Bonds ennui.

Waves of apathy and ambivalence rush across the Bramble Tamble compound as Barry Bonds inches closer to second place on the all-time home run list. (And, given his rather unremarkable start to the season, I think it’s a little bit silly to assume that the toppling of the all-time home run record is a foregone conclusion.)

Mark McGwire didn't have the same wary eye of America turned on him when he was hitting 70 home runs (not the one that he has now, you know). Neither did Sammy Sosa when he was matching McGwire home run-for-home run and they were chasing Maris together.

It was a good time to be a baseball fan in those days; you almost expect highlights of the McGwire/Sosa race to be shown on TV tinged in sepia tones, they seem so long ago and so golden. The game's post-strike resurgence was nearly complete, to be topped off by Cal Ripken's consecutive-games streak and breathless 15,000-word essays by George Will and David Halberstam on baseball's continued significance to America and how perfect it would be if only they could dig up and reanimate Joe DiMaggio to see it all.

It was only a few years later, of course, that the Jose Canseco book was published – it was to steroids what “Ball Four” was to greenies - and the subsequent Congressional hearings led the same commentators to wonder what we could trust if we couldn't trust baseball.

Listen. I stopped waxing poetic about the game a while back, and will only resume doing so should my son decide he wants to play the game. I'm not one of those people who claim that "as baseball goes, so goes America" (see also: "breathless 15,000-word essays"). Really, I love the game, but America’s pastime is a thing of the past for some of the same reasons that all of the other traditions that we as a nation once shared seem to be on the decline:

1) Too much choice,
2) Too much greed,
3) Too many allegations of cheating,
4) Too much meddling by the game’s caretakers.

All of these do not necessarily apply to baseball, but I’d like to look at each of them and examine how they might apply. I think that if you have one of the four factors listed above, your endeavor can survive (with work). Become infected with two or more of the above illnesses, and your fans will turn on you with utmost alacrity.

Too much meddling by the game’s caretakers: Let me get away from baseball for a moment. A horrible retooling of the Indiana high school basketball tournament (from single-class to multiple classes) has generated a schism between traditionalists who would love to see the tournament reinstated to its past glory and progressives who think that four champions is better than one. I’ve seen both sides of the argument: I was firmly against the concept of class basketball at its inception – recognizing one state champion was plenty for me, thanks - but later, my sister-in-law’s team got hot her junior year and was one game away from playing for a Class A state championship. Realistically, that’s an opportunity that she likely wouldn’t have had if single-class hoops were still in place. I doubt that she or anyone else on that team thinks the experience was cheapened by the fact that they eventually lost to single-A North Vermillion in the semistate instead of losing to Class 3A Washington in the sectional round.

Still, the numbers don’t lie. In the IHSAA’s quest to level the playing field for the smaller schools in the state, it has destroyed the aura that the tournament once had. Attendance is down in almost all aspects (especially in the postseason), and for crying out loud, the state championship games weren’t even on TV unless you were in one of the larger metropolitan areas. Inexcusable!

There is no purer example of “not leaving well enough alone” than in the IHSAA’s meddling in the sport. (Except, of course, for the implementation of Daylight Savings Time in the state.) Class athletics has wrought nothing but destruction on the state basketball landscape.

Baseball, on the other hand, has survived (and, to a point, thrived in spite of) the meddling by the game’s caretakers. Sure, the debate still rages on about the use of the designated hitter, and realignment (both in 1969 and 1994) was a pretty big hit. Interleague play hasn’t brought about the game’s destruction yet, though you can’t help but wonder if it dilutes the novelty of the World Series at least a little bit. And, in spite of the liberal usage of foo-foo colors like teal and purple, the apocalypse is still not nigh.

Attendance is still strong, and while there are a few weak markets in which there is cause for concern (Kansas City, Pittsburgh, anything that Jeffrey Loria touches – more on him in a second), overall, the game is not hampered by shortsighted leadership on either the team level or the league level. Baseball escapes the "meddling" argument.

Too much choice: Back to Indiana basketball for just a moment, then I’ll let it drop: Indiana high school basketball as a whole, was already in decline mode before class basketball reared its ugly head in our state. (Note: this link leads to a lengthy, rather scholarly study of Indiana high school basketball; page 76 contains a particularly insightful quote about the state basketball tournament and society as a whole from former Brooklyn Dodger Carl Erskine. I highly encourage you to at least check that part out, even if you don't particularly care for the overall topic of the piece.)

The adults like to say it’s because there are too many other activities and outlets competing for our kids’ time. And it’s true - the ol’ ball barn isn’t really the place to be on Friday and Saturday nights anymore, which leaves an older, more moribund fanbase to support the local five. The electric atmosphere of a hot gym on a cold winter night is low-wattage, at best (except for only the most intense rivalries).

