Look for Bonds to (not) hit and run (for exit) at All-Star Game

What's all the fuss, "Rants & Raves" wants to know, about Barry Bonds being selected to the National League squad for next week's All-Star Game? Hey, he'll get his two semi-intentional walks and lamely go after a single-turned-double into left-center field before showering and leaving the ballpark by the seventh-inning stretch:

With the game being played at AT&T Park -- Bonds' backyard -- you knew he at least would be selected as an alternate, as the lowly Giants' lone representative, by NL manager Tony La Russa. But here's the more obvious truth: That the slugger/alleged drugger was voted in as a starter demonstrates it's a not-so-silent minority that has been squawking about his possible steroids use and, in turn, inflated career home run numbers.

The baseball masses, at least those who voted, apparently don't care. They simply want to see what Bonds can do in what most certainly will be his final All-Star Game appearance.

Despite commissioner Bud Selig screwing up the game by having the outcome determine home-field advantage for the World Series, it still is the fans' game. ...

• With Bonds two weeks shy of 43 years old, and the Cincinnati Reds' Ken Griffey Jr. at 37 also being voted in as an NL starter, the third member of the outfield pack at game's first pitch -- 30-year-old Carlos Beltran of the New York Mets -- will feel as if he's helping out at a nursing home. He'll have to shag everything but bedpans.

Seriously, it's good to see Griffey back to having good seasons after all of the injuries and insecurities he endured in some past years.

You have to wonder how truly great "The Natural," as he was known early in his career, could have been -- greater than Bonds? -- had he stayed healthy professionally and happy personally. ...

• Mike Hargrove's announcement Sunday that he was done managing baseball was not just unusual in its timing -- with the Seattle Mariners having won seven straight games and challenging, admittedly at the midpoint of the season, for the American League wild card -- but in its genuine honesty.

For a person at Hargrove's level of accomplishment to step away because his "passion has begun to fade" is rare in sports, where individuals try to stretch out careers way past their prime. Yes, it's easier to leave when you have enough money to fall back upon -- no, Hargrove won't be working any freeway offramps next summer -- but he could have continued picking up a paycheck for the rest of this season, at least, for just filling out a lineup card six days a week and flashing a few signals to his third-base coach during games.

But Hargrove was honest not only with himself but with team management and his players in admitting that he simply couldn't give it his best anymore. Caps off to him for not cheating the game. ...

• Freedom of speech also guarantees freedom of idiocy, as demonstrated by Alex Rodriguez's wife, Cynthia, who wore a skin-tight, white tank top with obscene phrasing on the back to Sunday's game against the Oakland Athletics at Yankee Stadium. No, we can't print the two-word phrase, but suffice it to say it wasn't "My Daddy!"

Cynthia Rodriguez, you see, was carrying the couple's 2-year-old daughter to her seat in the player's family section at the time.

Of course, as the Yankees fell 11-5 to the A's for their eighth loss in 10 games through Sunday, something tells us the dirty phrase was mild compared to what was being yelled by N'Yawkuhs frustrated with their team's ongoing sub-.500 play. ...

• Yes, the "Tsunami" will go for his seventh straight world title July 4!

Despite reported jaw pain -- the torn rotator cuff of competitive eating -- Takeru Kobayashi will defend his championship and his event record of 53 3/4 hot dogs at the 91st Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest on Wednesday at New York's Coney Island.

There was extensive media speculation that Kobayashi might surrender his bejeweled, mustard-yellow title belt because of the pain -- and possibly because American eater Joey Chestnut recently had broken Kobayashi's world record by devouring 59 1/2 wieners in 12 minutes.

But apparently the lure of a first-time monetary first prize of $10,000 loosened up the Japanese eater's jaws.

May the best eater win -- and, more important, not upchuck live on ESPN. ...

• The 22-day, 2,208-mile Tour de Doping begins Saturday in London with its prologue -- and not a single name anyone outside of cycling has heard of competing for the title.

Joe Hawk is the Review-Journal's sports editor. His "Rants & Raves" column is published Tuesday. He can be reached at 387-2912 or jhawk@reviewjournal.com.