One day, a long time from now (probably a really long time from now), I’m gonna have at least one hell of a story to tell my grandkids.

Over the last 10 days, I’ve slept in the room usually reserved for the cats (real cats, like with teeth and claws and hair), I’ve been pissed at my best friend and, at times, the only place I’ve had to piss was a Gatorade bottle. I’ve been spooned by a big hairy man, screamed at by a woman who most certainly belongs in a mental institution and awakened by tornado sirens.

The state of Arkansas has two kinds of residents: those who have more Dale Earnhardt stickers on the back of their rust, green and tan 1984 GMC Sonoma than actual teeth in their mouth, and those who have running water at home and actually choose to use it.

Yes, the very state this blog originates from has developed renowned reputation for housing confederate flag-waving rednecks and cutoff short-wearing trailer trash. And growing up in a town called Violet Hill, I saw where this reputation came from on a daily basis. But living in the college town of Conway for the last two years, I’ve become accustomed to the more civilized part of the state.

That is until Howie Mandell came to town.

Barry Bonds has made a mockery of the game I, and so many other people around the world, love.

In a time when the whole world is celebrating such a great game with the inaugural World Baseball Classic, Barry Bonds has turned the sweet smells of freshly cut grass, pine tar and camaraderie to that of syringes, lies and a stinking cheater.

It’s not like most people didn’t already think most of these things reported in the book written by two San Francisco Chronicle reporters who compiled compelling evidence against the single-season home run record holder through extensive research. But now, it seems as though there’s no hope there was some sense of purity in America’s beloved game in recent years, and there’s no way the record books can be looked with the seriousness and respect as they once were.

I shutter to think what Babe Ruth and Roger Maris would think of the news that was brought to the world yesterday. And I wonder what Frank Robinson and Harmon Killebrew have to say about Bonds, who allegedly juiced up on steroids to pass them on the all-time home run list. I wonder if Willie Mays, Bonds’ own godfather, is still firmly standing behind good ol’ Barry. Somehow I don’t see how it wouldn’t bother him that his own godson might have been juiced up on horse steroids when Bonds hit his 661st home run to pass Mays for third on the coveted list.

And now what does Bonds have to say for himself?

“I won’t even look at it,” Bonds told reporters yesterday of the book. “For what? There’s no need to.”

Mr. Bonds, it might just be me, but if a book was being published about me that would most likely place the word “cheater” next to mine in the history books, I might give it a look.

And now the debate starts. Is Barry Bonds a Hall of Famer? The most common answer I’ve heard thus far is “yes, he had the numbers to be voted into the Hall before he first reportedly starting taking performance enhancers in 1997.” Well, I ask, had Pete Rose not done accumulated enough numbers to be enshrined in the HOF before he bet on his first baseball game?

I don’t care if a player hit 1000 home runs naturally before taking steroids, if he did ingest that scum he doesn’t belong alongside the greatest players in baseball history for eternity.

It makes me sick to my stomach that the last 10 years of baseball have been completely tainted. Nothing anyone ever did in that time can be taken seriously. And now, the once sacred record books of Major League Baseball have also been spat upon.

As players from 16 different countries from around the world are representing their nations in the game they love for nothing but pride, with so many players so good we’ve never seen such talent wearing the same uniform at the same time before, all anyone can talk about and all I can write about is Barry Bonds and the injustices he has done to out beloved game.

Thanks, Mr. Bonds, thanks a lot.