Hank Aaron is STILL my home run champion.

Sodom-By-The-Bay Chronicle: If Giants keep Bonds, get ready for a weird year / Amphetamine test reports add to team's worries about slugger

Gwen Knapp proves you don't need to wear a jock to write about sports as she beats down Barroid Bonds.

The Giants have it easy this week.

Bruce Bochy doesn't have to do the daily manager's briefing with reporters. Mark Sweeney doesn't have to figure out a way to get to the field without answering questions about becoming baseball's latest designated drug-testing scapegoat. Barry Bonds can hide from scrutiny about reports that he tested positive for an amphetamine and then tried to pin the blame on a substance he sampled from Sweeney's locker.

We're about six weeks away from the grand ritual of pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training and equidistant from the start of utter mayhem for the Giants.

Just to be safe, let's put an asterisk next to that timeline. If the team somehow wriggles out of its as-yet-unsigned contract with Bonds, the prospect of mayhem, like the heist of Hank Aaron's home run record, might not come to pass.

"Heist"! Heehee.

Assuming that the deal gets done, though, the Giants' clubhouse should be a miserable place, filled with denial and forced camaraderie that eventually will become genuine camaraderie built on shared exasperation with the media.

The pursuit of Aaron, paralleling the Justice Department's pursuit of Bonds himself, will throw the team a whole new array of curveballs.

The amphetamine story should be just the starting point. As Bonds gets closer to his 21st home run of the season and a tie with Aaron at 755 for his career, the media and security contingents will become overwhelming. With the prospect of a perjury indictment, the widespread belief that he cheated and the strong possibility that personal trainer Greg Anderson will spend the summer behind bars for refusing to testify against his longtime client, the presence of Bonds on the 2007 Giants roster could be a real downer. If it doesn't take something out of the other players physically and mentally, they will be baseball's new Ironmen. Cal Ripken, under the same conditions, would have taken a week off.

Bonds' teammates always have a pat set of answers about him. They duck questions about BALCO by saying that they have no absolute proof that he has taken anything illicit. They fend off questions about his aloofness by gushing about his batting stroke and his place in history. They rave about his willingness to offer hitting tips to the mortals who wear the same uniform. Jason Schmidt, now an expatriate in Dodger blue, seemed especially appreciative of Bonds' empathy on the matter of losing a parent to cancer...

The rest of the article is just as good, kiddies. It is well worth your time.