By John Feinstein
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, July 16, 2007 4:39 PM

We live, these days, in a world that becomes more absurd by the moment.

A man who is convicted of leaking information that could affect national security has his sentence commuted by a President who invokes national security as an excuse for not revealing what he or anyone on his staff had for breakfast. An heiress whose major talents appear to be being blonde, stupid and rich, becomes the subject of non-stop media coverage because she goes to jail on a DUI conviction (spending more time in jail, by the way, than the national security leaker) and then uses her release from prison to launch a new clothing line.

The world of sports is no different. The rule these days is to find 15 different ways to not tell the truth, regardless of the subject. Let us begin -- sadly -- with baseball's ongoing hostage crisis, the saga of Barry Bonds. If ever a sport has desperately needed for a superstar to go away, it is baseball and Bonds, who now says he wants to play again next year. Baseball needs another year of Bonds about as much as the world needs a TV show co-hosted by Scooter Libby and Paris Hilton.

There aren't 10 people outside the city of San Francisco who don't believe every word of "Game of Shadows," the book that reveals in painful detail Bonds' decision to start using steroids in 1999 and how it changed his body, his life and baseball history. In fact, it is quite probable that most people in San Francisco believe the book too -- they just don't care. He hits home runs, he won the city a pennant in 2002 and he helped get a gorgeous new ballpark built. So he may be a cheat, but he's their cheat.

Fine.

The rest of us remain in captivity. Bonds speaks at the All-Star break and, out of one side of his mouth he says he has no problem with Hank Aaron saying he won't be there when Bonds breaks his all-time home run record (current numbers: Aaron-755, Bonds-751). Then, out of the other side of his mouth, declares he will be right there (if) when Alex Rodriguez breaks his record six, seven or eight years from now. English translation: I'm a better guy than Hank Aaron.

Of course, that's, to use a polite word, baloney. Bonds knows why Aaron won't be there; everyone knows why Aaron won't be there. The only problem is Aaron won't say why he won't be there. In keeping with today's jock mores, he keeps circling the subject, talking about not wanting to travel or being busy or just not much feeling like hanging around waiting for a home run. English translation: Bonds is a cheat, he's a jerk and I have no interest in honoring him for a single second.

If he said that, then he would force Bonds to respond in English, rather than winking and saying, "Oh, I have no problem with Hank Aaron." But, since no one in sports speaks directly to any issue anymore, the two men just circle one another.

The same is true of Commission Bud (Hamlet) Selig.

To be there or not to be there (when Bonds hits number 756), that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler to shake the hand of a cheat who I helped get away with cheating for years or to finally stand up and say, "ENOUGH!" Get thee to a nunnery that day rather than a ballpark!

Apologies to Shakespeare. The point though is this: Selig's waffling and warbling on the issue is ridiculous. Everyone knows he doesn't want to be there, that he loves Aaron and can't stand Bonds and what Bonds stands for. And yet, everyone knows that unless Selig gets lucky and Bonds breaks the record during Hall of Fame weekend (July 28-29) when Selig is already committed to being in Cooperstown to honor two true Hall of Famers, Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken, he's going to be there.

Some say he should be there because he's as culpable as Bonds because he and the owners turned their back on steroids for years. No doubt everyone is guilty: Selig, the owners, the player's union, the media -- no one is innocent. But the notion that Selig should somehow sanction this cheating by shaking Bonds's hand in what will be one of the most insincere gestures in sports history is ludicrous.

The crime has already been committed -- not just by Bonds, but by hundreds of others. The best thing Selig can do is say, "Yup, I blew it too, but I'm not going to act as if nothing happened." Instead, he goes around saying he just doesn't know what his schedule will be like when the day comes. He might have to re-arrange his sock drawer. Maybe he can pull the old Bowie Kuhn line: I've already committed to a Cleveland Indians fan club meeting. That was Kuhn's excuse for ducking Aaron in 1974 -- the second most impeachable offense committed by a leader that year.

Selig's going to be there and he's going to talk about how much respect he has for Bonds in broad and non-committal terms. It will be a sham and an embarrassment. Which, come to think of it, fits in perfectly with the rest of this sorry tale.

On the subject of shams, let's shift for a moment to Alex Rodriguez -- anointed by Bonds (and -- and his own agent, Scott Boras) as the next home run king during the All-Star break. A-Rod may be having the perfect year. He's on pace right now to easily eclipse 50 home runs and 140 RBI and, best of all for him, there's a good chance the Yankees won't make the playoffs. Thus, he can finish the season saying, "I earned my $27 million," without having to subject himself to another potential playoff humiliation.

Everyone knows A-Rod can opt out of the last three years of his contract at season's end. Everyone also knows A-Rod will opt out and look for a five or six year $30 million-a-year contract. All of which is fine. If baseball's economy is such that someone will pay him that kind of money, he's entitled to go after it.

That doesn't mean he's right to go after it. The smartest thing A-Rod could do right now is go out on a financial limb and decide to work the next three years for that piddling $81 million. Announce that he wants to retire a Yankee and he's willing to give the team a hometown discount by playing out his contract and is willing to take his chances on the team coming to him with a new deal at some point.

He would completely change his image in five minutes. He would win over the fans, who are ready to boo him the first time he strikes out in October. And he'd probably end up doing okay financially.

That isn't going to happen of course. Boras clients always get every last penny out there and A-Rod is like 99.9999 percent of athletes in that he wants every last penny. Opting out doesn't make him a bad guy; it just makes him one who isn't as smart as he -- and his agent -- think he is.

Last week, when the Yankees offered to renegotiate now, Boras turned the offer down flat. A-Rod, he said, didn't like to be distracted by negotiations during the season.

Really? Is A-Rod sitting in on the negotiations. Does he not pay Boras a considerable sum to come to him and say, "you should sign this," if/when he gets the deal A-Rod tells him he wants?

Please. There's not an offer the Yankees can make now that A-Rod/Boras will take. They want to try the open market. Which is just fine. If only they would just speak English and say that.

That's not about to happen. That's not the world we live in. This is the world we live in: Three years ago, Baltimore Ravens coach Brian Billick, one of the good, smart guys in jock-world, decided he had to change offensive coordinators after six years. He had fought a year earlier to keep Matt Cavanaugh's job and the 2004 season hadn't gone well. Cavanaugh knew he was gone long before the season ended.

On the day after the finale, Billick went to see Cavanaugh -- who was already packing his office. He wanted to announce that Cavanaugh had resigned. Cavanaugh couldn't stand the idea that anyone might think he had quit. He wanted Billick to say he'd been fired -- and there were no hard feelings, because there weren't. The two men spent 30 minutes debating what to call Cavanaugh's firing.

They finally settled on a "mutual decision."

In other words, Cavanaugh and Billick mutually agreed that Cavanaugh would clear out his office and leave even though Billick wouldn't fire him and Cavanaugh wouldn't resign.

Or something like that.