For a man who cheated his way to 762 home runs, seven MVPs and millions of dollars, the bitter taste of reality must finally be setting in. Barry "Flaxseed Oil" Bonds sits in his house, unwanted and unemployed by any Major League Baseball team. As if his chronic use and chronic denial of steroids weren't a cry of insecurity and a superiority complex, he has now shown just how desperate he's gotten.
Barry is negotiating with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.
Oh sweet, sweet irony, why dost though treat us so well? The player who once sat atop the baseball world as a god among men is now mingling with the paraplegics of baseball. I wonder who in the Tampa front office came up with the brilliant idea to extend a helping hand to the slowly deflating balloon-man.
I can imagine them browsing Monster.com, stumbling over Barry's posted résumé during the "former juicers that still juice" search. Experienced, controversial and productive, all of Barry's best attributes easily seduce a general manager who clearly doesn't know what he's doing.
Of course, I'm talking as if the two sides have already agreed on a deal that would have the Steroids-Era poster boy in black and neon green next season, which hasn't happened. But I want it to happen so badly, just so I can feel like there was some justice that came out of the Bonds saga. Imagine being able to say that after everything he did, he finished his career with the worst franchise in baseball history.
That's the way that we would remember him - why would we want to remember him for his days as a San Francisco Giant, where the biggest fraud of baseball history still has some Hall of Fame voters putting him in on the first ballot? - as a designated hitter for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. I love it. In fact, I can't imagine any place I'd rather have Barry be, except in jail of course. And no matter how many home runs he hits for them, none of the Devil Rays' geriatric home fans would care because they only go to the game to win free stuff from the scoreboard races.
I doubt that my dreams will be realized since it wouldn't make any sense for Bonds to go to a team that has no money, no fans and no hope. But I dream on, hoping that Barry can flutter into insignificance, which is exactly where he belongs.
Or he could just go to jail, becoming an instant tourist attraction for the lucky federal prison he'd be confined in. That wouldn't be so bad.
n The best of college basketball played each other on Saturday, and man did they put on a show. Tennessee and Memphis played frantic, up-tempo basketball and - despite the lack of scoring - played an entertaining game for everybody who watched.
I feel like that game would have served as a great springboard into the national tournament because after watching that game, I was definitely ready for some March Madness. I envisioned filling out my brackets, scratching in projected winners based on gut feelings and dedicated seconds of hard research.
And then I realized that the conference tournaments haven't even started yet, which means that the tournament is still three whole weeks away. I'm sorry, but I can't wait that long. I wait the whole freakin' year for March just for the tournament and all the excitement that comes with it: tracking your winners, streaming games on your computer during class, cheering for teams you have no affiliation with. But that seems eons away with Championship Week still looming on the schedule.
Besides the occasional surprise winner that hits its stride and accidentally waltzes its way into the Big Dance, Championship Week is useless and needs to be eliminated. By that time, the Selection Committee (the one thing that really does need a committee to take care of business) already knows which teams they are going to include in the 65-team field.
All these tournaments do is add games to an already packed schedule and delay the real tournament by a week. Of course, NCAA leadership would never rid us of Championship Week because more games mean more money for the schools, for corporations, for the NCAA, for everybody. And why would they change something that's making them money, even if everybody wants it changed.
But maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way. The extra week gives me more time to think up excuses for missing class during the first day of the tournament, picking my typical genius upsets and planning my "I just won the office pool even though the Phoenix doesn't have an office pool" party.
Or maybe by that time, I'll be lying on the cold basement floor, cradling myself in the fetal position, overdosed on Mountain Dew and Cooler Ranch Doritos, crying my bloodshot eyes out because I can't decide whether to pick Indiana or Washington State to make the Final Four.
When does the tournament start, dammit?
n Ben Wallace is gone (obligatory moment of silence). No more afros and ringing gongs at the United Center. At the same time, no more $15 million contract to lug around over the next two years.
But I get the feeling that this was one of those trades that happened just for the sake of making a trade. The Bulls needed to dump Wallace, so they did. But can you see the pieces that they got in return actually completing the Bulls in any way?
I still can't get my brain, as a logical human being, to rationalize the fact that Larry Hughes is a Bull. Seeing him play in the red-and-black for the first time on Sunday was my own personal passing through the bowels of hell. I may have even cried a little, but I can't remember through all my screams of denial. We went from Michael Jordan to this guy - overpaid, under-motivated and trigger happy - in just 10 years. Chicago, this is your basketball team.
What bothers me more than anything is that it doesn't seem like there is any plan that directs the actions of general manager John Paxson. Now you have a backcourt full of guards who can't dribble or shoot, a frontcourt spearheaded by a guy averaging 11 points and eight rebounds, and Luol Deng, who can't figure out whether he's worth the money he was asking for before the season started.
Yeah, doesn't look good, does it? What's worse is that the Bulls still could make the playoffs, taking them out of the lottery and a potential top 10 pick in the July draft. Hughes and Gooden's contracts don't expire until after next season, meaning we won't be freeing up any significant cap space to spend on free agents anytime soon. I mean, we don't even have anybody Isiah Thomas is interested in (because if we did a deal would have been made already) to net us a first rounder or two. Let's face it, Bulls fans, we're in dire straights right now.
Well, at least baseball season is almost here. That is what I said about the Bulls when Bears season ended though ...
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