Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom should be about ready to produce a new musical and I’ve got just the vehicle – the saga of Barry Bonds, an American success story. Bonds is the outfielder for the San Francisco Giants, who, through the use of modern chemistry, is turning all of baseball’s hallowed home run records into Jell-O. Was it DuPont or Balco Labs that used the motto "Better Living Through Chemistry?"
Now that his use of steroids in its many and varied forms has been documented by two San Francisco Chronicle reporters, we have all we need but Barry’s own public admission of guilt. So, if you’re looking for a sequel to "The Producers," boy do we have a story for you.
Here are all the elements of the great American melodrama unfolding before our eyes. We are in the first blush of spring, when a young man’s fancy turns to Victoria’s Secret catalogs and baseball. And here is 42-year-old Bonds on gimpy knees making a run at Hank Aaron’s all-time home run record. Only this is America in 2006. This isn’t "The Natural" and Barry Bonds isn’t Roy Hobbs. It turns out Barry cheated to hit those 73 home runs. Hobbs had a magic bat, Barry had magic juice. The more astute among us have always known. Maybe we all should have. Around the turn of the century, Bonds went from a nicely built, very good player to The Incredible Hulk. I had to buy an HDTV to get all of Barry’s head to fit in my screen. He turned major league ballparks into Little League fields. But every time Bonds was asked the key question, he denied it all with a sneer. Hinted maybe it was racist to ask the question. Maybe he should ask Hank Aaron if it’s racist to ask the question – Barry did you use steroids?
Such a simple question, you would think, with a simple answer. It turns out it’s like asking if you ever had sex with that woman. It’s according to what your definition of sex is. Well, there are many kinds of steroids – hey, Kiehl’s should have as much variety. Right about here, Bialystock and Bloom could insert a musical number or two – they could do a lot by updating "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." Cracker Jack is out and injections are in, so to speak. If steroids were Heinz, Bonds would have used all 57 varieties.
The role of Bud Selig, baseball’s commissioner, could have been played by Max Patkin, the Clown Prince of Baseball, if he were still alive. Selig and his counterpart in the Players Union, Donald Fehr, allowed the travesty and profited from it. It turns out the Sosa-McGwire home-run race that caused our hearts to flutter was as phony as AstroTurf and all those new ballparks trading on nostalgia are not enough to recapture the lost innocence of a once- great game. It turns out, while Selig had been keeping baseball pure from the likes of Pete Rose, he and Fehr winked as Bonds and others turned the game into a carnival freak show. Selig supposedly asked Bonds in 2004 whether he used steroids. Hey, by 2004, he should have had Bonds peeing in a cup in his office. Bud was worried about making baseball a global game, but he should have been tending to what was happening to America’s game.
Bonds is undaunted by it all, which makes him the perfect metaphor for our corrupt times. He is the Gordon Gekko of baseball.
Unrepentant, he continues to get ready for the upcoming season, seemingly immune to the incredible mess he has created. Meanwhile ESPN is readying the perfect reality show centering around – guess who? – Barry Bonds. Now the tantalizing question of the new reality TV season is not who La Donald will fire, but will Barry confess on screen (and without Barbara Walters to give her blessing)?
As for Bialystock and Bloom, none of this should deter them from putting the Bonds Story on Broadway. I realize originally they were in the business of producing flops, but by now they’ve gotten use to the fact there’s no way to underestimate the public’s unquenchable bad taste. So, in this sequel to "The Producers," we’ll find out how Bialystock and Bloom deal with success. And make no mistake about it, the Bonds Story is a surefire hit. There’s nothing America likes better than paying $100 for a Broadway ticket to a show, which contains absolutely no hint of originality. If need be, hire Andrew Lloyd Webber to write a few familiar overwrought songs. The plot? Bonds cheats. Bonds thrives. Bonds is caught. Bonds confesses and is forgiven by an America immune to the deceits big and small that corrode our everyday life.
My idea for the big finale, the production number guaranteed to bring the house down, "Springtime for Barry!"
