Winter of discontent: Barry Bonds' offseason consisted of steroid allegations, family problems and knee operations. AP

Get your licks in now. Kick the man while he's down. And make no mistake, Barry Bonds deserves to be down.

But if you think three knee operations, the ever-prescient steroid cloud hovering above him, an angry ex-mistress with tons of dirt, a looming tax-evasion charge and the probing media hoards will actually make him quit, well, you're as dumb as Mark McGwire's advisors.

Barry's going nowhere. Except to rehab his aging knee and his beat-down pride, not necessarily in that order.

I don't know when, whether before the end of this season or next year, but Bonds will be back.

I don't know what kind of player he'll be, but Bonds will be back.

I don't know whether fans will care or not (wait a minute, yes I do; they will), but Bonds will return to the batter's box, and to his once all-but-inevitable conquest of baseball's most storied record.

Quite simple: He ain't going out like that. Not as a snarling, defensive, broke down shell of the man who made baseball freeze like it was trapped in the Matrix when he came to the plate. Not as -- dare I say -- a punk.

Bonds' inglorious exit from spring training last week ("You wanted me to jump off a bridge, I finally have jumped.") was nothing more than a setup. With his body and his world -- baseball, family and perhaps his freedom -- closing in around him like a vice, Bonds crumpled like an old dollar bill.

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It was entertaining, in a twisted way. But mostly, it was sad. We got a front row seat to watch a man hit near-bottom and lash out like any wounded beast.

In truth, I had more trouble with Bonds' exit than with McGwire's pathetic performance before Congress. A legacy that was once defined by his Bunyanesque assault on Roger Maris' single-season home run record is now overshadowed by the Wimpyesque phrase: "I'm not here to talk about the past."

Do ya think McGwire's sitting at home hoping for another plate appearance like the guy in the batter's box with two outs in the bottom of the ninth? Sorry, Mark. That's the ballgame. Nobody wins! Nobody wins! Noooooo-body wins!

Following his press conference, Bonds hobbled to his car and offered some last thoughts to MLB.com's Barry Bloom. "I might not be back at all," he said. "I'm just going to go home and try to enjoy my family. I'm sick and tired of seeing them so upset. I'm done, finished with it."

Some speculated that this may have been Bonds' anti-version of Lou Gehrig's "I'm-the-luckiest-man-in-the-world" farewell. But I didn't buy it for a second. Instead, I heard: I'm done with y'all, meaning the scrutiny, the insinuations, the accusations, the drama. If he heals -- both his body and his family -- and if the feds don't lock him up for not paying tax on money he earned signing autographs (not likely), he'll be back.

Bonds will get another swing, another chance to add the final strokes to his legacy. Too bad McGwire whiffed his final swing.