Not too many rational Bonds pieces can be found. (If you know of some, please send them our way) I happened upon one on award-winning writer Dave Zirin’s page, Edge Of Sports. The Starting Five did a great interview with Zirin not too long ago, so check that if you want better insight into his general sports positions and ideas.

“Bonds-bashing: bad sport” points out the absurdity of comparisons and criticisms of Bonds alone as the end-all evil-doer in all things steroids. Zirin doesn’t defend Bonds so much as he points out how the FBI, MLB and critics tend to single out Bonds as a “cheater” much more than they do other players. On the steroids point, he makes a fun food-comparison and offers a quote from a late-great Negro Leagues star:

Yes, the man is plagued by suspicions of steroid use. But despising a pro athlete for using performance-enhancing drugs is like hating a chef for cooking with trans fats. As the late Buck O’Neil, the Negro Leagues star, said, “The only reason we didn’t use steroids is we didn’t have them.”

ESPN’s Jemele Hill called for a “smiting” from The Almighty on Bonds and compares the upcoming situation of breaking Hank Aaron’s all-time home run record to the OJ Simpson trial. Hopefully she is referring to the racial divide and not comparing the situation of steroids to double-homicide (as Zirin points out as well), but maybe yelling at Skip Bayless day-after-day is starting to have an effect on her…