In the previous piece, I outlined my own dilemma regarding the issue of PEDs in sport, and asked what it is that we, as fans, seek in sport. There is no easy answer to this. While working the idea over in my head, I was reminded of one occasion where I was a spectator at a sporting event when forty-two thousand people knew that the hero of the piece was a cheat, but cheered nonetheless.
It was June 27th, 2007, in San Francisco. AT+T Park is one of the most picturesque sports venues in the world. Overlooking the Bay, there is nowhere else you'd rather be on a sunny day in Frisco. So, while 42,527 people came along for a matinee game to enjoy the bluest of skies, the meeting of the Giants and Padres had a greater interest. Barry Bonds.
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Barry Bonds had taken the single season home run record in 2001 when he launched 73 chemically enhanced shots at the age of 36 for the Giants. Bonds' late career home run surge was highly improbable. His career was easily Hall of Fame worthy before he began taking PEDs in 1999, but what happened thereafter was the stuff of computer games. Bonds' guilt was widely known by 2007. The exposé, Game of Shadows, was published in 2006 and told the story of the BALCO scandal with overwhelming evidence suggesting that he had taken PEDs. He had told a Federal Grand Jury in 2003 that he had never knowingly taken such drugs, a stance which would see him indicted for perjury in late 2007.
Bonds was known to be a cheat. By the summer of 2007 he was closing in on one of the few remaining hallowed records in baseball's history, being Hank Aaron's all time home run record of 755 career shots.
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Bonds came into the June 27th game against the Padres with 749 career home runs. Every one of his at-bats became a national event. Whenever he came to the plate, the national sports broadcaster ESPN cut to the Giants game, hoping to catch a little piece of history.
Bonds did not start the game against the Padres. He was given a routine day off. This led to huge disappointment amongst the majority of fans present. It was clear that, despite the charms of AT+T Park, the overwhelming bulk of spectators were there to see Bonds edge closer to a place in history. An illegitimate place in history.
The game was a good one. Future Hall of Famer Greg Maddux (who one would like to think will never be implicated in any PED scandal) rolled back the years for the Padres and pitched like it was 1996. He was opposed by Matt Cain, a promising young fireballer, pitched well for the Giants. It was a classic pitchers duel, played out in the glare of the early afternoon sun in the Bay. It was perfect. But something did not seem quite right. People still longed to see Barry Bonds.
With two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, the Giants were down by two runs, and very much on their last legs. Manager Bruce Bochy rolled the dice and brought up two pinch hitters. The first, Mark Sweeney, would have to try to get on base to enable the second, Barry Lamar Bonds, to come to the dish at all.
The crowd went nuts. Everybody stood on their feet. Not to cheer Sweeney on, but to catch a glimpse of Bonds in the on deck circle taking his practice swings. People began cheering for him, almost oblivious to the fact that Sweeney had to do something first before Bonds could even enter the game. As the crowd reached a crescendo, Sweeney grounded out meekly to second base, and the game was over.
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While Major League Baseball, and most baseball fans, found Bonds' pursuit of the all time home run record to be an irritant at best, fans in San Francisco still flocked to the park to cheer on the man who had been their hero for many years. They knew he was a cheat, they knew his 'record' was not done on the level in the same way as Hank Aaron or Babe Ruth, and they cheered all the same. So to the question: what do fans seek in sport?Is it escapism? Is the sense of history in sport - and especially in American sports - so pronounced that people are desperate to say that they were part of a 'historic' event, even when deep down they know that it was not a 'legitimate' piece of history (in the sense that the record was chemically enhanced)? Or do people simply want to see the freakshow?
I think that, in this case at least, the sense of 'history' that came with Bonds' pursuit of the record was enough for people to block out the bad stuff which had been reported in Game of Shadows. Is that what spectators seek in watching sport then - a sense of occasion or importance, no matter how false it may be? In this case, I think that was true.
