I'm pretty sure that I never had Barry Bonds on a fantasy team at any point in his storied (and infamous) career -- until baseball started testing for steroids. Since then, I haven't been able to get rid of him.

I convinced myself last Spring Training that his knee injury would be short term in duration, and that he would continue to hit at a reasonable approximation of his former self. I may have been right on the second part, but I never really got to find out because my teams that were partially built around him were done in by his absence by the time he played in September.

My mania was so complete that I convinced myself that he would positively impact the players around him, as well. Moises Alou was a shockingly good hitter in Chicago without Bonds in the order. Just imagine, I reasoned, how well he will do with the best hitter on the planet in front of him. I looked at J.T. Snow's numbers hitting in front of Bonds in 2004 and expected a career season. Wrong, wrong, and wrong. 

Inexplicably, I compounded the problem by signing Bonds to a contract in one league. So a one year ordeal is now looking like a two year problem. In the other league, I got excited about Bonds hitting a couple of homers this spring and burned a keeper on him. That excitement quickly turned to fear when his elbow joined his knee in hurting.

But of course now it has gotten worse. Yesterday Bud Selig announced that George Mitchell will be conducting an investigation into past steroid use in baseball. 

Sometimes I wonder if, behind that stoic exterior, Selig basically believes that any publicity is good publicity. This steroid stuff sure seems to sell. Every time you think it might go away, they find a way to drag it right out there in front of us again. Assuming the problem was as rampant as most think it was, this is going to take a long time. Long enough to keep the controversy going long after Bonds passes Babe Ruth.

What impact will it have from a fantasy perspective? Well, it's been hard to gauge just how much all this bothers Bonds. He's been as focused a hitter as there is, and seemingly can block out distractions that others cannot. But there has to be a limit somewhere. We got a hint of that this week, when Bonds, in an unusually good-natured way, began talking about jumping off buildings and the like. If you believe the recent public allegations regarding his steroid use, his reputation and place in baseball history is of paramount importance to him. If that's the case, the investigation may be able to damage him even if the league takes no disciplinary action.

Nonetheless, I think Bonds will hit -- when healthy. The question will be how much he can stay in the lineup. That means that we probably won't be seeing the monstrous Moises Alou I was hoping for last year. Alou can't stay on the field either, so chances are one or the other will be out a lot of the time this year. And this time I'm not going to run around touting any other Giants as likely to benefit from having Bonds in the lineup. Though Mike Matheny did show a surprising power surge last year. With Bonds around, he might hit fifteen. 

The other interesting question, however, is who else could get pulled into this in a public way. My guess is the investigation, and any resulting report, will shy away from players who are currently in the game, instead focusing on easy, already-partially-disgraced targets who have left the game. That leaves the league a way to admit what was going on, address it in a meaningful way, and avoid tarnishing the current product.

Just the kind of thing that a jaded (but still interested) fan base would expect from Major League Baseball.