Barry Digs In Before Final Court At Bat

I’m torn.

On the one hand, I believe Barry Bonds is a bag of shit human being, who has brought suffering, financial difficulty, and legal entanglement to many of his so-called “friends” by trying to out-run the feds on this steroid perjury charge.

On the other hand, fuck his friends. They chose to get in bed with the guy. So what do I care?

I think by now, the only people still willing to claim Bonds NEVER took steroids are the same small percentage of holdouts who think OJ didn’t do it. Which is about the same number of soldiers holed up in island tunnels in the South Pacific unable to concede that WWII is over.

There’s plenty of evidence, and it’s not just his ballooning hat size, or grotesque muscles.

That evidence, however, has largely been cut down to size by the judge in the perjury case. A move that I concur with, and cite this well written argument by Gwen Knapp in the San Francisco chronicle as to exactly how and why Bonds shouldn’t be strung up by urine samples that should have never been accessible in the first place, and destroyed anyway once they were.

Greg Anderson did his hard time in jail for contempt of court, and is now in the clear (pardon the pun) legally. He won’t sing on Bonds in this case either. So the government’s usually slam-dunk case in these things has a pretty big set of Dikembe Mutumbo factors looming to stuff it and wag it’s finger in triumph.

While it would bring me great joy to see Bonds and Clemens sitting side by side in a cell block for 6-10 months, a part of me would sort of like to see Bonds actually win in the end.

Against all odds, Bonds could step out on those courthouse steps, flash a big ol’ fuck-you smile, and say: “See. What? Steroids? See you in Cooperstown, suckas!”

Only I’ve been told that likely won’t happen no matter what this court case delivers as a verdict. Washington Times columnist Thom Loverro laughed in my face yesterday when asked what percentage chance Bonds would have with the HOF voters if he somehow beat this rap.

“Zero!” said Thommy, chortling like ol’ Kris Kringle!

Really? I asked.

“Yeah… really.”

Thom then said he would pay good money to see Bonds get in, only to travel that summer to upstate NY to watch how many empty seats would be on stage in protest by the old timers, whose records were slaughtered by Bonds and everyone else in the steroid era.

I would normally chalk up Thom’s opinion as a merely anti-Bonds rant.

But then again, he’s a long time baseball man, and actually VOTES for the HOF and talks to his fellow writers about this stuff all the time.

So I sheepishly asked about Clemens.

Another laugh.

“Zero?” I asked.

“None.” He said.

So in the end, both guys may beat their raps in court, but the mission of walking through the Hall’s doors, has apparently sailed already.

The lawyers, however, will get paid.