Barry Bonds: Suddenly Talkative

Remember Barry Bonds' home run chase this season? I know, you may not want to remember it, but drudge up those old nightmares for just a second here. Bear with me.

Remember when Barry seemed so nice all the time, so unflappable, so totally unwilling to allow a reporter to goad him into anything resembling a negative quote? Oh what halcyon days they were:

Barry Bonds thinks he has been unfairly targeted for whatever problems baseball has had with the use of performance-enhancing drugs.

"I truly believe I have been singled out. Definitely," he said during an interview aired Friday by MSNBC.

Bonds would have preferred to remain with the Giants.
"I was disappointed in the way it was handled," Bonds said. "And what I mean by that is that San Francisco are not my fans. San Francisco is my family and I felt that ... they took away our time to enjoy. ... I think we deserved more than that."

This follows, of course, Barry's pronouncement that he won't visit the Hall of Fame if the Hall accepts Marc Ecko's asterisked ball. Besides Barry's sudden loquaciousness, which is interesting on its own, he has to at least understand why he was singled out. It's because there are widely reported suspicions of his steroid use coupled with his pursuit of the most hallowed record in sports. Even if he doesn't agree with it, he has to understand it, right?

Also: That photo just made my head explode.