Since I am, unfortunately, a lifelong fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates I can honestly say that I have followed the soap operaish career of Barry Bonds since the very beginning.  Even when I lived out of state in the late 80's and early 90's I would have friends buy playoff tickets and I would travel home faithfully to watch the post season games in person to see the "pre-steroid" Barry Bonds and his teammates underperform.  Basically, Pittsburgh hasn't had a winning record since Barry left town.  However, I am a realist and I am objective and I don't hold that against Mr. Bonds.  In fact, since that time I have turned my focus to following several very good Cup winning Penguins teams and some very good Steelers's teams including the recent Superbowl winners and a perennial top 20 Panther's basketball squad.  On balance, Pittsburgh sports will be just fine.  So, please do me a favor and don't insult my intelligence by trying to say that I have the opinions I do of Barry Bonds because I still hold a grudge agaianst him for abandoning my beloved Pirates.  This is more like score one for all the little people out there who quietly go about their business always trying to treat people fairly and do the right thing EVERY DAY, who are just sick and tired of seeing people with money and priviledge get away with their multiple transgressions and infractions.  I have observed and digested both first hand accounts and media stories of how Mr.  Bonds has consistently treated, or should I say mistreated his teammates, fans and members of the media.  He is often times rude, selfish, ignorant, disrespectful, indifferent, arrogant and angry when it comes to dealing with the public.  His affair(s) are well documented.  His lies are now finally being well documented and exposed.  I have great respect and admiration for the accomplishments of players like Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Frank Robinson and Willie McCovey but I have nothing but contempt for guys like Barry that #### all over America's National Pastime, a game that has allowed him to lead and live a charmed life.  I hope he is convicted on EVERY count,  I wish Major League Baseball had the stones to set a good example and strip this guy and the others (Mark, Sammy, Roger, Rafael etc.) of their records.  Players like this have cheapened the game for us all and diminished the accomplishments of all those who preceeded them.  What performance enhancing substances did Babe Ruth or Mickey Mantle or Hank Aaron utilize in their illustrious careers?  Barry Bonds consistent disregard for the game and the players who came before him in the form of his high tech cheating which we all know took place for a period of several years SHOULD be enough to keep him out of the Hall of Fame forever!  He has tarnished not only his name and reputation but the game as a whole.  Sadly though, I fear that his actions will NOT be enough to keep him from being enshrined and this should trouble us all deeply.   At this point, Barry richly deserves whatever bad things happen to him and probably more.  After all, it couldn't happen to a nicer guy!

P.S.  -  Roger Clemens says "Thank You" for getting him off the front page of the sports section!   

I really never thought that I would see the day when another major league baseball player might actually make the likes of Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmiero look good by comparison.  Roger Clemens appears to be determined to do just that.  What, with all of the "mis-remembering",  alleged affairs with nubile teenage country music stars, ex wives of fellow screw up and drunk, John Daly, New York bartenders, real estate agents etc .  You would think that a man as wealthy as Roger, who has been surrounded by the media for his entire career, would have invested some of his millions in a good public relations firm and then LISTENED TO THEIR ADVICE!   He has become monumentally successful at assassinating his own character.  Roger Clemens was one of the most beloved and feared competitors in the game before this train wreck began to unravel.  Now he will forever be linked with every facet of this ugly episode even convincingly implicated by his good friend Andy Pettitte.  Mark McGwire, coward and liar that he is, at least had the decency, when testifying before congress, to say nothing and then to very, very quietly go away and stay away.  Sammy Sosa, when testifying, suddenly "mis-remembered" how well he spoke english and utilized a translator deflecting some of the negative attention away from himself.  Rafael Palmeiro, after being discredited and implicated as the result of a positive test had the sense to leave the game as gracefully as possible and did nothing to make himself a target of even more potentially damaging accusations by concocting ridiculously difficult to believe tales of his innocence.  Raffy seemed to be aware that as much as he may have wanted to indulge himself and loudly proclaim his purity that it would only serve to tarnish his reputation and diminish his accomplishments further still.  Even Barry Bonds, the previously undisputed poster child for steroid and human growth hormone use and abuse has handled his messy predicament in a much more self serving way than Roger Clemens has managed to do.  I bet Barry wakes up every day, drops to his knees and thanks his God for distracting the public's attention which had previously been so focused on him.  Thanks in large part to Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds is now out of the spotlight.  The media, fans of the game, legislators and the public at large now seem to have set their sights firnly on Roger Clemens and deservedly so.  The longer and the louder that he protests, the more scrutinized Roger will become.  The end result is that even more unflattering stories from his past will continue to surface and undermine his dwindling credibility.  So much for dodging this debacle Roger.