| 08 April 2011
Barry Bonds fate was finally put into a jury of his peers' hands yesterday after 11 trial days and 7 and 1/2 years of persecution by the United States Government.
I know most of you are probably on the edge of your seat just waiting for the verdict in such a integral case in our country's history. This case could be pivotal in setting precedence in exactly how to waste millions of our tax dollars in the pursuit of a high-profile athlete who may have lived in an effort to either protect himself or protect a childhood friend.
If you haven't noticed yet I'm a little biased. Being a Barry Bonds fan since I was six, I can only keep rooting for my childhood idol to topple another obstacle on his way to being considered the greatest baseball player of all-time.
I never thought one his obstacles would include United States prosecutors Jeff Nedrow and Matthew Perrella in a courtroom talking about his testicle size though.
Who cares?
That's the question that always gets mentioned when Barry Bonds name is mentioned these days. Who cares?
The trial is almost eight years old, everyone knows Barry used performance enhancing drugs and the majority of us believe that the perjury trial against Mr. Bonds is ridiculous, no matter what side you sit on.
I've cared. Everyday, since the beginning of the trial, I have been following the Twitter feeds of Sports Illustrated senior writer George Dohrmann and ESPN investigations reporter Mark Fainaru-Wada. They both have done a remarkable job bringing live reporting to the forefront of the social media world.
What has been so great about the reporting is the unbiased nature of it.
Both feeds have delivered objective reporting where both the prosecution and defense statements throughout the trial have been quoted to let us see what exactly has been stated. Witness questioning has been transcribed without either reporter's own opinions involved and they've created a 140 character text-based reality to a trial that I've never experienced before.
It made me feel like I was one of jurors.
The ironic part of the entire situation is that while I'm reading hundreds of tweets everyday, experiencing the truth of the trial, I still have to look for the lies. I've realized now that the real subtext of this trial isn't about perjury, it's about corruption, and every party involved in this trial is guilty.
Corruption is everywhere. If someone can find someway to benefit them self and they think they can get away with it than corruption will be involved.
I don't need to go into the details of the trial and try to persuade your thinking one way or another. What I will do is display the corruption that is right in front of our eyes that we seem to miss everyday.
First we have Barry Bonds. The homerun king that never "knowingly" took steroids. Clearly he knew what he was doing and he was corrupt in lying or however he distinguishes his exaggerated truth when he spoke in the BALCO case.
Next we have the US Government who are corrupt in their own right. The government offered immunity to all players who testified in the BALCO case and a year later Barry was targeted. During the trial they have had so many inconsistencies and odd rumblings, including having two of their star witnesses, Steve Hoskins and Kathy Hoskins, in the same room together while Kathy testified. They neglected to pursue an FBI investigation into Steve Hoskins for forging Barry's signature and instead gave Steve Hoskins immunity in return for his testimony in the trial.
Most importantly, they've clearly selected Barry as the poster boy for their investigation and perjury trial when you have someone like Rafael Palmeiro, who sat in front of congress pointing his finger and admonishing steroids saying he never used them and a year later he was suspended by Major League Baseball for doing so.
Where's Raffy's trial?
Lastly, the corruption lies in the reporters that I talked so highly of earlier.
Mark Fainaru-Wada, an "investigative reporter" for ESPN is better known for co-writing the book Game of Shadows with fellow San Francisco Chronicle reporter Lance Williams. The book broke open the BALCO doping scandal and showcased how Barry Bonds was involved. Yet, ESPN still believes that their lead reporter on this trial should be Mark Fainaru-Wada, whose bias is displayed throughout Game of Shadows. It's even more apparent with his most recent article on ESPN, What The Jury Wasn't Told.
Society wants to act like social classes act differently based on income levels or popularity. In actuality we all act the same just in different disciplines.
You can have the star baseball player who lies to protect himself, the US Government who neglects protocol to protect them self and reporters who use their media power to display their own agenda to protect their credibility.
It doesn't matter who makes the most money or who gains the most from it. The President can be as corrupt as the person on welfare.
Corruption isn't always the easiest thing to see. Usually when a little bit is found a much bigger pile is underneath it.
