Ah, you never know exactly what will happen when you ask old players about (relatively) young players, as an anonymous AP writer discovered when he asked Hall of Fame catchers Gary Carter and Johnny Bench about Barry Bonds.
Carter's a realist: "I know he likes to go to the gym. We all like to go to the gym. You just don't get that big."
Bench has his head in the sand:
Bench, who played in the same group with Carter this weekend at the American Century Celebrity Golf Tournament at Lake Tahoe, doesn't understand why Bonds is being singled out when there are so many players who have been accused of taking steroids.
"They still haven't found him guilty of anything," Bench said.
"Have there been guys who are probably guilty? Probably so. And your wife has probably had a face lift or [breast implants] or a tummy tuck. We're all trying to do performance enhancement every day. Tiger Woods got LASIK surgery. Is that performance enhancing?
"If I could take HGH, I would in a heartbeat because I want to live longer," said Bench, who turns 60 in December and has a 15-month-old son. "I want to be as good as I can possibly be."
Bench apparently leads the league in eyebrow-raising asides, but leaving those asides aside, does he really not see any difference between LASIK and steroids? One of those things is legal, and not against the rules of the game. The other is illegal and against the rules of the game. Now, one can certainly argue over the merits and ethical questions regarding both. But to suggest an equivalence is intellectually lazy. And from a man with the wisdom of 60 years and the responsibility of a 15-month-old son, I would hope for better.
Rob Neyer
