Barry Bonds And Human Nature

"Who do you believe in?
I put my faith in God, blessed and still breathin
And even though it's hard, that's who I believe in
Before I'm leavin, I'm askin the grievin - who do you believe in?" - TS


This whole Barry Bonds saga has really got me thinking about certain things. Specifically, about human nature and behavior. Weird, I know, but hear me out on this one.

It really baffles me how certain people can be on Barry's side when all the evidence in the world points to him reaching 757* unfairly. What I mean is, how can these people just blatantly ignore all the warning signs and just believe. Just believe that he did it fairly, or without performance enhancing drugs, or that he really didn't know he was using them. Then, I realized, this is the same component of human nature that leads to the belief in religion.

Faith.

There are many definitions of this word, but one that rings true in this case would be:
"Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. "

But the commentary does not stop here. It is more than faith. Almost all in baseball, players and fans, can agree that Bonds was a great player from the start of his career. Before his "alleged" steroid use, he was a two time MVP, had 480 homers, became the only member of the 400-400 club, etc. Then the abuse started. Many fans jumped off the Bondswagon, but the loyal ones in San Fran stayed on. Why?

Logical proof or material evidence would point to Barry's bigger head, biceps and shoe size as evidence for wrong doing. They would also point to super-human production from someone that age. When you hit 186 homers in your "prime" years from 30 to 35, and THEN hit 258 homers in your "wind down" years from 36-40, something has to be up!

Well, not so think those in the Ba(rr)y Area. And here is the reason beyond faith why I think why:

Those Giants fans have loved Barry for so long that they cannot go against those years. They have had the utmost faith in his abilities for close to 14 years now. Jumping off the Bondswagon now would betray their beliefs during that time and that is an extremely hard thing to do.

Just with religion that takes kids at such an early age and starts preparing them for their blind faiths, baseball took San Franciscoans and brainwashed them to put their faith into Barry. That is why now they cannot possibly hate him. They cannot possibly boo him like those fans in Anaheim did when they heard he killed Hank's record and moved to 756*. Religious people cannot possibly turn their backs on their faiths because that would mean that everything believed and were taught to believe would be a lie. And how can you reconcile living a huge part of your life under a lie. You cannot (or maybe you can but with much difficulty), or in many cases, you do not want to. Imagine how much easier it is to live your life without asking questions.

Imagine how much easier it is to live your life without asking questions.

Imagine how much easier it is to live your life without asking questions. Without questioning what you were taught, without questioning your beliefs, without questioning Barry, or Bush, or this democracy we live in, or 9/11, or JFK, or the CIA. We do this all the time. We just live. We think about what to wear, who to call, what to do at work, what not to do. We do not question, we leave that to others. But if we leave the questioning to others, when will we ever grow or become true to ourselves?

Think about it. Then ask some questions.