01:00 AM EST on Saturday, March 11, 2006

Commissioner Bud Selig, in the spring of 2004, was worried enough about Barry Bonds' possible steroid use to arrange a meeting with him near the San Francisco Giants' training camp.

He was seeking to contain possible damage to the sport as Bonds continued to move up in the rankings of career home-run hitters.

According to highly placed Major League Baseball sources, Selig extended a vague offer of leniency if Bonds had anything he wanted to admit, including possible acts of perjury in his testimony to the BALCO grand jury. He told Bonds the consequences would be "much worse" if he professed innocence and later was revealed to be a steroids user.

It appears they will be talking again.

This time it could be to discuss a possible suspension, which given Bonds' age and fragile knees could derail his run at Henry Aaron's record of 755 home runs.

Bonds, who had told the grand jury he had never "knowingly" taken steroids, stuck to that story in his meeting with Selig in 2004, as he has consistently in his dealings with reporters. Yet suspicion since has stalked Bonds during two injury-plagued seasons and another 50 home runs, bringing him to within six homers of Babe Ruth's 714 and 47 of Aaron's record.

During this time, MLB security officials have been "monitoring" the Bonds case, although top executives strongly denied they had begun a formal investigation when the New York Daily News reported that one was under way.