Frontpage Features

BY MAX BERMAN

How would you feel if you spent your whole career trying to break a record and you never had a chance because you were competing with a cheater? Or, if you held baseball's greatest record and it was broken by someone who cheated?  Well that's what Barry Bonds did to his fellow players.

Bonds admitted using performance enhancing drugs, but not knowingly so. This is of course is after he broke baseball's and Hank Aaron's home run record. Now Aaron sits in second place on the career home run list behind a proven cheater.

An ongoing debate is, what to do about Bonds' baseball records? Not only his home run record, but what about his MVP trophies? Should he still be able to hold on to them? Does Bonds still get to sit atop the baseball world?

The first time I met and spoke with Bonds was at a San Francisco Giants spring training session.  As he walked from the batting cage to the dugout where I was sitting I ran up to him. At the time I was eleven years old.  I knew who he was and so I approached him with pencil and paper.  I wanted to be able to say I met and got Barry Bonds' autograph. How cool would it be to be eleven years old and show my friends Barry Bonds' autograph? Six years later, it's not so great.

When I met Bonds I didn't even know what a performance enhancing drug is, and certainly didn't know Bonds was using them. I just knew I was beyond excited to meet him. Every kid wants to meet their sports hero, such as Kobe Bryant or Brett Favre, or at the time Bonds. People, especially kids look up to their sports heroes. I remember having my day made when Bonds signed a piece of paper for me. Now I find myself upset.

I'm sure you're wondering what I think should happen to Bonds' record.  I believe his records weren't fairly achieved and they should be taken away.  Bonds wasn't the only baseball player to use performance enhancing drugs at the time.  So if Bonds loses his records, it's only fair that every baseball record holder or top baseball player should be tested to see if they cheated too.

I'm Max Berman and that's what I think.