This much we know about Barry Bonds:

1) He has become the most controversial sports figure of our lifetime, surpassing Pete Rose and Mike Tyson.

2) He shouldn't be suspended from baseball for his alleged steroids use, at least not yet.

3) He should be ignored if and when he breaks Henry Aaron's home run records.

4) He should not be excluded from the record books, although his statistics should carry an asterisk for eternity.

5) He should not, under any circumstances, be voted into the Hall of Fame.

Eric Risberg, Associated Press The media, their microphones and their cameras are everywhere Barry Bonds is. He talks with David Tumbas, right, head athletic trainer for Team USA, Thursday before a spring training game in Scottsdale, Ariz. Click photo for larger image.

People always ask: Why do you worry so much about Barry Bonds? No one cares. They also ask: Why so much attention for Bonds and so little for, say, Mark McGwire in this steroids mess? They want to make it a racial thing. Both questions are absurd. Bonds gets such scrutiny because he's about to break the most significant record in sports while embroiled in a monumental scandal. The game deserves nothing less than for the brightest spotlight to shine on his actions. Aaron deserves nothing less.

But Bonds is entitled to due process. There has been speculation commissioner Bud Selig might suspend him before the season. As much as baseball would love to see Bonds go away before he puts the game in the embarrassing position of crowning him its new home run king, that just doesn't seem right. A suspension can't be based merely on the forthcoming book that details Bonds' alleged steroids use. The players' union wouldn't stand for it, not so much because its membership likes Bonds -- most everyone finds him detestable -- but because it can't allow such a precedent of tossing aside a member so capriciously. Former commissioner Fay Vincent had it right last week, calling for a full-scale investigation, much like the one baseball did on Rose and his gambling. That investigation found beyond doubt that Rose bet on baseball, resulting in his well-deserved banishment from the game. Bonds deserves the same fair treatment.

Bonds almost certainly will get the chance to hit the seven home runs he needs to pass Babe Ruth for second place on the all-time list. Baseball officials are praying his knees blow out before it happens or that the pressure of the scandal buckles him and drives him out of the game or at least leaves him impotent at the plate. Bonds' knees might go, but there's no way he gives in to the pressure. He might be the mentally toughest player of all time. He's going to get those seven home runs, maybe even the 48 he needs to pass Aaron.

That will leave Selig with quite the conundrum: How does baseball treat Bonds' record-shattering performance? Selig and the owners deserve this fiasco because they were partners in Bonds' so-called crime against the game. They turned an eye away from the steroids as all of those home runs brought out fans and put money in their pockets. They only took a strong stance against steroids after Bonds was implicated in the BALCO scandal and Congress got involved. They, just like Bonds, are responsible for what should be the one of the most glorious moments in sports turning into an absolute farce.

It will be easy for Selig to stay away on Bonds' record-setting night. Unfortunately, it won't be so easy to prevent the San Francisco Giants from honoring Bonds. No one is going to allow him to hit the big home run on the road, where he would be viciously booed. It will happen at SBC Park, where the fans, like fans everywhere, are so desperate for a winner that they'll condone anything from their team's star. Bonds will receive a thunderous standing ovation. The Giants, also desperate for that winning team and knowing they need Bonds to have it, will provide the appropriate ceremony. They've been kissing his butt -- syringe-jabbed or otherwise -- for years, haven't they?

It will be up to fans everywhere to judge Bonds' place in history. Baseball can't keep him out of the record book and pretend he never played. But it should put an asterisk next to his name and those of the others in his generation, indicating they played in the Steroid Era. If fans still want to consider him the all-time home run king a century from now, that's fine, but at least they will know all of the facts.

As for the Hall of Fame, it's up to the voters to make that decision on Bonds. He lost my vote for good more than a year ago when he testified before the BALCO grand jury that he unknowingly used steroids, as if any reasonable person would believe that. I need more evidence to throw him out of the game, but I don't need more to deny him my vote, especially when there's an integrity-of-the-game clause in the voting instructions. McGwire and Sosa also lost my vote for the same reason based on their instructive testimony at the Congressional hearings on steroids last spring.

It appears the anti-Bonds sentiment is growing among voters, at least on the first ballot. My guess is he still eventually will make it in.

What a sad day that will be for baseball.

What a bittersweet day for Bonds.

He'll have his home run records and his Hall of Fame plaque, but he won't have the one thing that even his millions can't buy.

His good name.