Selig works for the owners, and while he has his agenda, any owner that felt Bonds could play and help his team would sign him in an instant. I agree that I would guess he wouldn't play next year, but disinterest (as opposed to injury) would not be the reason.

Wouldn't Selig telling teams not to sign Bonds be considered an attempt at collusion?

Collusion, at least in terms of the crime, involves a group of businesses, usually an oligopoly, coming to a consensus to determine price. It's illegal because it's unfair to other businesses and, more importantly, the lack of competition hurts the consumer. So no, I don't think Selig's telling teams to stay away from Bonds would be a crime...and I also don't see him doing something like that.

If Bonds wants to play next year, some team will sign him. The chance to pull fans for a run at Aaron would be too hard to resist. A lot of those fans might boo Bonds, but as long as they pay for the privilege...

As for the steroids stuff, is there anybody who still thinks Bonds didn't do steroids? Anything Mitchell digs up about Bonds will be old news instantly, if that makes sense.

Come to think of it, the one thing that might fry Bonds is a guilty plea, or maybe even just an indictment, on tax evasion or perjury charges. That might make him too radioactive.

yes

we sure do need to keep barry out of baseball for not getting caught doing steroids while all the other guys who been CAUGHT everybody got no problem with THEM playing.

i want to see people screaming BOOOOOOO and throwing syringes at ryan franklin too

but who cares about him cuz he sucks, right

One difference is that a lot of people hated Bonds BEFORE the steroid mess, while a lot of people didn't even know who Ryan Franklin was before his steroid problems. It's important to keep that in mind.

Come to think of it, I still have no idea who Ryan Franklin is...

Heh.

If a team signs Bonds and he were subsequently banned or suspended by the league, I assume the team wouldn't have to pay him. So, I think many AL teams would attempt to sign him as a DH.

If Selig were to warn teams against Bonds, or if a team signed him but didn't pay him due to suspension, the player's union would be all over that; they'd have to. Those are direct threats to all major league contracts.

The upcoming collective bargaining process complicates matters. Selig can presumably choose to use the Mitchell findings (whatever they may be) as a bargaining chip against the union. In particular, he could choose to put the union in the tough public relations spot of having to defend Bonds in the media, even if he knew that an arbiter would overturn any sanctions he chose to apply.

Bonds presumably has equally nasty surprises up his sleeve (i.e. I'll testify in court that Sheffield used steroids in front of me, along with Giambi, Tejada, Albert Pujols, Derek Jeter and Hank Aaron - who cares if he's telling the truth about all of them?). That sort of thing wouldn't even be unprecedented; Tris Speaker and Ty Cobb were suspended for throwing games, but allegedly blackmailed Comissioner Landis into letting them back into the game.

Yeah, Bonds will keep playing as long as his body holds out and he's not in jail. But 1,000? Come on, how stupid do these owners have to be to listen to Scott Boras? Bonds has about as much of a chance of reaching 1,000 home runs as Jason Kendall does. ZERO.