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Americans can rest easy now. One of the world's greatest criminals will face indictment, as the Federal Grand Jury wrapped up their investigation into Barry Bond's lies under oath concerning the use of performance enhancing drugs. The investigation, which covered a mere 4 years and cost taxpayers a piddly millions of dollars, should quickly pay dividends, as the evil Bonds will likely retire from baseball and finally end his reign of terror over America.

Bonds had began to wonder if he may evade any serious consequences when players like Rick Ankiel and Paul Byrd were leaked as names of interest in a seperate, but just as illegal, online pharmaceutical bust implicating those two players (among others) in large purchases of performance enhancers.

But, unfortunatly for Bonds, he has three things going against him that makes him far more important to federal prosecutors than those two. One, he holds two prestigious home run records while the other two barely hold spots on a major league team. Two, he's reportedly a very mean person. And thirdly, he's black.

I'm sorry, I know this is 2007, and racism is so 1960s, but it sure looks to me like Bonds draws a lot more criticism than white boys Byrd and Ankiel, who casual fans don't even know about. Split hairs and tell me those two didn't perjure themselves and I'll come back with the fact that they bought tens of thousands of dollars worth of drugs off the internet with bogus prescriptions from quacks and have yet to face the kind of criticism Bonds gets. Unless buying prescription drugs illegally off the internet is o.k., in which case I stand corrected.

Look, I don't like Bonds. First, he plays for the Giants. If they are ever on t.v., it's way past my bedtime, so I don't really follow them. Second, I've read articles about his wife-cheating, girlfriend threatening, and income tax fudging to know he's not someone I'd like to hang out with. So, my opinion is not born of some fan-boy Bonds lover. It's just that I understand quite a bit more about steroids and HGH than most reporters.

No, really, I do. See, those drugs are everywhere in sports. Everywhere. Steroids are in even more places than just professional sports. Ever been to the Johnson Center? There's fellas there on the gas. College sports? Yeah, they're there too. But reporters act like the sports world is some kind of collection of heroes who, despite any off-field problems, play their game with a purity and sportsmanship not seen since the Yalies challenged Princeton to a rowing competition. Or something like that.

Folks, that's just not based in reality. Sportswriters need to accept the fact that athletes playing for millions of dollars will dabble in performance boosting substances. Should it be legal? No, I don't think so. But let's not act like it's a crime against the sport when Bonds is indicted. Hell, I bet a hundred of his home runs were hit off of pitchers who did steroids or HGH. ALL of sports has problems with this stuff.

And enough already with baseball catching so much more crap than the others. The Patriots are eyeing the first undefeated N.F.L. season in over 30 years and people are wondering if their record will be tainted because their coach had the other team's coaches videotaped to try and figure out their playcalling. But they're not wondering if it'll be tainted because their all-pro safety missed 4 games earlier in the year for testing positive for steroids? Why aren't his career accomplishments questioned? Why don't we put an asterisk on his football from one of his Super Bowls?

Here's another one- "baseball should test like the Olympics, blah blah". Well, that's actually a good idea because it's pretty stringent testing. However, it's not going to keep 'roids and HGH out of sports because there is still 'roids and HGH in the Olympics! Ever heard of Marion Jones? C'mon people. Just test them the best you can and deal with it.

Bill Curry admitted on Mike and Mike in the Morning that he took Deca one summer (Giambi's first steroid love). Mike Golic on the same show said he tried some once. Gaylor Perry threw spitballs and Ty Cobb sharpened his spikes. Defensive linemen spray their jerseys with Crisco and defensive backs spray their hands with Stick-Um. Players on second base steal signs from the catcher and basketball players grab shorts when blocking out for a rebound. People in sports do stuff to get an edge. That's just the way it is.

But hey, we got the worst of them all now and you can put your kids to bed tonight knowing that bad ole Barry got busted and can't hurt them.