News Flash: Barry Bonds says he will retire after the 2006 season, even if he doesn’t pass Hank Aaron on baseball’s all-time home run list.

Teddy’s Take: That would be the best scenario for Major League Baseball. In fact, I hope he doesn’t even pass Babe Ruth for 2nd place. Hammerin Hank, The Babe and what they accomplished should be sacred, not tainted like the single-season HR record that Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa cheapened.

Of all the “Juice Era� sluggers, Bonds is the most disappointing case. Unlike McGwire, Sosa and the rest of the muscle heads, Bonds was a Hall of Fame player long before he began using “flaxseed oil� or any of the other “stimulants� which rejuvenated his body and sharpened his skills at a time when most athletes’ bodies begin to break down.

There should be no mistaking the fact Bonds’ later accomplishments are tainted. He did not deny taking the BALCO supplements. His defense was he didn’t know what it was he was taking. HOGWASH! And if I hear one more person tell me he didn’t do anything wrong because steroids weren’t banned in baseball, I’m going to hurl.

Steroids are and were illegal. Last time I checked, Major League Baseball’s rules are not above the law. I’m sure MLB’s bylaws don’t have a specific passage banning the creation of Crystal Meth labs in the trainers room either, but I’m assuming all major leaguers, trainers and club officials are smart enough to know that’s not allowed. If the steroids users and their defenders didn’t think they were doing anything wrong, then why hide their use of the drugs instead of trumpeting it? Please don’t insult my intelligence by claiming it wasn’t “against the rules.�

Look, I’m not naïve here. In fact, I can almost understand why Bonds turned to the juice. Here was an already 3-time MVP sitting there and watching McGwire and Sosa praised as the men who saved baseball during their home run chase in 1998. Imagine being Bonds, knowing you have more pure talent in your little pinky than those two frauds had in their entire chemically enhanced bodies, but having to sit back and watch them break baseball’s most prestigious record while you and everyone in and around the game knew how they were really doing it. Throw in wrist and elbow problems in 1999, followed by off-season knee surgery, and it’s not hard to understand why Bonds was tempted to join the juice brigade, if he wasn’t already on it.

The rest as they say is history, which is where I hope Barry Bonds and the rest of the “Juiced Era� ballplayers are relegated to. A sad footnote to an era of fraudulent records and accomplishments forever tainted not by a scarlet letter, but a scarlet symbol…..the asterisk!

That’s my take……what’s yours?