When “NFL Today” and CBS SportsLine.com reported Sunday that Raiders Bill Romanowski, Dana Stubblefield, Barret Robbins and Chris Cooper have tested positive for the designer steroid THG, you couldn’t help thinking about Barry Bonds.

For the record, no proof has been produced that Bonds has ever done what some fans and media members around the country suspect — used anabolic steroids or human growth hormone or any testosterone booster.

I have no knowledge of Bonds using anything stronger than ZMA, the zinc-magnesium supplement he has endorsed for Balco Laboratories in Burlingame. But the circumstantial evidence mounts.

Sunday’s story went far beyond a few little-known track-and-field athletes testing positive for THG. This story loomed much larger than the reported 40 athletes subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury about their connection to Balco founder Victor Conte Jr. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency says Conte is the likely source of THG distribution. Conte has denied the allegation.

Bonds has worked with Conte since the winter of 2000. After gaining about 25 pounds of muscle at age 35 — difficult without using synthetic testosterone, experts say — Bonds set the single-season home run record of 73 in 2001.

In a “Muscle & Fitness” article last June, Bonds raved about how much Conte has helped balance his trace-element levels with ZMA.

If image is everything, as athletes have told us in commercials, Bonds has a big problem. So might baseball, if Bonds continues his assault on Hank Aaron’s record of 755 home runs.

But of course, Bonds has never seemed to care much more about his image than he does for the reporters he treats like cockroaches invading his clubhouse wing.

For the record, I don’t seek interviews with Bonds or care whether he talks to me or the media in general. I evaluate him as a performer, and I’ve often called him the greatest who ever played.

But Bonds is now the easiest target in sports in part because he has bought no insurance with the media. It’s difficult for reporters and columnists in and out of the Bay Area to defend Bonds when he has treated them with such disdain and made their jobs so difficult.

It’s equally difficult for some fans to think the best about Bonds. As the Beatles sang, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

Bonds can be charming and insightful in interviews when he’s in the mood. A superstar who had first-name rapport with local media members now might choose to hold a news conference and convincingly shatter doubts about his relationship with Conte.

Taking zinc, for instance, can be a perfectly safe and legal way to help maintain natural testosterone levels.

But Bonds doesn’t use the media. He blames them.

When the issue is merely whether Bonds is an arrogant jerk, only his meager marketing power is at stake. But now the integrity of a home run record is at growing risk.