Barry Bonds

On Sunday Barry let slip that this will be his last year in baseball and on Monday he recanted. That's Barry Bonds in a nutshell - the human contradiction.

He's a great baseball player but a jackass as a person. He can carry a team but can be a lousy teammate. He's a Hall of Fame talent but also the biggest steroids cheat in the history of baseball. He's a family man but cheats on his wife and has had multiple divorces.

Barry has made the news this winter because he pulled out of the World Baseball Classic and because of his announcement Monday. My read on things is that he pulled out of the World Baseball Classic not because he was upset about where or where he wouldn't be batting in the batting lineup but because the WBC employs Olympic type drug testing.

As far as retiring this year - of course Barry is retiring this year. In fact I think he went ROAD (retired on active duty) last year. Barry is milking his balky knees. Last year Barry was only able to manage 14 games to justify his $18 million salary. I don't think we'll see much more effort to get on the field this year which also happens to be the final year of his contract. As long as it looks like he's trying to come back to play - he gets paid. If he voluntarily retired he gets bupkis of the $18 million he has coming this year.

And for the people who think he'll come back next year as a DH in the AL - why would he? Barry gets $5 million deferred until 2011. No Barry's not coming back.

The biggest question surrounding Barry will be whether he gets voted into the Hall of Fame. If I had a vote - I'd say no but I don't have a vote. If the vote was taken today, Barry would be in Cooperstown. Luckily the vote isn't taken today and to me the thing that will determine whether he gets in or not is whether Barry gets charged with perjury for denying he took steroids to the BALCO grand jury. If Barry has to go to court over that - then I think that's enough to sink his chances of enshrinement - no matter if he's found guilty or not (OJ was declared innocent too).