There are lots of nasty adjectives people use to describe Barry Bonds: big-headed (literally), cheater, liar, meanie, bully, a–hole … the list goes onwards. All, in some respects, I suppose are with merit.

But there is one adjective we should use all the time in describing the man: “great.” Because, parsing out all the BALCO and steroid drama from his career, cat is still one of the best of all-time, and deserves to be a sure-fire Hall of Fame inductee due to his numbers before his head and body started expanding at an alarming rate.

He’s 44 now, and one full year removed from the game. Last year, he was still trying to work his way onto a team. (And really, I thought an AL club should have picked him up to DH. He OBP’ed .480 in 2007!) But, it didn’t happen. And you would think he’s probably done with baseball for good because of that.

But no, not so, kind readers. One of TMZ’s cameramen waited for Barry to come out of an LA restaurant and asked him hard-hitting questions about whether he was coming back and others such as: “Madonna and A-Rod, is that good for the game?”

After Bonds tried shooing him away with some jokes– by asking him for a check for the interview and talking to him about the particular specs of his camera! –  Bonds said “I’m not retiring” a bunch of times in a row, and he’s suddenly back in the news, as the AP, ESPN and a bunch of idiot bloggers like me picked up this story and ran with it.

So yeah, there’s your Barry Bonds update for the last couple months. Some dude with a camera outside a restaurant hounded him about his career and got him to say “I’m not retiring” while smiling through his teeth. Super. This is just like a news story, except that it really isn’t.

Bonds’ obstruction of justice trial begins in March, and I look forward to TMZ covering that with the same panache as this valet encounter. Should be fun.