Asterisk: Home Runs, Steroids and the Rush to Judgment

Attorney Ezra' s first book takes up the case of defending newly crowned home-run leader Barry Bonds in the court of public opinion against accusations of steroid usage. Like a high-priced defense attorney explaining the evidence before a jury, Ezra exhausts every angle in excessive detail. Although Bonds might be one of the most despicable people ever to put on a baseball uniform, he says—citing an unsubstantiated rumor that just for laughs Bonds killed a kitten by throwing it into a clothes dryer—there is no concrete evidence to confirm Bonds used illegal performance-enhancing substances. Throughout the book he makes the dubious claim that Bonds is the hardest working baseball player in the history of the game. Ezra's tedious arguments reach agonizing levels of inanity. For exhibit one, this is his banana split–to–steroids analogy: “Eating banana splits is a great way to gain weight. But if you see a heavy person, you do not have proof that the heavy person eats a lot of banana splits. In fact, the heavy person may not even eat bananas....” Ultimately, readers who make it to the end of Ezra's defense of Bonds will feel like a juror who has been sequestered for six months in a cheap motel—desperately anxious to be excused from the trial. (Mar.)