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As another Barry Bonds grand jury is about to convene, don't we have bigger bogeymen to worry about?
I am going to meet the greatest umpire of all--and He knows I am innocent. --Joe Jackson ay it ain't so, Joe," history has a young boy pleading to Shoeless Joe Jackson as the baseball player left the courthouse during the "Black Sox" scandal trial of 1919. Chicago Daily News writer Charles Owens reported the child's innocently immortal line. The truth is that the words were never uttered. That little piece of American lore was part of the mythmaking of early 20th-century sportswriting. "It just didn't happen," Jackson told Sport Magazine in 1948. "Charley Owens just made up a good story and wrote it. Oh, I would have said it ain't so, just like I'm saying it now." The sentiment was real, though. People didn't want to believe Jackson was guilty of conspiring to help gamblers fix the World Series. They still don't, almost 90 years later. The movie "Field of Dreams" was based on that premise. But most of us seem eager to believe the worst about today's stars, such as baseball's Barry Bonds and Tour de France winner Floyd Landis. There's something perversely satisfying about it. Today, presuming innocence until proved guilty isn't the American way. It's the sap way. In the Old Testament, public stoning is recommended as the means of execution for crimes such as murder, blasphemy, and apostasy. Today, it seems to have been prescribed for the crime of having big biceps and a bad personality. So far, those are the only infractions of which Bonds, alleged steroids user, can be proved guilty. And it's seeming more and more likely that, despite a ridiculous amount of effort by the federal government, he might never be convicted of anything more. This is the same government that recently disbanded a unit assigned to go after Osama bin Laden. But the pursuit of Public Enemy No. 1, Barry Bonds--the most hated man in America--continues. The feds are about to convene yet another Bonds grand jury, continuing three years of fruitless efforts to nail a baseball player who allegedly took an anti-inflammatory drug so he could work out harder. Apparently, those muscles make Bonds a bigger threat to America than the skinny bin Laden. Watch out. Bonds might kick sand in America's face at the beach.
Date published: 8/13/2006
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