...person to write about Barry Bonds today.

Sike. Just kidding. Or not.

I mean I could write about Barry Bonds. I could take the pro-Barry side and write an entry about how all the great men in history have taken liberties with the rules in pursuit of their own brilliance. I could take the anti-Barry side and give him a literary tarring and feathering. I could even sit the fence and juxtapose Barry's natural gifts with his alleged unseemly nature. None of it would matter, though.

(Have I said this before? I feel like I have. Anyway...)

Barry Bonds hit another home run today. Put an asterisk on it. Put a truckload of asterisks on it. That doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Does that home run mean what you want it to mean? What I want it to mean? What Barry wants it to mean? Who knows?

Value is, and always will be, a construct. Babe Ruth can be completely erased from the record books and he'll still have the same value. He is as much a man as he is a myth. Fortunately for him - and perhaps for the 12-year-old-boy inside of every baseball fan - myths mean a little more than mere men.

Babe Ruth hit 714 home runs. That happened. And that had value.

Barry Bonds has hit his 714th home run. That happened. It has value, too.

Is one equal to the other? I can't tell you that. You'll have to construct it for yourself.

Just don't let another 715 writers try to get inside your head and make up your mind for you.

Actually, I need a ride. A place to crash. And tickets to the World Cup.

Anyone?

No? Fair enough.

I guess I'll settle for watching it at home.

Strike that. I'll just find a proper pub to watch some of the matches at.

That's what you'll be doing, right?

No? Well, let me give you some free advice:

Whether the names Sven Goran Eriksson, Ronaldinho and Pavel Nedved mean anything to you, you need to watch the World Cup at a bar where people who wave flags other than the Stars and Stripes have gathered to drink themselves stupid, sing silly songs and cheer/cry over their team's fortunes in Germany.

It's unlike anything else you'll ever experience in your life.

Don't believe it? Let me explain:

Take a room full of Boston Red Sox fans, mix in a room full of Pittsburgh Steeler fans, sprinkle random members of the Raider Nation in there, add a bunch of New York Knick fans, squeeze in some Cameron Crazies and some Texas Exes, add the guys sitting at the sports book at the Mirage during the first weekend of March Madness and you'll almost understand what it feels like to watch the World Cup with a group of Englishman, Argentians, Brazilians, Mexicans, Italians, Spaniards or anyone else whose team has advanced this far in the tournament.

 The World Cup is that bloody mad. And it makes perfect sense.

Remember that feeling of being a kid, chasing a ball around with other kids from your block and suddenly another group of kids you've never seen before saunters onto your  block  thinking they're gonna take that ball from you and all your neighbors?

Imagine millions of people live on your block. Imagine that your block has never had a ball, or maybe always has a ball or maybe you had it once a long time ago and need to get it back. Imagine that there are only a handful of kids on your block allowed to compete for all of your honors and the rest of you get to watch the contest to determine who will claim the ball.

That's pretty much what it's like to watch the World Cup in a proper pub. Minus, of course, a kajillion gallons of alcohol.

Lucky for you, there's still time to find a place on your block to watch the matches. There's even time for you to get to Germany to see 'em live in person.

Oh...and if you decide to go, hit me up. I still need a ride.

[Peace to Common and Mos Def.]

Given all the sensitivity about the steroid era in baseball, will it even matter when Pujols hits 80 this year?

If Detroit meets Dallas in the NBA Finals, who's guarding Dirk? More importantly, is any Piston gonna be able to stop him from getting that ring?

What the hell do the Miami Dolphins have in mind trading for Joey Harrington?

If a heavyweight champion boxer got knocked out in the forest, would he make a sound?

Next year, when Amare is setting picks again for Steve Nash, is there anyone who'll be able to beat the Suns in a series?

Speaking of next year, will Joakim Noah regret returning to Florida or will he Bill Russell another championship for the Gator Nation?

While we're waiting for Coco Crisp to back in the regular rotation, can we call Jonathan Papelborn "Fruity Papels"?

How many years will it take LeBron to get past the Pistons?

What does Tom Osborne do now that he's lost his gubernatorial bid?

Will anyone be surprised when Lynn Swann wins his?

Can Marco Killingsworth get a waiver to enter the NBA draft after the deadline now that Kelvin Sampson is on the ropes in Bloomington?

Would any baseball fan feel any remorse if Barry Bonds suffered a career-ending injury while he was hung up on 713?

Does Notre Dame have the defense to make a serious national championship run next year?

How come people don't get excited about the college baseball world series the way they get riled up over March Madness or the BCS or even the Little League World Series?

How many of us would really have mourned the death of the NHL had the labor impasse never been bridged? And couldn't all of those people simply have been relocated to the wilderness of Canada to watch old tapes of Gretzky and Lemiuex?

