Barry Bonds is at it again, single-handedly sucking the life out of Major League Baseball, sending causal fans screaming into the night where they find succor and sustenance in the NFL, the NBA, and the National Tiddlewinks Federation.

Bonds scored a hit on a speed test last year, a greenie home run if you will. He tested positive for amphetamines. But in true Bonds fashion (“I have never, nor will I ever, do anything for which I will take responsibility”) he blamed somebody else — in this case Mike Sweeney. He said he got the pick-me-up from Sweeney’s locker.

Then he backed off from that, saying that Sweeney had nothing to do with it.

If a 4-year-old acted like that, you’d ground him from television and his tricycle for a week.

No, Barry Bonds is not the only MLB player to use a banned substance. But he may top the charts as the most arrogant. And while arrogance has no legal standing, Bonds is batting last in sympathy and understanding. Instead of manning up, he essentially tells that because he is Barry Bonds and because he has never done anything bad and because we paid more attention to other guys with inordinate muscles who were white or Hispanic and because it is somebody else’s fault, he gets a pass. If that worked earlier, it’s not working now. And I say that as Giants fan from the days of Dusty Rhodes, Willie Mays, Stretch McCovey, and Orlando Cepeda.