Bud Selig remembers how terrible he felt when he was consigned to Barry Bonds duty in the summer of 2007. He remembers how he wanted to be anywhere but that box at AT&T Park in San Francisco, how he stood with his hands in his pockets and that nauseous look on his face when record-tying home run No. 755 left the ballpark, how he wished that the controversial Bonds might have been indicted by a grand jury investigating his steroid use or in some other way prevented from ending up with the most revered record in sports.

Selig said then that those were the most agonizing days of his tenure as commissioner of baseball.

But now, the lucky guy gets to go through it all over again with the game's latest disgraced slugger, Alex Rodriguez — only this time, it won't last just one summer, but will instead be one long, slow, miserable slog across perhaps as many as five baseball seasons.

Unless, of course, Selig does something about it. Unless he finally gets angry enough to take matters into his own hands and do what commissioners of sports are supposed to do and, in the "best interest" of his game, suspends Rodriguez, who has admitted that he used illegal performance-enhancing drugs from 2001-03. Suspend him for 50 games, suspend him for a week. Just suspend him.

While he's at it, Selig should do some editing of baseball's record book, reinstating Henry Aaron as the game's home-run king and adding an asterisk or some other notation to the statistics of Bonds, Rodriguez and all the others involved in baseball's steroid controversy. (That's going to be a whole lot of asterisks.)

In the past, the overly cautious Selig never would have discussed such things on the record. But he has become so frustrated by the overwhelming cheating that has enveloped his game that, shock of all shocks, he told me Wednesday in a phone interview that he would not flatly rule out punishing Rodriguez or adjusting baseball's record book.

"It was against the law, so I would have to think about that," Selig said of possible action against Rodriguez. "It's very hard. I've got to think about all that kind of stuff."

As for the game's once-revered record book, he said, "Once you start tinkering, you can create more problems. But I'm not dismissing it. I'm concerned. I'd like to get some more evidence."

Were Selig to act, he would find precedent not in his game, but in the Olympic world, which is much tougher on cheating and misbehaving athletes than baseball is, at least partially because it doesn't have to face an impossible, stonewalling players' union.

Consider the fact that USA Swimming suspended Michael Phelps for three months for being photographed smoking from that marijuana pipe — and that Phelps immediately accepted the punishment. This wasn't performance-enhancing drug use, obviously. It was the simple act of a sport taking charge of itself, using its code of conduct to make a statement about what it would accept, and what it would not. End of story.

Or, consider the Olympic record book, where Marion Jones' five medals won at the 2000 Sydney Games no longer exist. After she cheated, she was purged from the history of her sport. It can be done.

Were Selig to take action, there's no doubt the players' union would fight back. A-Rod's suspension might be overturned within an hour. Maybe minutes. No matter. At least Selig finally would have done something.

As for baseball's record book, it's already one grand mess, so Selig has nothing to lose by attempting to right at least some of baseball's wrongs for posterity.

As is his way, Selig ended our conversation by emphasizing that no action was imminent. "I don't want to create any false hope," he said, "but I am saddened. This is breaking my heart, I don't mind telling you that."

Selig is sad, A-Rod is sad, everyone is sad. But there's one man who can do something about it. Here's hoping he finally does.