Asterisk: Home Runs, Steroids, and the Rush to Judgment - Hardcover

Ezra, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1600780628 ISBN 13: 9781600780622

Publisher: Triumph Books, 2008

Synopsis

Baseball is facing a crisis as it is riddled with accusations of steroid and drug abuse, testing, and debates about whether or not records will need to include an asterisk. In attorney David Ezra's new book Asterisk, he explores the public trials of the baseball community and debates questions such as Are accusations of steroid use justified? Or do today's well-trained players, whose teams play in newly constructed ballparks, shatter records because the game has changed?

About this title

About the Author

David Ezra received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Southern California, where he was an editor of the Southern California Law Review and graduated Order of the Coif. He has frequently published on topics involving the intersection of law and health. He lives in Huntington Beach, California. Mike Schmidt is a Hall of Fame third baseman who played for the Philadelphia Phillies.

From the Back Cover

HGH. BARRY BONDS. THE MITCHELL REPORT.

Baseball is facing a crisis. Our national pastime is now riddled with accusations, testing, and debates about whether or not records will need to include an asterisk. In Attorney David Ezra's new book, Asterisk, he explores the public trials of the baseball community. Are accusations of steroid use justified? Or do today's well-trained players, whose teams play newly constructed ballparks, shatter records because the game has changed?

Many chalk up the power explosion of recent years, including the toppling of Hank Aaron's home run record comment to the rampant use of steroids. But do steroids even help in hitting a baseball? The answer is not as clergy think. In any intriguing response to Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams's 2006 title, Game of Shadows, Ezra examines Barry Bonds's public persona before, during, and after his race to beat the home-run record.

From the Inside Flap

$24.95 IS IT TOO LATE? Have rampant accusations of widespread steroid use ruined sports? From Lance Armstrong to Shawne "Lights Out" Merriman to Mark McGwire, the amazing accomplishments athletes have worked so hard to achieve have been diminished by relentless and repeated accusations of "juicing."

ARE THESE WILD, IF NOT RECKLESS, ACCUSATIONS MERELY A CONVENIENT UNTRUTH?

It is easy for yesterday's heroes to blame steroids when their records fall to faster, bigger, or better-trained athletes. The modern media's appetite for ripping our sports heroes to shreds seems to know no limit. And for the casual fan who never could slam dunk, run 40 yards in 4.4 seconds, hit a major league fastball, or even bowl three strikes in a row, it is all too easy to ascribe the incredible talents the best athletes display to cheating. Asterisk confronts these issues head on, separating fact from fiction and inviting us to take a second look at the issue of steroids and the accomplishments of our greatest athletes.

Asterisk analyzes the steroid problem by examining the biggest name in sports--Barry Bonds. More than any other athlete, Bonds has been demonized by a press and public he often treats with disdain. We take it as a given--as a truth that is so obvious it needs no proof--that Bonds used steroids because he has been tried and convicted in the court of public opinion. He had to be on steroids; how could all those TV comedians be wrong?

Attorney David Ezra takes on the tough questions surrounding Bonds's alleged steroid use and confronts the charges leveled against Bonds in the book Game of Shadows by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams. Asterisk asks the reader to review the facts about Bonds's work ethic, his appearance, and the way baseball has changed in the past few decades. Readers get to be judge and jury while pondering the essence of cheating.

Reviews

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. [...] 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.)
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Edition details

• Publisher: Triumph Books
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1600780628
• ISBN 13: 9781600780622
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256