I can’t tell you that I have ever met Barry Bonds, or that I have any reason to dislike him—aside from what has been shoveled at me by various media sources, which seem to indicate he’s not easy to get along with. However, the Barry Bonds I have seen at games has always been a nice guy getting along with kids, giving autographs, and generally treating the fans appropriately–even when I have seen him at ballparks where he is subject to a lot of verbal abuse.

The present controversy surrounding Bonds is mainly centered around the question of whether he used/uses steroids or THG, and his praise of BALCO (Bay Area Laboratory Co - Operative) and his personal trainer Greg Anderson, both currently under investigation for suspicion of giving supplements containing illegal steroids. Bonds testified several weeks ago.

Whether or not Bonds has used steroids is cause for raging debate, but it’s neither here nor there in relationship to this discussion. Like many others, I am skeptical about many of the hitting records that have been broken in the last 15 years but I have no proof, nor would it matter if I did: steroids have not been considered cheating. Until now.

Still, Bonds has made a terrible mistake, which in fact may taint him, but it’s not related to his on-the-field play. Yeah, I am impressed with his third consecutive MVP award, his home run totals, and his team leadership; but where I am disgusted with him is in his decision to withdraw from the Major League Baseball Players Association’s (aka the Players Union) group licensing program.

For those of you who don’t know what the group licensing program is, it’s a pool run by the Players Union that handles the licensing of player names, images and likenesses when the licensed product involves three or more players. Mainly, it deals with items sold to children such as baseball cards and video games. It does not deal with individual endorsements or publicity deals.

Every player, regardless of reputation, stature or name, gets an equal share in the revenues generated by this pool based upon time of service during the season for which it was licensed.

The shares of this revenue are not great. Players perhaps take home under $100,000 a season as their share. This income is a pittance for the superstars of the game, but can be 30% or more of a young player’s annual compensation.

Barry never had a problem taking his share of this money, until now (his father Bobby seemed to have no regrets either). As young players, both Barry and Bobby took their share of the revenue from a pool that included money generated by the licensing and marketing of everyone, including older, established superstars who raised the water level for everyone—and they used that money to build good lives.

Barry’s decision to withdraw from this pool is a slap in the face to younger players, and it's an incredibly selfish thing. More than that, however, is that it’s a slap in the face to fans—especially kids—who may end up paying more for their baseball cards, video games, simulations, and sporting equipment, because separate negotiations with Bonds now will be necessary for every product that uses his name, likeness or image in order that Barry be included.

Barry claims that he made this decision to help shed his “bad guy image” and to prove that he is not difficult to work with. My question is, how has this break with the Player’s Association done anything but the opposite? He’s never been denied that chance in the past, as he could endorse virtually anything he wanted, and reach out to fans directly. Until now, his most ringing endorsement seemed to be of BALCO—which is what we all may remember him for.

His withdrawal from the program is curious, unless he plans to extort baseball card companies, game companies, and others for larger sums of money for the use of his likeness and name. Should we now expect to see a cheerful, wide-grinned close-up of Barry on every new Topps and Fleer? Will he be seen on next year’s Upper Deck card distributing candy to a circle of gleeful, uniformed pre-teens, while sporting an altruistic, aw-shucks blush? Will the info page on the latest baseball simulation video game include a list of his favorite charities? What exactly is he gunning for, if not more money? How much control can a mega-star have?

How ironic, that if Bonds were to test positive for steroids, the same Union whom he’s just slapped across the face would be the same one to jump to his defense against any grievance, contesting all possible fines and suspensions that might be attached to him.

I would hope there are companies that manufacture baseball cards and games that will be brave enough not to meet Bonds’s demands for licensing money and will issue their products without him. The products and publicity are part of what makes a player famous, and if Barry is too good to share reciprocally with the young players and has no compunction about bleeding dry the young fans who worship him, then I certainly won’t be buying his products either.