Fall Star

*This page realize that there are readers among you who don't like baseball. Those readers may want to check out something else today. Have a nice weekend. See you next week.

(pause while we let those people out....)

With only 4 dingers to go before catching up to Hank Aaron's 755 carreer home runs, Barry Bonds has opted out of the Home Run Derby at next week's All Star Game in San Fransisco. One would have thought that Barry would have enjoyed pounding the horsehide into McCovey Cove while the adoring crowd in his home park cheered him on, but as with everything about Barry Bonds, there's a little more to it than that. The Home Run Derby has reached a popularity that many fans now enjoy it more than the actual All Star Game. However, there's a forced casual chuminess to the event in which the media's jockriders feel they can chat up the longballers between rounds. It's a prime opportunity for a sports "journalist" to try and make a name for himself by confronting the Giants' left fielder. This page contends that Bonds is taking a pass because he doesn't want to be Pete Rose to somebody's Jim Gray.

This page doesn't blame him either, because none of the anti-Bonds hysteria is really about steroids. It's little more than a weapon of mass distraction for Major League Baseball and the politicians who jumped on their moral high horse (yet trotted lightly around the likes of Mark McGwire and Roger Clemens). For those of you scoring at home, Bonds has never tested positive for steroids. He has however, tested positive for telling Republicans to pay less attention to him and more to Hurricane Katrina victims, and comparing the likelihood of finding steroids in his locker to finding WMDs in Iraq.

Besides, I'm pretty sure whoever was pitching for the Derby would be under orders from Bud Selig to intentionally walk him anyway.