In 1985, the Pittsburgh Pirates drafted outfielder Barry Bonds out of Arizona State University with the sixth overall pick in the Major League Baseball amateur draft. At the time, Bonds was just a hot prospect and the son of three-time MLB All-Star and Gold Glove winner, Bobby Bonds. Not long after the younger Bonds made his debut, however, Bobby Bonds would come to be known as the father of the great Barry - not the other way around.
Barry Bonds made his major league debut for the Pirates in 1986 and totalled 16 home runs in just 113 at-bats. His most notable statistic during his rookie year, however, was the 36 stolen bases he tallied. In the early days of his career, Bonds was more of a base stealer like his father than the slugger we know him as today. During his seven seasons with the Pirates, he amassed 251 stolen bases and 176 home runs.
Before the 1993 season, Bonds signed as a free agent with his father's team, the San Francisco Giants. Bonds was 28 years old, and with two MVP awards already under his belt, he was an established major league star. During his debut season with the Giants, Bonds hit for a .336 average with 46 homers and 123 RBIs. This stellar season earned Bonds his second consecutive MVP award for the first time in his career. Bonds was clearly something special and many already considered him as one of the all-time greats about to enter his prime, which for baseball players generally occurs between 28 and 32 years old.
Bonds continued to put up huge numbers for the Giants during the late 1990s and entered the 2000 season with 15 years of major league experience, 445 career home runs, 1299 RBIs and 460 stolen bases. With a few more years to play, Bonds was a certain Hall of Famer. Then something inexplicable began to happen. Bonds' next few years - during which he was supposedly well past his prime - were some of the best of his career. In 2001, at 36 years old, Bonds broke Mark McGwire's three-year-old single-season home run record. Bonds belted an unbelievable 73 homers that year, exceeding McGwire's 1998 mark of 70, and Bonds was still not finished. He won MVP again in 2001 and every year after until 2005 when he was 40 years old.
It was in 2005 former slugger Jose Canseco admitted to using steroids during his playing days. In his book "Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits and How Baseball Got Big," Canseco claimed as many as 85 percent of Major League Baseball players used steroids, and he even named a number of them. Bonds became one of the figureheads of the steroid era, as it was seemingly the only explanation for the massive increase in both his power numbers on the baseball diamond and his physical size and the pitch of his voice off of it.
In 2007, Bonds was indicted on four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice. Bonds was a key figure in the BALCO investigations of the Bay Area Company's distribution of anabolic steroids to athletes. His indictment alleges that he lied under oath about his illegal drug use. In 2000, the year before he hit 73 home runs, Bonds reportedly tested positive for steroids.\nFast-forward to March 2011 and the Barry Bonds perjury trial is finally getting underway. It took more than a year to begin the jury selection after a number of appeals, but it occurred Monday and the trial began yesterday. Bonds is not expected to get jail time after professional cyclist Tammy Thomas received house arrest and probation after his similar BALCO hearings.
The part which irks me the most is that Bonds did not need the juice to be great. He was already one of the greatest players of all time. Hank Aaron was celebrated when he broke Babe Ruth's all-time home run record, and Ruth is still remembered today as the first great American athlete. At the end of his career, Bonds was constantly booed on the road as he chased Aaron's 755 home run mark, probably ruined his chances for the Hall of Fame and joined Roger Clemens as one of baseball's biggest steroid villains.
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