BONDS, swearing off steroids
BONDS, swearing off steroids
July 19, 2007
The three Chicago organizers call their initiative BONDS, short for Battle On for No Drug Sports. It's an effort to celebrate Hank Aaron's imperiled home run record, which, the organizers say "should stand the test of time or true effort, not the test of laboratory strength."
BONDS. Why does that sound familiar?
Anyway, attorneys Marty Dolan and Bob Milan, along with public-relations executive Bill Figel, are pals who think of themselves as "The Three Concerned Dads" of Little League ballplayers. While the rest of us are debating grown-up concepts of hallowed sports achievements and scarlet asterisks to identify cheaters in record books, these three have been thinking about their impressionable kids, and other people's too. What those kids see on television varies from denunciation to celebration of cheaters. Kids being kids, they focus on the celebration. Wow! Somebody's going to top Hank Aaron!
The BONDS organizers and a cluster of allies showed up Tuesday night at Wrigley Field, where the Cubs happened to be hosting the San Francisco Giants. Fancy that. The BONDS fans didn't throw hissy fits or otherwise demand attention. The most provocative BONDS gesture had those fans wearing BONDS T-shirts emblazoned with a tribute to Aaron's career homer total: "755 -- Without the Juice." That's the sort of athletic endorsement that BONDS promotes.
BONDS invites youngsters to visit a Web site -- www.withoutthejuice.com -- and sign a pledge "never to take steroids to enhance my sports performance. . . . I will say 'no' to those who tell me steroids will help me be a better player. I will try and stop my friends who are tempted by steroids. . . . "
The nifty twist: BONDS wants kids to print out their pledges and mail them to Hank Aaron in care of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum,
25 Main St., Cooperstown, N.Y. 13326.
Will many kids take the time to take the pledge? Probably not without encouragement from parents or grandparents who explain the dangers (and ubiquitous availability) of steroids and who help get the pledge signed, sealed and delivered.
Imagine the impact of this new BONDS initiative: an outspoken rejection of performance-enhancing drugs and the professional cheaters who use them. BONDS not just rejecting steroids, but persuading others to reject them.
Imagine, too, the look on Aaron's face if the folks in Cooperstown forward to him an inundation of pledges from kids who admire the way he won his home run title: without the juice.