Back when basketball was the only game in town for a lot of the smaller towns around my area, you might have played baseball or ran track in the spring, but you were only truly considered an athlete if you suited up for the basketball team. There was a fierce air of competitiveness between schools – the enmity between my school, Shoals, and our county rivals from Loogootee was so passionate that a 1975 game ended in a brawl almost before it got started, and the schools didn’t play again for 7 years. Now, thanks to the different camps that kids can go to in the summer, to say nothing of the general shrinking of the world we live in, these kids who formerly wouldn’t have anything to do with one another now are friends. I wouldn’t be more shocked if Tom’s offspring and Jerry’s offspring hung out together to eat cheese and gawk at dogs.

But basketball isn’t the only game in town anymore. It’s harder to get kids to commit to basketball when there is also soccer, wrestling, baseball, cross country, volleyball, gymnastics, golf, track, softball, and even bowling offered as school sports and competing for their time and energy, and that’s just on the high school level. And there are just too many other activities at both our disposal and our kids’ than to take in a high school basketball game.

I think that, to a certain extent, baseball suffers from the same malady. There are 700 other channels in the cable/satellite universe, so only diehards watch the games on TV. Entertainment options abound, and baseball has lost its ability to galvanize a nation because it has to compete. There are still strongholds, of course, especially in the more traditional baseball towns like St. Louis, Chicago and New York (and, to a lesser extent, Cincinnati).

Too much greed: Like most other endeavors, baseball is now a business. It always has been on some level, but no more so than at this point in time. Blame Curt Flood, blame George Steinbrenner, blame the commissioner's office and the player's union for allowing the salaries of players to become exorbitant. There's plenty of blame to go around; look elsewhere if you expect the chicken-egg argument of whose Original Sin it was to be addressed or answered here.

There are black marks all over the game in this regard, though. The continued existence of Jeffrey Loria (who has already screwed Montreal out of the Expos, and is looking to screw South Florida out of the Marlins) hasn’t brought on the apocalypse as feared, but he surely doesn't operate in the "best interests of the game" - a phrase that former commish Bowie Kuhn trotted out when dealing with A's owner Charlie Finley's shenanigans in the 1970s. Steinbrenner, meanwhile, has driven up the ceiling on salaries - or, more precisely, completely dismantled it - spending upwards of $200 million on payroll and forcing other teams to do something similar if they wanted to remain competitive with the Yankees.

It's a given, especially in middle America, that "greed" has replaced "batting average" and "ERA" as the factor that drives baseball. Ask anyone over 50 what they think about baseball these days, and they will likely sigh heavily and begin ranting about "those damned owners" or "those selfish players."

That's two strikes on baseball. Here's a high, hard one:

Too many allegations of cheating: Which brings us full circle: Instead of celebrating a man who is closing in on second place on the all-time home run list, we are rightfully skeptical and, to an extent, scornful of Barry Bonds.

America will turn on a cheater quicker than a wrestler would turn on Hulk Hogan in the '80s. And when you combine the shadow of drug or steroid usage with the allegations of cheating, those who are even rumored to partake in both become Public Pariah #1.

That's why so few trust in, believe in baseball anymore. The gaudy numbers that so many sluggers have put up – think back to when Brady Anderson (Brady Anderson!) hits 50 home runs in a season, having never put out more than 24 in a season before or after 1996 – seem almost magical upon first glance, but upon closer review don't really hold water in the real world. We love our numbers in America, and anyone who inflates those numbers by artificial means deserves all of the derision he can get. Even Roger Maris' 1961 season was riddled with a big asterisk – as if it was his fault that baseball extended the season another 8 games – and the animosity that many fans pointed toward him for daring to challenge The Babe nearly killed him.

Is this to say that Barry Bonds is a cheat? (Does it walk like a duck? Does it talk like a duck?) I really want to give him the benefit of the doubt, and I say this as someone who's not cared for him throughout his career. But my benefit of the doubt is outweighed by what Barry Bonds sees as Barry Bonds' best interests: coming clean about his alleged drug usage (for real, and not with his constant blanket denials) would instantly lead to a near-complete ostracization from the fans - remember what happened to Jason Giambi? - and could certainly lead to his banishment from the game and the loss of his paycheck.

And even though we don't know the whole truth and can only rely on the word of shady associates and authors looking to get rich off the Bonds saga, the mere speculation about his steroid usage is enough to cause his entire career to be put under a microscope, to be picked apart with a fine-toothed comb.

And that's why I'm so ho-hum about Bonds' coming coronation as the new all-time king. We should be leading up to the greatest moment in baseball in the century, and all I can do is stifle a yawn, because it's just not real to me anymore. I suspect that I'm not the only one who feels this way.