Barry Bonds hits 756th homer

Steroid allegations cloud accomplishment

When Barry Bonds hit his 756th home run Tuesday night, becoming baseball's all-time leader, he did more than swing his bat. He took a swing at everything the record represented.

The home-run mark that Babe Ruth established and Hank Aaron broke in 1974 is one of the most meaningful in a society that cherishes its records as much as the athletes who set them. Now, it has been broken by a man many suspect of cheating to do it.

This morning, baseball faces the question that has dogged track and cycling for decades: whether records set through unethical means -- if not technically illegal -- are as valid as the old records.

"If this were the pursuit of a record in another sport where steroids weren't a factor, it wouldn't matter," said Richard Lapchick, director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida. "The all-important thing here is that there will always be a question mark."

Bonds made an unlikely transformation from slight speedster to bulky power hitter, and despite his denials, many think he set this record through the calculated and deliberate use of designer steroids.

Do records set for the sake of setting records mean as much as records set by athletes whose goals are nothing more than the love of the game?

It used to be that records were made to be broken.

Now athletes are made to break records.

Steroids have been a part of sports for decades, but their use became widespread and epidemic during the past 15 years, culminating in the BALCO scandal -- the federal investigation into the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, a company that according to leaked grand jury testimony supplied athletes, including Bonds, with steroids.

By 2005, a congressional committee held hearings as a parade of baseball players dodged questions about steroid use -- although one, Jose Canseco, freely admitted it -- and their reputations were tattered in the aftermath.

"What's happening in baseball is not natural, and it's not right," Sen. Jim Bunning, a Hall of Fame pitcher, said during the hearings.

Perhaps more than any other sport, baseball is defined by statistics, quantifiable across generations and eras. Steroids threaten that continuity. In 1961, Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle pursued Babe Ruth's "unbreakable" record of 60 home runs in a season -- a duel consecrated in memory because of the athletic purity of the pursuit.

When Tiger Woods chases Jack Nicklaus and his 18 majors -- Woods has 12 -- his challenge transcends the now and unites fans of different generations.

"Never once did I look at it and say I want to play five more years so I can pass so-and-so," said former Carolina Hurricanes captain Ron Francis, who is among the top four in the NHL record book in assists, points and games played. "If I still enjoyed playing the game and was having fun, I wanted to do it."

No one doubts the grit, talent and desire that led Pete Sampras to win more grand-slam events than anyone in the history of men's tennis. But Sampras, who says he considers Bonds a friend, admits that Bonds, and baseball, have become enveloped in doubt.

"When the steroid stuff started to come about, and the hearings with Congress, people maybe lost a little faith in the system," Sampras said.

Bonds captured the home-run record during a summer of shame for sports. In July alone, an NBA referee was under investigation for gambling on games he officiated, NFL quarterback Michael Vick pleaded not guilty to a federal charge that he ran a dogfighting ring in Virginia and the leader of the Tour de France was thrown off his team in the middle of the race for dodging drug tests.