I really don’t have anything new to add to what’s already been said, but unlike everyone else who’s sidestepping the reality I’m going to say the sad truth: I hope he does set a new home run record.

That’s right. Not because I’m a fan of Barry Bonds — I’m not — but I think there’s only one thing that would bring completion to this miserable monstrosity that somehow gets referred to as major league baseball. Watching Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds set home run records with the help of steroids is a sad thing, but let’s not forget that the single season homerun record was broken by two guys that year: Mark McGwire on steroids and Sammy Sosa with a corked bat. And that’s the reality of baseball: Everybody’s cheating. Pitchers cheat, batters cheat, outfielders cheat.

Nothing is sacred in MLB, and it all starts with ownership that allows one club to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on talent while another club can’t afford one million. If McGwire, or Bonds, or Palmeiro is putting asses in the stands, the ownership doesn’t care how he’s doing it. In fact, they’re going to do whatever they can to prevent him from getting caught.

So I hope Bonds breaks Babe Ruth’s record, and then goes on to break Hank Aaron’s record too. Then, finally, we can say there is nothing left in the sport to remind us of the days when it was America’s passtime. Maybe if Bonds set a new record it would incense the fans enough to make the commission finally clean up the sport.

Maybe. But here’s what I think: Major League Baseball continues to make money hand over fist, and Barry Bonds hitting baseballs so hard that people in canoes are fighting for a chance to catch one outside the park… all that does is make it more exciting. Sammy Sosa corked his bat and the fans loved him for it. Oh, and no man has 22-inch forearms without a little juice — people love to talk about McGwire’s muscular development and only an idiot would believe it was all natural.

If Barry Bonds broke the record, nothing would be done about it. Nothing will ever be done about it. I hope it happens because only then will the hypocrites stop running their mouths. When the freak of nature gets within two or three hits of that record, tickets will sell of ridiculously high prices and people will line up for miles to buy them.

Yes, I hope he does it, because then we’ll all see the hypocrites for what they are.

About a week ago, I commented on the role that The Daily Show has taken up in the present day news landscape. A few days later, Bob Costas appeared as Jon Stewart’s guess on the show. At the mention of steroids, Costas had this to say:

Everyone talks about Bonds, whatever, but to me, the most interesting guy in the midst of all this is Rafael Palmeiro of the Orioles: recently passed 3000 hits; closing in on 600 homers; seems to be a good guy; emphatically denied any steroid use and I accept that. But it’s interesting while he denies using performance enhancing drugs, he is the national spokesman for Viagra. So I don’t say that one necessarily connects to the other, but I will say this: for the past few years this guy’s been getting good wood on everything.

This morning on the ride in to work I heard it on NPR, and now I see in the Washington Post, that Palmeiro has been suspended for using what a well-placed industry source calls “a serious steroid.”

People are watching The Daily Show, and I have a feeling some of them are pretty important people. A few weeks ago, the Broward Art Guild fired their executive director after appearing in a Daily Show bit. Now Palmeiro is suspended for steroid use within days of these comments about him airing on The Daily Show.