Playing the Race Card

ESPN.com's Bomani Jones has an article in which he essentially argues that there is moral equivalence between the taint on Barry Bonds' records arising out of his alleged steroid use and the taint on Babe Ruth's records arising out of the systematic exclusion of African-Americans from baseball until 1947.

This is a preposterous argument. I'm sorry, Mr. Jones, but you neglect one important fact: Babe Ruth wasn't responsible for racism, segregation, and Jim Crow. In contrast, if the accusations about Bonds' steroid use are true, he's entirely responsible for the predicament in which he finds himself. Bonds made the decision to have somebody shoot steroids into his ass for seven years. Last time I checked, Babe Ruth didn't cast a vote on either the Dred Scott decision or Plessy v. Ferguson.

Oh, I know that Barry Bonds has elevated hatin' Whitey to an art form. Fine. We're all racist pigs who can't stand to see a black man break Babe Ruth's record--even though a black man already did that a generation ago. Whatever gets Barry through the night is fine with me. But in the end, Barry Bonds is lying in the bed he made, while you're trying to hold Babe Ruth responsible for America's original sin.

That's just stupid.