David Whitley: Fans that put stock in Bonds have last word

ORLANDO, Fla. – Hank Aaron was asked recently about his least-favorite subject. He had no thoughts.

“I don’t even know how to spell his name,” Aaron said.

Sorry, Hank. America does.

It spelled the name, or clicked it, 2,325,391 times. The votes are in and Barry Bonds will be in next week’s Major League Baseball All-Star Game.

Let us pause to commemorate the death of Western civilization.

All right, it’s not quite that bad. But America had a chance to make the proverbial statement. What it said was: We Don’t Care.

We don’t care that Bonds is the international symbol for cheating. We just want to see Barry swing.

Can we please get a recount? Where is Al Gore’s legal team when you need it?

Bonds trailed Alfonso Soriano by 119,000 votes but blew past the Cubs outfielder during the weekend. If he hadn’t made the starting outfield, Bonds might not have made the team at all.

The players pick most of the reserves and they didn’t have Bonds in their top five outfielders. Hmm, wonder if they know something we don’t?

Then again, what’s left to know? If fans aren’t convinced by now that Bonds is baseball’s all-time pharmaceutical king, they never will be.

Please don’t say Bonds deserved to be an all-star based on this season’s statistics. As far as I’m concerned, every Bonds stat has been bogus since 1998.

And don’t say he deserved it because he’s making history. The Huns also made a lot of history and nobody in Europe celebrates it.

Now Bonds is throwing a big celebration. This may be his last year, and he really wanted to make the game in San Francisco. He’s so happy he might even let Albert Pujols sit in his $20,000 Barcalounger.

All I can say to his defenders is: Congratulations, you win.

This doesn’t prove your guy never juiced. It does prove fans aren’t nearly as bothered by it as people hoped.

What people? You could start with Aaron, who stoically broke Babe Ruth’s record despite racist death threats. And forget B-O-N-D-S; Aaron also didn’t need to spell B-A-L-C-O in order to hit his homers.

I’m all for tolerating alternative lifestyles. I hoped that wouldn’t include potato-headed steroid freaks, but the Giants did all they could to promote their deviant.

Workers at AT&T Park wore stickers urging fans to “Vote Bonds.” The Internet votes flooded in.

Nobody knows if it was a matter of electronic ballot stuffing or how many states Bonds carried. The end result was a defeat for truth, justice and the American Way.

All right, that’s overstating it again. Let’s just say if Barry is happy, you know it’s a sad day.

“I’m having a big ol’ party Monday,” Bonds said. “I just can’t say thanks enough to the fans in San Francisco.”

Hey, Barry, you could always invite all your fans to the party.