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Barry Bonds may not have grand jury immunity, but he is getting some immunity from bad-tempered fans. From The San Francisco Chronicle comes this story by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, the men who brought you Game of Shadows, about people trying to bring Bonds-related signs into ballparks.

The article focuses on one man who attempted to bring 9 different cleverly written banners into Chase Field in Arizona, but was told he couldn’t bring them in because they were in poor taste. Among the statements deemed in “poor taste” were “Thou Shalt Not Covet Impure Gains” and “Stop inflating records.” The man wrote a letter to the Diamondbacks and received a lengthy response that included this line.

“As Mr. Bonds approaches the homerun record, we have been asked by Major League Baseball to carefully screen the signs that are brought into the ballpark by our fans.”

However, Major League Baseball says they have issued no rules regarding Bonds and it’s up to each team to decide what is acceptable and what isn’t. MLB’s policy was confirmed by a Diamonbacks official who says it was the team’s decision to not let the signs in.

With Bonds now set to start in next week’s all-star game it will be interesting to see how strictly AT&T Park lays down the law when it comes to signs. My guess would be that anything other than “We Love You, Barry” will be confiscated at the gate, leading to at least one PR disaster where some crying 8 year-old is banned from the game because of a sign. I’m also hoping there will be some clandestine Jack Bauer-type operations where a sign is cut into five different pieces, smuggled into the stadium by different people, and then patched back together.

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