Now that the Red Sox and White Sox are once again World Champions, can't the Cubs be given an automatic play-off berth from now until they win a World Series?

Will somebody (Nike, Reebok, adidas, Jimmy Choo) please make a dope NEW pair of hoop shoes?

How many Hail Marys and Our Fathers does a person have to say in order to guarantee that Kevin Garnett gets rescued from Minnesota this off-season?

How many times is Vince Young gonna wave his championship ring in Lendale White's face? Will twice-over national champ White even care?

What odds does Vegas have for me winning this Blog contest?

Ordinarily, I avoid doing whatever it is that everyone else is doing.

Not in this post, though.

Everything that could possibly be said about Barry Bonds has been said. Ten times over. Last year.

Or has it?

See...I really don't care how many home runs Barry Bonds hits. Or has hit.

I don't care if he took steroids. Or any other skull-growing "supplements".

I'll watch him play. I may even marvel at one of his Saturn-shots.

Ultimately, though, I'm not that concerned with Barry Bonds, the baseball player.

Baseball simply is not a sacred thing to me.

Nor should it be for you.

For real.

If all the sportswriters and fans and other opinion-havers of the world were not so hell-bent on holding baseball up as something holy and sacred, then we probably wouldn't be faced with such a nasty-tasting endeavor into history.

Yes, I know that baseball is America's past-time.

Yes, I know that fathers and sons have bonded for generations on diamonds and in backyards.

Yes, I know that the vestiges of childhood are often the most difficult trappings to rid oneself of.

But, dude, it's just a game.

It's played by grown men who make boatloads of money. It's run by other grown men who hold cities hostage for the right to host them. And it's a past-time whose time of innocence passed long ago.

The Black Sox. Segregation. Free Agency. The DH. Juiced Balls.

The game has been tainted - one way or another - for almost as long as it's been played.

And fans have always complained about those things. Yet they still hold the game up as sacred, if not pure.

Barry Bonds is gonna break Babe Ruth's home run record. It won't make Babe Ruth mean any less to baseball. And it probably won't make baseball mean any less to you.

It'll always be sacred to you. Because you want it to be sacred.

And you'll continue to moan about it. Because it isn't.

Somewhere between Jackie Robinson and Ichiro Suzuki, there was Roberto Clemente.

#21.

Clemente was the first. The first great Latino beisbol player.

Currently, there's a campaign underway seeking to have Major League Baseball retire his number ala Jackie Robinson's 42. You may have heard about this web site. (Or http://www.retireclemente21.com for the html-impaired.)

Quick recap of his career: 12 Gold Gloves, 3,000 hits, .317 batting average, 1,305 RBI, 4 NL batting titles, 2 World Series rings, 2 MVP awards.

Gaudy as they may be, the numbers don't do him justice. To see him chase down a fly ball deep in the right alley of Forbes Field, turn on a dime, rifle a strike to home plate to kill an "easy" rbi was a feat even the umpire's eyes would have trouble believing.

"Hyperbole much?" you say.

Well, let's go out side the numbers. Outside of beisbol, even.

The story goes that Nicaragua was ravaged by an earthquake in the second half of 1972. Puerto Rico's Native Son wanted to help his fellow Latinos get back on their feet. He gathered some supplies and shipped them across the water. Word came back that the people most in need never saw the shipment. An irate Clemente gathered even more supplies and boarded a charter plane to deliver this batch with his own glorious hands. Tragically, that plane never made it to Nicaragua. Clemente - along with the crew - died in the crash.

Now, if that doesn't put the "end" in "legend", I don't know what does.

But does all of that - and everything else Clemente did that I was too lazy to include here - merit the retirement of his number by Major League Baseball?

No.

True, Clemente faced racism, prejudice and ignorance during his tenure as a Major League ballplayer. He did not, however, break down barriers in the way that Jackie Robinson did.

There was only one historical moment where racism #### both the articulated and unspoken laws of the land to conspire against a collection of professional athletes.

There was only one sporting organization that acknowledged the athletic potential o####roup of ballplayers and willfully prevented them from joining their ranks nonetheless.

There was only one man who risked his own life - and the lives of his families - to play a game.

Jackie Robinson.

When a professional sporting organization elects to retire a number in honor of one competitor, it ought to be due to the singular athletic achievements of that competitor or to celebrate the way his courage changed the face of the league - and in turn the nation in which it does business.

Roberto Clemente qualifies on neither count.

#21 was a singular beisbol player. #21 was a great, compassionate man. #21 was a legend.

But he doesn't need to have his number retired by Major League Baseball.

Roberto Clemente is a little too big for that sort of thing.