Beckham

FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH:

•Barry Bonds and the government have had this date for a long time.

Now it’s finally here.

And no one should be surprised.

However this plays out, this is one of baseball’s worst nightmares, its all-time home-run leader getting indicted on charges of lying to a federal grand jury. This is the symbolic face of the steroid scandal, the rent coming due for all those years when the lords of baseball turned their eyes from what was happening in front of them.

This is what was inevitable ever since Game of Shadows came out, and it was apparent to anyone who had a clue that Bonds was in deep trouble, trouble that wasn’t going to go away simply because he ignored it. Now everyone knows.

•The next guy PC should honor is Chris Clark.

•And if you have to ask who he is, Bunky, you need the crash course in Rhode Island sports history.

•You know the world’s gone bonkers when A-Rod signing for $275 million happens in the same week Meals On Wheels gets its budget slashed. Once upon a time we might have called it irony. Now it’s simply America in this new millennium.

•The sound you hear is the people jumping on the Celtics’ bandwagon.

•Quiz of the Week: Who is the last college senior to be the No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft? (Answer near the bottom of the column.)

•Line of the Week comes from Stephon Marbury: “Isiah has to start me. I have too much … on him.”

•Then again, Marbury and Isiah deserve each other, for everywhere they both go, scorched earth seems to follow.

•Somewhere in the mess that is Lions For Lambs are some great issues trying to get out.

•There’s no truth to the rumor that the Celtics will soon begin resting players for the playoffs.

•Or that Adam Vinatieri is still winning games for the Pats.

•Or that the real Celtics MVP is Kevin McHale.

•For if McHale had been running a corporation instead of the Timberwolves, it would have been Enron.

•Not that Kevin Garnett is the only gift Minnesota has given us. How about Big Papi and Randy Moss (via Oakland), too?

•Why anyone would want to be the governor of this state eludes me.

•So far, anyway, Eli Manning is just another quarterback, nothing more.

•Which in this day and age in the NFL might be high praise, considering the league is full of guys who can’t complete two consecutive passes.

•Which should only make us appreciate Tom Brady more.

•There’s no truth to the rumor that Shaq has more commercials than rebounds this year.

•Zen question of the week: Why do comedians need writers?

•How’s David Beckham doing?

•Meredith Ward, the Westerly basketball star, will play at Holy Cross next year, the same place that Lincoln’s Betheny O’Dell is now playing.

•You know the apocalypse is bearing down on us when Marbury makes $182,000 a game.

•But, hey, when you’re Starbury, you deserve big bucks, right?

•You know that bubblegum is making a comeback with the news that the Spice Girls are back together. So watch your back, Hannah Montana.

•When you’re giving out Thanksgiving turkey awards, don’t forget Scott Boras, whose outright piggery gives capitalism a bad name.

•You’ve got to love Hank Steinbrenner, who said that A-Rod is making a sacrifice to remain a Yankee. Yo, Hank. How about the $275 million? Does that count?

•Kevin Garnett is one of the most talented guys ever to play for the Celtics.

•And he takes all the pressure off Paul Pierce, who, for all his offensive brilliance, never had been suited to being a leader.

•Rakim Sanders, the former St. Andrew’s basketball star from Pawtucket, had 22 points in his opening game for Boston College, a win over New Hampshire.

•Rescuing Providence, a new book by Providence firefighter Michael Morse, is an interesting look at the Providence they don’t put in the travel brochures, all told in a very readable, effective, descriptive style.

•Quiz answer: Kenyon Martin in 2000.

•Beowulf might have done more to bludgeon high school students than any book in history, so when it comes to the movie? Not me, babe.

•If the Rams can find a way to get a little more inside defensive presence, they will be the best URI team in a decade.

•Yes, the Celtics have the new Big Three, but they also are much better defensively than they were a year ago, thanks in part to new assistant coach Tom Thibodeau.

•Lucien Forbes is the new president of Rhode Island Lacrosse.

•You still don’t know what a Full Rhode Island is, Bunky? This from the New Republic, which has a story on Buddy and centers around a lunch at Capriccio’s, described as a scene out of The Sopranos. One of the people at the table is asked what he does. “I eat lunch,” he replies.

That’s a Full Rhode Island.

breynold@projo.com