Bonds’ pride led to this dilemma

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But Bonds was unable to contain his arrogance, and if you believe “Shadows”, decided to lie.

He said he didn’t take steroids, but if he did, he did it unknowingly. He said he simply took what Anderson gave him without question, putting them into and onto his body with a shrug and a “whatever, dude.”

This contradicts Sheffield’s statement, as well as testimony from Conte, Bonds’ ex-girlfriend Kimberly Bell and ex-friend/business partner Steve Hoskins.

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Whether or not Bonds told the truth is debatable, although the evidence compiled in “Shadows” is pretty damning. The feds certainly believe he fibbed. And finally, they’ve decided they have enough evidence to prove it.

Meanwhile, you hardly hear a peep anymore about Giambi or Sheffield and their involvement with steroids. They weren’t suspended by baseball and face no legal charges. The controversy, as far as they are concerned, has gone away.

Bonds could have followed a similar path. Confess. Apologize. Ask for forgiveness. Resume your life. The approach worked for Giambi, as it has for countless others.

But Bonds chose to stick to his guns. Maybe he was worried that his testimony would leak to the press — as it did — and that his run at Hank Aaron’s home run record would be derailed.

But in truth, there are two reasons commissioner Bud Selig would have been unlikely to suspend Bonds: First, he never failed an MLB drug test, and secondly, Bonds' BALCO testimony was in 2003, whereas baseball didn't even have a testing policy with any teeth until 2005.

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No, given the choice of facing the wrath of Selig or a court date, Bonds made a mistake and let his ego take over. He decided to risk angering Dirty Harry when he could have chosen instead to pick a fight with Urkel.

Flouting the rules of baseball is one thing, but tangling with the federal government is something else.

The sad thing is it didn’t have to be this way. All it would have taken was a little humility from our modern day Bellerophon, and this all could be over by now.

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