In 1992, when he was still a slim youth for the Pittsburgh Pirates, he led the NL with a .624 slugging percentage and he also led the league with a .456 on base percentage. He followed that up with a .677 slugging average in 1993—again best in the league—and a .458 on base percentage. This was eight and nine years before the whispers of steroid taking hounded him.

Bonds has been one of the great players of my lifetime. He has never been caught with dirty urine, so he’s innocent until proven guilty. Does he have a huge head? Yes, but no bigger than the fair-haired pitcher Roger Clemens. The man has won seven MVPs! Barry Bonds is suffering for the sins of baseball, and he’s big enough to keep his mouth shut and just play.

Jason Giambi could take a page out of Bonds’ book and be a better player for it. Bonds will be the home run king—there’s no doubt of that. Baseball needs to acknowledge the man’s greatness on the grass.

I now propose an additional league. Call it MLB-Plus. All the exciting players who are taking HGH, bionics or whatever can play in MLB-Plus and all the boring players—you know, the men who like to test their actual human physical limits in competition against other uninspired men who find it compelling (Lord knows why) to test themselves in competition the same way—in another league. MLB-Plus will have its own All-Star Game, its own Home Run Derby and a back acne tournament that the other league could never hope to have.

The fans don’t care. That’s what the polls say. So let’s have multiple guys with 100 home run/200 RBI seasons. Let’s create new catcher’s mitts to hand the 150 mph fastballs. Best of all, Vegas can offer a new line on player meltdowns. For example, what would be the over/under on what point in the season Bonds combusts into an uncontrollable rage or Billy Wagner breaks down crying on the mound? The fans can, of course, delight in a season-long suicide watch for several key players. On the players’ side, the endorsement potential is unlimited—not only for the various performance-enhancing drugs but ancillary products like steroid gum and testicular implants.

Major League Baseball would be making a huge mistake not to celebrate what Bonds has meant to the game and what the game can become. I mean, 756 is just a number. It doesn’t tell the whole story. I’d like to see a statue of the man in Cooperstown with a bronze hypodermic sticking out of his artificially enlarged ass.

You remain a Luddite. Make a universal law on substances and do the mandatory testing. After that, the argument is done.

Celebrate Barry Bonds. The man is the most-feared batter of his time. To watch him in 2001 was amazing. He was on base eight out of 10 times. No one has ever done that. He held a bat like it was a weapon and made the sport seem small. You refuse to honor the man’s power and more is the pity for you.

“That other players have cheated” does not make Bonds any less of a cheater. I would say the fact that Bonds already possessed so much superior ability makes it all the more regrettable that he chose to put himself in this position. And it is he, Barry Bonds, that put himself here. Yes, he has gotten more scrutiny than others. No, that is not fair in a cosmic sense. But it is fair in karmic way that he is reaping what he has sown. Nobody can be blamed but him.

“Everyone else was speeding” is no defense in traffic court just like “I was only following orders” was no defense in Nuremberg. From time to time, each of us faces moral questions in our lives where nobody in the room will tell us we are doing wrong except ourselves. That’s called moral conscience. As we review the contributions you’ve made to the world, history can clearly adjudge gross negligence of the physician in your birth ward.

Hank Aaron won’t be there for Bonds. Good for him. Bud Selig is undecided. That schmuck shouldn’t be allowed near a baseball stadium ever again. Celebrate Bonds? Nuh-uh. When Bonds breaks the record, everyone in the stadium and everywhere else should just act like somebody in the room farted and pretend not to smell it.