Formal Bonds charges come too late

By Max Dickstein, amNewYork Sports Editor | mdickstein@am-ny.com

November 16, 2007

Charges come one home run record too late

If only the American legal system worked as quickly as Barry Bonds' bat.

The San Francisco slugger has already hit all the important home runs in the four years since he testified to a grand jury that he never knowingly used banned drugs.

Thursday's formal accusation that Bonds was lying won't erase years of malevolent, mud-dragging and record-setting damage to the credibility of American sports.

The violence is done, as irreversible as a discharged bullet.

Whether Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig decides to ban Bonds from baseball, making him ineligible for the Hall of Fame, or to suspend him, the effect of any punishment from baseball, or the U.S. government, will pale compared to what might have been prevented had Bonds been stopped before wreaking his home run havoc.