Then there is the jerk factor. With apologies to Keith Olbermann, Bonds is easily the “Worst Person in the World,” at least in and around the baseball world. That hasn’t changed. The Mitchell report didn’t list players along with comments by each such as “good guy,” “real louse,” “has his good days and bad.” Only Bonds is specifically recognized by the public for being a bona fide S.O.B.

That’s no different today, either. Even though he is now just one of many who is officially considered to be unnaturally muscled, he still stands alone the game’s most irascible individual. Some voters will undoubtedly take that into consideration.

Yet for a while at least, Bonds has a respite from his bashers. The cloud over his career remains, it has just been joined by a bank of other clouds over other careers.

To truly appreciate his modestly improved situation, you have to think like Barry. Have a bottle of aspirin handy.

Bonds surely indulged in “the cream” and “the clear” and heaven knows what other beef cattle muscle medicine or female fertility drug of his choice because he sensed that the game of baseball was changing, and that if he didn’t go along for the ride he would be left behind on the scrap heap of mediocrity. He wanted to be the best, and was consumed by jealousy that McGwire and Sammy Sosa were stealing his headlines.

Now that George Mitchell and his staff have rounded up more than the usual suspects, in Bonds’ brain he is enjoying a warped kind of “I told you so” moment. He’s on the list, of course. He’s still facing a serious legal proceeding. But he’s also off somewhere in the company of family and whichever remaining sycophants he can round up, smirking because the rampant nature of steroid use in the game makes him seem a little less of a villain.

Yet he should enjoy this while he can, because soon the furor over all the other offenders will fade, and he will be left standing alone once again as No. 1. He likes being No. 1, although this probably isn’t what he had in mind.

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