Foul Ball

Some cheer. Some boo. Some could care less. That seems to cover nearly all the emotions surrounding the most historic event in professional sports in the last 33 years.

Last night Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants hit an 84 mile per hour pitch out of the park and into the record books. The question wafting on the sports airwaves is: was this record legitimate? Why? There is an integrity issue.

Thirty-three years earlier Hank Aaron eclipsed Babe Ruth’s lifetime homerun record with 755 (against Ruth’s 714). Though, Ruth will still be considered one of the greatest, if not the greatest, slugger of all time. How gratifying it must be to know your name will be in the record books.

Yet, for Barry Bonds his record will have, as the sportscasters say, an “asterisk” beside his record. It won’t be a literal asterisk but it will be there in peoples' minds just the same. Barry Bonds has been accused of taking performance-enhancing drugs (steroids) and regardless of how the legal game plays out, this will forever taint Bonds record – fairly or unfairly.

This is a good opportunity for parents to teach their children about integrity – about maintaining a good reputation. The Bible strongly warns a believer to “abstain from even the appearance of evil” (1Thessalonians 5:22, KJV). A reputation once tarnished is almost impossible to clean up. It is like living life with an asterisk over your head.

Probably, Barry Bonds would have broken the record without taking performance-enhancing drugs (if he did indeed take them). Muscle building steroids make you stronger (with horrible side affects), but they cannot give you the eye/hand coordination it takes to hit a baseball. Bonds is a great hitter. His record is a great accomplishment. But, his reputation will forever be tainted and his record will always have an asterisk.

God help us to maintain the integrity that will keep our reputation clean so that our testimony of being a Christ follower will have the impact that it should have in our society.