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Just an exhibition series here. A steppingstone there. A matter of national pride elsewhere. The World Baseball Classic means different things to different teams.

Remember the way we were before steroids reared their ugly head? Jim Caple's newly re-discovered set of 1988 Topps baseball cards takes him back.

Owners in pinstriped suits. Umpires. General managers. But players? Not so much. Welcome to the Baseball Hall of Fame's future.

Baseball headlines we just might really see in the year to come, all the way from next week's Hall of Fame announcement to your 2013 World Series champion.

Think Congress is too polarized to accomplish anything meaningful these days? It's got nothin' on the writers organization trying to decide who to put in baseball's Hall of Fame.

The Hall of Fame puts a positive spin on all its candidates for induction. But here's the real skinny on the newcomers to the ballot.

That Roger Clemens comeback with the Sugar Land Skeeters this weekend? To Jim Caple, it's got the makings of a movie plot, hatched with some of the Rocket's friends who have their own Hall of Fame issues.

What makes baseball so special, so wonderful, is that even when a beloved record is broken, today is always connected to what happened yesterday.

Bud Selig called his own efforts to follow Barry Bonds around "Herculean." But apparently the Mitchell commission thinks otherwise.

After hitting No. 754, Barry Bonds says he's feeling no pressure to capture the all-time home run crown.

After spending a few days in San Francisco, Jim Caple discovered that elder statesmen are alive and well in baseball.

So Barry Bonds needs only 22 home runs to pass Hank Aaron, right? Jim Caple gives 22 reasons why it might not happen.

Barry Bonds didn't homer and Barry Zito was ineffective in his new duds as the Giants came up flat in their season opener.

Ever since Sid Bream came home and Barry Bonds left, the only important games they play in Pittsburgh anymore are All-Star Games.

It took Barry Bonds 13 days to go from 713 to 714. That sapped a lot of the interest. Nobody likes waiting around, writes Jim Caple.

So what do you think of Barry Bonds now? Before we can answer that, Jim Caple asks us to answer some tough questions.