If you ain't cheatin' you ain't tryin'.

It's a pretty good mantra, really.

Everyone cheats.

How many times have you used the old "foot wedge" on the golf course when your buddies weren't looking?

How many times have you "forgotten" to count that whiff from the rough with your not-so-trusty 3-iron?

Mulligans were created for cheaters.

Video game junkies know what I'm talking about. There are more Web sites dedicated to cheat codes than there are to nude pictures of Paris Hilton.

Cheating is just as much a part of sports as green grass, the roar of the crowd and Jason Bay strikeouts with the bases loaded.

Yet we armchair cheaters demand pope-like scrupulousness when it comes to the professional athletes we follow.

Sure, Barry Bonds cheated. Sure, Barry Bonds was juiced more than Florida oranges. But so were most of the hurlers

not pitching to him during that time.Sammy Sosa actually was a double cheater. He was juiced on steroids and his bat was juiced with cork.Cheating and baseball are by no means strangers. It's just the types of cheating that have changed.Coaches have a long tradition of stealing signs.Players have corked bats since the first Louisville Slugger rolled off the lathe.The air conditioner at the Metrodome in Minnesota blew out when the Twins were up and in when the opponent was at bat.Steve Garvey cheated on his wife — a lot.Then there is Gaylord Perry and others of his ilk.He was the king of the cheaters. Only a manicurist used a fingernail file more thanPerry. He probably owned petroleum jelly stock.Baseball has always had cheaters, cheaters, pumpkin eaters.Other sports have them, too.The only difference now is the cheating happens with a syringe. Now the cheaters are corking themselves instead of their bats.Maybe we should just accept it and move on. It's not like we've never bent the rules.Of course, most of us have never injected ourselves with a human growth hormone. Our foreheads haven't morphed into Herman Munster's. Our bodies don't resemble Lerch's.But most of us haven't stared down a 99 mph fastball with 50,000 people cheering with each hit and booing with each strikeout.The pressure to perform drove most of them to do what they did.It was cheat or go home.Cheating won out.Bonds is going to pass Hank Aaron as the all-time home run king, unless one of his aging hamstrings pop or one of his damaged knees uncoils.Or if Bud Selig hires Jeff Gillooly.Maybe Bonds doesn't deserve such a high place in the baseball pantheon.But maybe, just maybe, he does.If anything, he deserves to be in a high place in the cheaters pantheon.Right along with our foot wedges.