My name is Barry Lamar Bonds. I am the all-time home run hitter in Major League Baseball, and hold the single season record for most HRs. At the age of 42, I hit 28 home runs in only 477 plate appearances, and reached base 48% of the time. I still want to play baseball. And I am stuck looking for a job because baseball is full of the dumbest people to ever forget their own name.

Just to be clear — when I say “pay me,” I’m not talking about writing extra zeroes on my paycheck. I made my money. I have my records. I can buy and sell half the clowns in this game. The one thing missing for me is a World Series ring, which even if I don’t get one isn’t a big deal. Plenty of great players have left their mark on baseball without getting to the Promised Land — that doesn’t make them lesser players. Is Ted Williams not a great player because his owner was a racist? Is Ernie Banks not a great player because the Cubs are cursed? Is Jeff Bagwell not a great player because he was too dumb to leave the Astros when he had a chance? No, that doesn’t make them less-than-great players. It makes them great players surrounded by AAAA filler and softball tossers thanks to a rock-dumb front office and a manager that treats his pitching staff the way a horny teenager treats the cracks between the cushions on his mamma’s couch.

I could give a rat’s ass if I have to sit in my designer reclining chair for all of 2008, if not the rest of my life. It’ll be fun, watching all sorts of teams that could have used a caliber of hitter like myself fall on their face trying to win 75 games with the dogmeat they decided to sign instead of me. I’m OK with that — I haven’t had a good laugh since Dave Chapelle went nuts.

No, when I say, “pay me,” I mean, “pay me the damn respect I deserve.” Let me be clear on this point: I played by the rules of Major League Baseball, and by their standards, I am one of the greatest players that’s ever played the game. I have done things that no other player has done, and no other player might ever do. And I’m treated like the kid that pissed in everyone’s food to save them from the trolls. Two muck-raking hacks made their career publishing a book full of unsubstantiated allegations and illegally obtained grand jury testimony, while a little toadie working for the supposed “Worldwide Leader in Sports” burrowed his big-ass Easter Island head right between my asscheeks like a thermometer. Anyone else? Nope — just Barry.

When I flunked an amphetamine test, the New York Daily News printed the information despite the drug testing policy specifically stating that first-time offenders — read that, please; FIRST TIME OFFENDERS — aren’t supposed to be identified by name. Other folks? Nope — just Barry. The size of my head is an actual topic of conversation throughout the nation. Some no-talent clothes designer paid three quarters of a million dollars just to deface my record-breaking home run ball. Did McGwire or Sosa have to explain themselves or their hat size? Nope — just Barry.

And every day, like clockwork, some so-called expert weighs in on what I should do, or what baseball should do. “Barry should come clean.” “Barry should give back his salary.” “Barry should be ashamed for what he did to a game he supposedly loves.” “Barry should play in traffic on a dimly lit highway on- ramp.” And now, from this bearded clown, “Barry should play in an independant league like Rickey Henderson did to prove that he can still play.” Correspondence school dropouts like this should learn how to read a stat sheet, and maybe the Help Wanted section while they’re at it. There are players 10 and 15 years younger than me that couldn’t do what I can do right now if they were hopped up on some futuristic bionic implant shit. Yeah, I’m not in the same shape I was when I signed with the Giants. Let me know what you look like in 15 years, and we’ll compare notes and cup sizes.

But go ahead and use this never-ending stream of bullshit and Peanuts-stand philosophizing to accuse me of something I didn’t do. If it makes you folks sleep better at night thinking that I did whatever it is people say I did, then don’t let a little thing like giving a man the benefit of the doubt, or that old “innocent until proven guilty” nonsense, get in the way of a few more taps of your snooze bar. You do what you do, and I’ll do what I do.

For the last 22 years, jokers like this Rosenthal punk have been writing off-base bordering-on-slander “opinion” pieces for lack of trying to actually use that rotted-out melon stuck between their ears to write about something interesting. And for the last 22 years, all I’ve done is play professional baseball in the world’s most talented league at a level that 99% of all professional athletes can’t even imagine in their wildest dreams. I am perfectly willing to play for a 23rd year, maybe even a 24th. But I can understand if you guys don’t want to deal with a great hitter with the work ethic of a hungry rookie and the eye of a surgeon, and would rather fall back on “great clubhouse guys” that “play the game right” and hit grasscutters to 2B every damn day and suck off every last one of those bitchy little beat reporters. I’m more than happy to take my ball home and watch all you know-nothing chumps lose.

Have fun missing the playoffs, clowns.