Barry Bonds received the news yesterday that he wasn't being indicted, at least not by THIS grand jury, THIS time around. Yet, he continues to be baseball's "bad boy", and many fans who are polled declare that they "hate" Barry Bonds, but they have no idea why. "Because he uses steroids" will be the most common answer, but aside from testimony by others who have something to gain in the matter, close ties with people who DID deal in steroids, and the testimony of a man who never actually played alongside Bonds, there has been no direct evidence. All of it is circumstantial, and if Bonds is currently using steroids, he's doing a remarkably good job of covering his rear, because I'm sure every time Bonds' urine is tested there's a camera on it from the minute it exits the stall to the minute it enters the lab. And while fans have turned on Bonds using the steroid excuse, they have not found the same venom to attack Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, or Rafael Palmeiro, for whom the circumstantial evidence is equally strong (and in the case of Palmeiro, a positive test backs it up). For that matter, even Jose Canseco gets a pass, despite the fact that Canseco is not only an admitted steroid user, he is in fact, trying to position himself as its PR guy.

No, Barry Bonds made the same mistake that cost his father the Hall of Fame, and the same one that keeps Pete Rose in perpetual exile from the game's holiest of shrines. Barry Bonds didn't play to the fans.

Even that is a new "sin" in baseball, a byproduct of the TV era when baseball players were supposed to be amiable, supposed to be community leaders, and not supposed to be surly giants who hustled their butts off day in and day out on the baseball field but wanted the cameras to stay behind at the stadium. It was certainly not a "sin" during Ted Williams' playing days, when one of Boston's favorite sons refused repeatedly to "tip his hat" to acknowledge the fans, and, when he finally did in the waning days of his life, it actually made news. It was certainly not a "sin" during the days of Ty Cobb, probably the nastiest man ever to lace up his (presharpened) spikes, and the man who was, ironically, surpassed in hits only by Rose, one of the aforementioned "bad boys".

The list is long of fan-unfriendly exiles who will remain on the fringe of the game. You don't need to look any further than former slugger Albert Belle to find a good example of this. While Belle gave it his all until his hip couldn't give anymore, he never hit home with the fans in a way that generates Hall of Fame votes. In contrast, Bo Jackson, whose numbers even projected out over the ten year minimum for Hall consideration, didn't meet the standard for the list of greats, would have been considered more readily because most people who knew him would concede Bo was a hell of a guy. He was warm to the fans, and to the media, and his flaws were more easily overlooked because of his charming personality.

Barry Bonds is who Barry Bonds is. And that, unfortunately, is a man that most would rather NOT see shatter the homerun crown. But the fact that so many want to see Barry fail, frankly, has me rooting for him despite the fact that I don't care for him much as a person either. For, you see, Barry's unlikely to know the thrill of having his plaque unveiled in Cooperstown to the cheering of many fans. IF he makes it, it will likely be met with a boycott rather than thunderous applause. But Barry deserves to be enshrined, in my opinion, because of everything he has done for the game, from his days with the "killer B's" (along with Bobby Bonilla, as a Pittsburgh Pirate), to the days where sports shows are counting every Spalding that finds its end in the salty waters of the San Francisco Bay. Barry has played his heart out on the field, and, while he plays for himself, he is at least the one player honest enough to admit it. Unless Barry's steroid use is conclusively proven or confessed by Bonds himself, those allegations should not factor into it anymore than the allegations of Gaylord Perry's use of, err, "substances" on the ball factored into his own induction.