he went from pasty guy to his furry friend. I’m not sure of the names, but you get the point; he got swole fast!
Many assumed Bonds was taking steroids and after a raid of BALCO facilities, a steroid-producing company, his name supposedly appeared on several of their documents. Bonds was questioned in a federal investigation in 2003 and said he never knowingly took steroids.
Fast forward almost 10 years and, after more investigations, you’ve got yourself a high-profile perjury trial. What’s most interesting about this is the seemingly low level of faith of a real conviction in the public sector. The government has already re-written its indictment of Bonds three times. The case has met several delays, and the prosecution has had several pieces of evidence dismissed from the case.
While there are up-in-the-air types of cases all the time with athletes where it seems that they just might be innocent, this one just has a different feel to it. The closest comparison is the OJ Simpson case. Of course, taking a little muscle juice in the aft end every couple of weeks to hit the “”long-ball”” and lying about it are not nearly as bad as murdering someone. This case just feels like a “”everyone knows you’re guilty”” case.
Bonds will most likely get off and every baseball purist will cry, but on a much more important level, the guilty man walks and the federal government (at least this time the judicial branch) looks more incompetent. I guess it is fitting though. Bonds already holds the intentional walks record in baseball, walking away cleanly in this one would just be expected.
— Storm Byrd is a political science sophomore.
