Crazy insane or insane crazy?

Let me be clear: I don't hate Barry Bonds. But, if Barry Bonds were hanging by his fingertips over the side of a dangerous cliff, and next to him the New York Yankees were similarly hanging, and I was the only person who could save one of them from certain death, I'd forgive New York the 2001 ALCS and their decade plus of pure evil, and I'd save the Yankees.

So, there's my bias.

I thought it was a widely held one, but then I saw this survey. No doubt you did, too. About 48 percent of American baseball fans don't really care if Bonds breaks Aaron's career HR record? Fully 37 percent of them wish that he would? Wow. Crazy.

We are clearly in the steroids era. Trying to keep Bonds out of the Hall of Fame would be a mistake, I think. Even if he gets caught with steroids, I'm not sure you can ban him from the Hall completely. At this point, with the wide and varied list of cheaters, I think baseball fans should operate under the assumption that just about every player was dirty. And if that is true, it is hard to punish even those who are caught.

But, that doesn't mean that we cannot root against Bonds' 756th HR. He's the poster boy for an era that embarrasses me. I'm even afraid of ARod and Pujols, who might be poised to shatter whatever figure Bonds could post. Even those guys seem too closely connected to baseball's dirty present for me to feel comfortable with them in any serious baseball record book.

I'm OK with a record book dominated by hitters from the steroid era. Hell, dead ball era pitchers dominate that half of the ledger still. But, I don't want cheaters to establish records that aren't likely to ever be broken.