Morry Gash / AP

Barry Bonds' record chase could end because of bacteria? That's just sad.

But I don’t have that certainty anymore. Broken bones and shredded cartilage can heal and be repaired. But bacteria can eat your legs out from under you.

If I could find a way to blame this on Bonds’ bullheadedness, I wouldn’t feel an ounce of pity. But the smallest living things, germs, are everybody’s enemy. They don’t care how much money you have or how big your house is or how important is your job. To see one man destroyed by invisible invaders is to see all men destroyed.

Germs were the original enemy. Long before people learned to kill each other over ethnic and religious and ideological differences, they were under assault by microbes. Viruses, which aren’t even really alive, and bacteria have destroyed more lives than even the bloodiest conqueror could even conceive of taking.

To see Bonds under such assault, to hear that he is reduced to immobility, incapable of doing anything other than sit and wait for the people with medical degrees to report on the progress of the conflict between germs and drugs being waged in his bloodstream is to feel your own vulnerability.

It is an echo of the Black Death that cut down a quarter or more of Europe’s population. It is a reminder of the great flu epidemic of 1917. It is nature’s way of reminding us that we’re never as safe, never as impervious as we think we are.

If Bonds were brought down by anything he did, including running into a fence, I wouldn’t feel empathy for him. If he had been afflicted with something that was the result of anything he took or did to be bigger and stronger, I’d say it served him right.

But no one “deserves” an infection. The germs that are dining on his knee could just as easily be dining on mine. It shouldn’t happen to anyone.

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Tony Gutierrez / AP

More heroics from Hamilton

Josh Hamilton fights off illness to hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the 13th inning, lifting the Texas Rangers to an 8-7 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays.

Angels win as Pujols HR streak up to 3 games

SEATTLE (AP) - Albert Pujols hit a home run in his third straight game and pinch hitter Alberto Callaspo came through with a grand slam in the sixth inning to give the Los Angeles Angels a 5-3 win over the Seattle Mariners on Saturday.

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