The media is in a snit. Baseball commissioner Bud Selig refuses to commit to attending the game when Barry Bonds breaks Hank Aaron's all-time home run record. The media won't let it go.

Selig is correct.

Forget for a minute the importance or unimportance of Selig being at the game when Bonds hits his 756th home run and consider the logistics. Selig is running a multi-billion dollar industry. He can't be traipsing around the country following Bonds, who might go from 754 to 756 in one night or in one fortnight.

Bonds opened the season in Ruthian -- or is it Bondsian? -- fashion. He had 11 home runs in 32 games through May 8. He hit only six in the Giants' next 52 games, a two-month stretch.

After he hit his 11th home run, the Giants played 16 games before he hit another. He also had a 13-game stretch without a homer. During the 16-game stretch, the Giants traveled from San Francisco to Colorado, to Houston, to Oakland, to San Francisco. Selig has better things to do with his time.

More to the point, what difference does it make if Selig attends the game? His presence neither legitimizes nor invalidates the record. He's one man. He might represent MLB but he doesn't represent the mind of the baseball fan. It's true, if Selig doesn't show it will be viewed as a rebuke of the record by MLB. But by dallying as he has, Selig already has issued such a rebuke.

Fans will determine how Bonds' record is viewed. This scenario is not a whole lot different than when Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth's single-season home run record of 60 in 1961. Ruth's record of 60 had stood since 1927, when teams played a 154-game schedule. Maris hit his 61 home runs in a 162-game schedule. Because of that, some, including then-commissioner Ford Frick, believed the record was not legitimate.

For a number of years, traditionalist would not let go of the Ruth record. Eventually, they did and Maris received his just due. That may or may not happen with Bonds, who has a more difficult acceptance path to travel. Aaron is every bit as revered as Ruth, if not more so, and Bonds is nowhere near the sympathetic figure the humble Maris was. Whether Selig is at the game will have no effect on the evolution of fans' thinking.

We're not suggesting logistics are the reason Selig is being coy about whether he'll be at the record-breaking game. It could well go far deeper than that. Selig might be conflicted about Bonds. He might believe in his heart Bonds is a cheater who achieved his super slugger status by way of chemical enhancement. Or he might be less sure of that but aware of some piece of information -- like Bonds is going to be indicted -- and is waiting for that news to fall.

Bonds, meanwhile, is handling the situation superbly.

"That's up to Bud, it's not up to me,'' Bonds said at the All-Star Game. "I have to go out and play for my teammates. That up to Bud. Bud is his own man. And I respect him. Whether Bud shows up or doesn't show up, I'm going to still play baseball that day.''

Bonds often makes no sense. He made perfect sense with those comments.

There is no question that this record is a dilemma for Selig. He was at the forefront of ignoring the steroids issue in baseball when it became clear as records were regularly shattered that something was amiss. To say he reacted late would be a massive understatement. To atone for his tardiness, he's overreacting.

His decision in March of last year to bring on John Mitchell, the former distinguished senator from Maine, to investigate steroid use in baseball is an example of his overreaction. Precisely what good the findings of this investigation will be is hard to fathom. If Mitchell comes up with little or nothing, the investigation will be labeled a whitewash. If he comes up with hard evidence, it only makes baseball look all the worse.

Few would deny there was rampant steroid abuse in the NFL as early as the 1970s. The league went about instituting a testing policy and put the steroids issue behind it as best it could. There was nothing to be gained by exhuming the past.

Selig, probably because he was the chief enabler of the steroids era, can't let go. For the good of all, he should.

He should also do as he pleases when it comes to attending Bonds' record-breaking game. It makes no difference whether he attends or doesn't.