Free Republic

NEW YORK (AP) -- Barry Bonds will have to wait until he passes Hank Aaron before baseball throws a party for him. Major League Baseball is not planning any celebration for Bonds if and when he tops Babe Ruth's mark of 714 home runs, commissioner Bud Selig said Thursday. "Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth's record," Selig said. "We don't celebrate anybody the second or third time in." Bonds has been the subject of steroids speculation for several seasons. The recent book "Game of Shadows" detailed allegations against him, and a federal grand jury is investigating whether he committed perjury when...

The joylessness of Barry Bonds is immutable now. His return in pursuit of Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron is made of radioactive stuff. His undertaking is hard to embrace. It smacks of wrong. The fun is absent amid the clearing of throats. Bonds now lives in his imaginary bunker to ward off the slings and arrows of the BALCO scandal. He is the victim, of course. He is both the victim of BALCO and an unsympathetic national press that sees his exploits through the lens of race. His is an understandable gambit. What else does he have to play? More...