Straight Clownin'

"Just made it by hair on my chinny chin chin"

Seven years ago all Barry Bonds had to do was say, "Yes I took steroids" and he wouldn't be news today. Instead, a federal court jury found the home run king guilty of obstruction of justice Wednesday for giving an evasive answer under oath in late 2003. Rather than say "yes" or "no" to whether he received drugs that required a syringe, Bonds gave a rambling response to a grand jury, stating: "I became a celebrity child with a famous father."

Let's keep it real, the question in major league baseball is who's not taking steroids. We've seen over the years that everybody that's been relevant in the game has admitted to or have been accused of using drugs. The most common excuse is, "I had an injury and was trying to recover" etc. That's all Barry had to say and he'd probably still be playing or would just be retiring.

Alex Rodriguez played the I didn't know role and kept driving. It should have been as simple as that for Bonds. Sammy Sosa acted like he couldn't speak English and brought an interpreter. Mark McGuire played crazy when asked if he used drugs but he didn't lie. He just played crazy and said that he didn't come here to talk about the past which was pure genius. Especially if you didn't want to go to jail for lying to the grand jury.

 Instead, Bonds wanted to be difficult and kept lying while sitting in front of a panel with a bigger hat on and bigger shoes. He looked like a clown. How does a grown man's feet and head get bigger well into his thirties? I know the grand jury wanted to fight him for saying that he wasn't on drugs sitting there looking like pumpkin head and Bozo The Clown by the feet.

Now I will say this, his boy Greg Anderson held him down throughout the entire ordeal by refusing to testify. Either that or he was scared to death of what would happen if he had testified. All I know is that the prosecution needed Anderson and he was cool with sitting in jail. It's just my opinion but Bonds is probably going to break him off with a very large duffel bag sometime this week with a "good looking out" bear hug.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston declared a mistrial on the three charges that Bonds made false statements when he told a grand jury in December 2003 that he never knowingly received steroids and human growth hormone from trainer Greg Anderson and that he allowed only doctors to inject him.

"Didn't need it"

With that being said he'll probably never see any jail time for the waste of time this has all been for him. Could you imagine going to federal prison for lying to the grand jury? I mean how do you tell the other inmates that and still be cool? Guys are sitting around talking about money laundering,  drug trafficking across interstate lines etc and Bonds joins in with, "Man they asked me a question and I just straight up lied to them and didn't break". What?

Even though we all know that it's against the rules to take steroids. How do you convince a twenty year old kid that may be on the verge of not making a team that would potentially pay him tens of millions of dollars in the very near future? When he knows that most of the people that he's competing with are using for the same reason. Does he follow the rule and not make it or does he take the drugs? I know what the right answer is but I'm not twenty years old and desperate to play baseball. Once these guys get into the culture that greed and desperation seems not to go away.

At the end of the day my six famous words come into play, "Do What You're Supposed To Do".  Those words will always save your life, marriage and other relationships and your career.

Jay Graves
jaygraves@thejaygravesreport.com
Follow me on Twitter: @jaygravesreport
Information from the Associated Press was used in this article.