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LINCICOME: Despite the stain, we still cheer

Published June 25, 2007 at midnight

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For the moment, Sammy Sosa has taken the heat off Barry Bonds, and Jason Giambi has diverted concern for the possible sins of both while baseball waits to see if Giambi can truly talk only about himself to Bud Selig's feeble steroids inquiry.

It does seem as if steroids have become so much loose change, tossed into a jar, piling up without thought, to be cashed in eventually, but in no rush.

Sosa's 600th home run caused a brief flurry of what-ifs, the consensus being that Hall of Fame admittance is now Sosa's, as if had he stopped at 599 there would have been no chance.

Bonds creeps at a petty pace toward Henry Aaron, the certainty obscuring the attached suspicions.

The closer Bonds gets, as was obvious with the celebration of Sosa's milestone, the louder will be the applause. This is because sports fans want to celebrate greatness, want to witness grand spectacle, want to give even crooks their moment.

We are suckers for our own dreams and our own gullibility. We still watch wrestling and preseason football, after all.

Anyone who saw Pete Rose's record-breaking hit does not now regret the emotions it brought, the satisfaction it produced, because Rose has since become an outcast.

In a sport still distant and negligible, no matter the fascination triggered by Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France, we were awestruck by the very core of the case against Floyd Landis, his heroic conquering of Alp after Alp.

We may not understand the nuances of the complaint against Landis and we might very well believe he is a cheater and a fraud, but the day of his glory is fixed forever to anyone who witnessed it.

There was shared delight in these great achievements, just as there was with Mark McGwire's 62nd home run, not so much with Bonds' 71st but certainly more than will be there for his 756th. Whatever else is the case, these men did legendary things, and not the greatest cynic among us will dismiss the actual moment as unthrilling.

If we later learn the whole truth, and we never will, here is also the truth. Rose hit that pitch to pass Ty Cobb. McGwire smacked that homer to beat Roger Maris. Bonds will exceed Aaron.

All that can alter any of this is to erase it altogether, like Ben Johnson's Olympic medal or, most probably, Landis' yellow jersey.

And even then official disgrace will not erase embedded memory. Like toothpaste, a gasp can never be put back.

Imagine a winning touchdown called back because of a petty penalty. Happens over and over. The cheers that roared for the feat are forever, as are the groans that follow. The skill and execution of the play are no less worthy just because it was disallowed.

All of this is by way of concluding that it is OK to feel good about the Summer of '98 and that happy act that Sosa and McGwire did.

I have wrestled with my own part in this, as I think every sportswriter of the time and especially those with a Hall of Fame vote should.

Questions were raised about androstenedione and McGwire, but in my mind I never supposed anything greatly illegal or dishonest was going on. If I thought of it at all, I put it in with those other baseball chicaneries, like scuffed baseballs and stealing signs and the occasional corked bat.

The corked bat would come to vex Sosa, but no more greatly than -McGwire's grim reluctance to play nice with Congress. Somehow McGwire's acting in Washington as antagonistically as he always did in the clubhouse damns him forever.

I wanted it to be as it appeared to be, and baseball, too, wanted it so. I would like to think that we in the press nagged enough to cause baseball to examine itself, but it was more the federal investigation of BALCO and Jose Canseco's confessions and Congress' grandstanding that turned the page.

So we know what we know now and we suspect what we suppose and the whole thing is tainted and a long way from over.

But when Sosa hit 600, only the fifth player ever to do so, the instinct was not to examine how many home runs were deserved and how many where phony, or to even consider him now Hall of Fame worthy. It was to grant that it was a special thing to do.

The same will be true of Bonds when he passes Aaron. As long as he is allowed to do it, we will marvel at it. And take pictures.