more media outrage on Barry and Mike Lupica wonders about how pure Roger is

In the Sunday Globe Nick Carfardo writes on how Barry's peers may feel about him now that threw a teammate under the bus.

"Nothing like dragging your teammate down and throwing him under the bus," said one veteran American League player. "That, to me, is despicable."

A former Bonds teammate, and longtime friend, said, "It's hard to keep defending Barry. Something like that with Sweeney, that's not right."

In the New York Daily News, Bill Madden is even more blunt

Bonds is a plague on the game and a divisive force in the Giants' clubhouse, his pursuit of Aaron's record being greeted with dread rather than excitement, which is why Giants owner Peter Magowan's decision to give him $16 million when no other team in baseball wanted any part of him is so curious.

Gwen Knapp in the San Francisco Chronicle though writes all is not lost with Barry.

Six home runs in April should cure a lot of the ill will. Seven or eight in May should help people forget this week's sordid story about his testing positive for an amphetamine and then, most sinfully, trying to explain himself by saying that a substance obtained from teammate Mark Sweeney might have triggered the positive test

Mike Lupica in the Daily News wonders just how pure Roger Clemens is in the steriod era.

If the Yankees do win the always much-anticipated and now-annual Roger Clemens Sweepstakes, if they do manage to outbid the Astros and Red Sox for his services, they need to understand that they do not just get his 44-going-on-45 right arm, they also get the questions about whether that crackerjack training regimen we hear about all the time with him is more natural than solar energy.

I am so sick and tired of hearing about steroids and the impact it has had on the game in the past twenty years or so. As far back as 1988 the Fenway crowd took great fun in chanting S-T-E-R-O-I-D-S at Joes Casenco during a playoff game. I like millions of other fans watched in amazement as Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa assaulted the long time record by Roger Maris. Truth is there were questions then but we the fans didn't want to hear it and neither did the sportswriters. Bud Selig and Company were just thrilled fans were returning to the game after the disastrous strike of 1994. Now the game is paying the price.

I remember how excited the nation was when Hank Aaron was closing in on Babe Ruth's record in late 1973. The final week of that season NBC broke into prime time for every Aaron at bat as there was no ESPN or for that matter cable tv yet. Yes there were some who didn't want a black man to break Babe's record but they were treated with scorn by the vast majority of fans. I am certain if Babe was still alive in 1974 he would have been at home plate to greet Aaron after the record was broken. But now Barry Bonds is very close to passing Aaron and outside of Giants fans in San Francisco, nobody wants it to happen. Can you even fathom what Fenway would be like if by some small chance Bonds broke the record in Boston in June? 36,000 people booing with all their might and if he does break the record on the road that is exactly what will happen.

The Giants don't need Bonds to sell tickets this year. They are hosting the All Star Game and fans have bought season tickets just to go to that.

The sad part is if we think the coverage is over the top now, just wait as he gets closer.

What a mess.