Originally published in Bloomberg View.

In April of 2011, baseball writer Jon Heyman wrote a column titled, "Why Barry Bonds Belongs In The Hall" for SI.com. The piece laid out a surprisingly well reasoned argument for why Bonds should not be excluded from the Hall of Fame, despite his being surrounded by allegations of steroid use.

Hall of fame ballots follow their own own internal logic. For instance, regardless of how they feel about steroids, almost all voters agree with both or neither of the following statements:

The results for the most recent Baseball Hall of Fame ballot will be revealed on January 9, 2013. As we draw nearer, there will be more and more ballot explanation columns from BBWAA members. Maybe they feel defensive about their choices, maybe guilty.

It's the silly season for baseball, as winter meetings and free agency combine with Hall of Fame debates to take up way too much of our free time. But this year's HOF ballot is especially fascinating—a crop of elite players tied to PED use are eligible for the first time, and will compete with some strong veterans…

Busted Coverage has this photo, taken earlier in the week, of a cycling run-in with a certain former baseball player and huge man. Bonds is apparently spending part of his summer biking in the Rockies, and he looks...different.

Barry Bonds is many things. Barry Bonds is a legend. Barry Bonds is a martyr. Barry Bonds is a prick. Barry Bonds is a secret good dude.

So it turns out Barry Bonds is actually "close friends" with A.C. Slater, who got him to agree to do a reality show in which we get to see baseball's all-time asterisk king confronted by an angry fan who despises him, after which Bonds will have to try to convince the poor jagoff he's not such a prick after all.

Jeff Novitzki was an IRS agent. Not an avenging angel sent from above, nor an earthly crusader for all that is good and pure in America, but a bureaucrat. Somewhere along the way he got it into his mind that it was his job and his job alone (and his only job) to eradicate the peril of steroids in sports. He's with the…

This is actually great: Barry Bonds, the star of Bob Costas's nightmares, will provide scholarships for Bryan Stow's two grade-school-age children. Stow was brutally beaten at Dodger Stadium in March for wearing a Giants jersey. His condition is slowly improving, and police recently arrested a suspect in his beating.