No

Dear Padres fans,

I know you want to agree with Marc - he's one of you, after all.

When the Petco Park video board exhorts him to make noise, he screams like a 12-year-old girl at a Gwen Stefani concert. I hear he even once tried to start the wave in a bases-loaded, two-out situation in the eighth inning.

I'll admit there's no denying his credentials as a Friars fanatic.

As such, he naturally despises Barry Bonds. Hey, who doesn't, right?

Even if the Giants slugger has never failed a drug test and the entire steroid case against him is some leaked grand jury testimony and a heap of circumstantial evidence, we all know the guy is a cheater. Just look at him.

Lou Seal wears a smaller cap.

So, yes, it will be hard to watch when Bonds inevitably crosses home plate on home run No. 756 in the not-too-distant future. The moment will be as cheap as Donald Sterling calculating a tip after an early-bird special.

But about that asterisk.

I'm not sure that's a road you guys really want to travel down. Going back through the record books to determine the difference between legitimate accomplishments and fraudulent ones is an inexact science.

And you might not like the results.

Perhaps Bonds does deserve an asterisk next to his career home run total. But as soon as that ink dries in the baseball almanac, you'd better get ready to see another one stitched to the flag at Petco commemorating the Padres' 1998 National League pennant.

As you might recall, the third baseman that season was the late Ken Caminiti, an admitted steroid abuser. Cammy had six hits, five walks and two homers (including a key blast in a Game One win) in the National League Championship Series against the Braves that year.

So tell me, guys: Did Atlanta deserve to win that series because a key Padre was cheating?

Maybe you can see where I'm going with this.

The steroid era was not monopolized by Bonds or Caminiti, meaning what we're talking about is hanging an asterisk not just on one home run record, but on at least two decades of baseball history.

Granted, the home run history we're about to witness is almost certainly bogus.

But to denote that in the record books is to imply that all other marks were accomplished by guys as pure as Roy Hobbs.

And that's probably not the case.

Thanks for listening. You may nowrefocus your attention on the cap dance.

Sincerely,

A Bonds apologist

- Contact staff writer Michael Klitzing at mrklitzing@gmail.com.