Barry Bonds

The selection of Dirk Nowitzki as the NBA's Most Valuable Player is not official, announced or even confirmed. What is confirmed, though, is that if the honor goes to him, a heavy dose of dishonor will come with it. It's not his fault. Seriously. The stipulations for the NBA MVP voting are the same as they were when the first was awarded in 1956. It's a regular-season award. Nowitzki had a worthy regular season. However, this is the only league that could justify awarding this prize after the playoffs are done.

When his record-setting clout against the Washington Nationals landed around midnight Eastern time Tuesday, San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds officially became baseball's reigning home run king. But hours, days, maybe years after Bonds' 756th home run reached the AT&T Park seats, questions about the validity of Bonds' accomplishments - and really, of any of those who played in the recent, so-called steroids era - will continue to linger. "I don't know how we are going to look at it or what's going to come out of this decade.

It was about a year ago that Jamal Lewis showed up in Westminster in the biggest truck I had ever seen. OK, it wasn't an 18-wheeler, but it was the biggest non-RV personal vehicle I had ever seen up close, so I had to find out what it was all about. Jamal was quite accommodating. He gave me the full tour of his customized, $200,000 monster truck and explained why it was "not a toy." It was, he insisted, a promotional vehicle for the trucking company (All-American Express) that he had started with his football earnings.

New spring, same old top story. There are plenty of intriguing subplots as baseball breaks from its winter hiatus and pitchers and catchers start playing long toss this week in Arizona and Florida. But, as usual, none can top the sport's most consistent newsmaker, the incomparable Barry Bonds. Throughout this decade, Bonds has been a must-read spring story: Can he still play at a Most Valuable Player level? Will he hit a historic number of home runs? Is he healthy? Is he cracking under media scrutiny?

Even a week later, many of us are still professing shock, shock, about an elite athlete getting outed as a drug cheat. The domino effect of Marion Jones' guilty plea in federal court and her tears-on-cue apology on the courthouse steps continues. Now, her Olympic relay teammates from the 2000 Games might have to return their medals just as she did, and, to say the least, they are not reacting well to the news. Yet there are still many who can't get over Jones' confession. She seemed so ... nice.

I never thought this could happen, but I'm actually starting to feel sorry for Barry Bonds. The guy is a handful of home runs from replacing Hank Aaron at the top of the all-time list, and he's having a pretty good year for a player who's into his 40s, and now there's talk that he might get stiffed for the All-Star Game at his home ballpark. Bad News Barry's All-Star status suddenly became an issue when he dropped to fourth in the fan balloting for the National League's three starting outfield positions.

Who would you like to see hold the home run record? Since it is inevitable that Barry Bonds will break Hammerin' Hank's record and absolutley no one outside of the Bonds family is happy about it, would you like to see A-Rod, even though he is a Yankee, break the record? I hate seeing a Yankee holding a record, but I hate it even more to see a cheater with it. Bonds. Until I see proof that he cheated, not hearsay and stolen testimony from a convicted criminal, then I say he didn't cheat.

One day after Barry Bonds was indicted on federal perjury and obstruction charges, the sports world's other famous subject of a federal investigation, Michael Vick, was back in the news yesterday. The infamous Surry County, Va., house that was headquarters for Vick's dogfighting operation, Bad Newz Kennels, was sold this week to a developer who plans to auction it off. So, are you looking for new digs and don't care about bad karma? There's a public showing of the house, a 4,300-square-foot two-story white brick building with a backyard basketball court, Dec. 8-9. The auction is Dec. 15. No word on what the developer paid, but reportedly, it's less than the $747,000 assessed value.

He thanked Orioles fans, the team's public-relations and production staffs, the coaching staff, the trainers."If I missed anybody, I didn't mean to," B. J. Surhoff said. "I wanted to thank those people specifically for helping me get to this point."Surhoff, 34, has had plenty of time to prepare his classy acceptance speech: It took him 13 seasons, 1,636 games and 5,872 at-bats to become an All-Star.So many people were happy for him yesterday. Here are the reflections of four men who knew him way back when:The scout: Milwaukee scouting director Ken Califano was the area scout assigned to Surhoff when the Brewers selected the North Carolina catcher with the No. 1 pick of the 1985 draft -- ahead of Will Clark (No. 2)

Quote: "The one didn't have anything to do with the other. I'm not used to wearing them. I don't want to make any excuses. I should have made the catch. I just lost the ball in the sun."-- A's third baseman Olmedo Saenz, who, without sunglasses, dropped a fly ball in foul territory in the second inning, allowing the Rockies to take an early lead.It's a fact: The Astros lead the National League with 182 doubles, and Craig Biggio leads the majors with 39.Who's hot: After yesterday's 1-for-3 outing, Royals' Joe Randa is hitting .492 against (29-for-58)

ZIMMERMAN REACHES 40 Nationals third baseman Ryan Zimmerman's 30-game hitting streak ended recently, but he still has the baseball world on a string. He homered in the fourth inning off Rich Hill to reach base in his 40th consecutive game. The modern NL record is 58, which is shared by Barry Bonds (twice, 2000-2001 and 2003) and Duke Snider (1954). REIMOLD ROCKS AGAIN Left fielder Nolan Reimold launched his second major league home run in the second inning off Washington starter Jordan Zimmermann.

So, I guess this is the point at which we finally look at the steroid era and concede there is nothing else that would surprise us - short, of course, of Cal Ripken Jr. suddenly going on 60 Minutes to admit that all the milk he was drinking was spiked with stanozolol. Alex Rodriguez has come forward to confess he used illegal performance-enhancing drugs during the early years of this decade and he's truly sorry for it. Never mind that what he's really sorry about is that his positive steroid test in 2003 that was supposed to be anonymous got leaked to the media, but let's not split hairs.

In an SI.com story, Barry Bonds says he has had fun during his first full season out of baseball and is enjoying his freedom from the game. Barry, of course, might have to enjoy his freedom while he can. He's still awaiting trial on 14 counts of making false statements to a grand jury and one count of obstruction of justice. I also think, by and large, baseball fans have enjoyed their freedom from him. (For more, go to baltimoresun.com/schmuckblog)

WHERE'S MADGE? So Madonna isn't singing the national anthem, but that doesn't mean she might not be somewhere in Yankee Stadium tonight. If her Kabbalah buddy, Alex Rodriquez, left her tickets, what name do you think he'd choose? Blond woman with a girl in tow walks up the the will-call windows. "Two for Breathless Mahoney, please," Ticket clerk shakes his head no. "How about for Eva Peron?" He hands her a pair of tickets. "Sorry, ma'am, but they're in the upper deck," That's OK," she says, "don't cry for me. NO LONGER INVITED All of a sudden, Bud Selig decides this rule about having an All-Star from every team is just silly.

The National Baseball Hall of Fame and the man who possesses Barry Bonds' record-setting 756th home run ball had reached an impasse. And then they hadn't. By the grace of God and a deliveryman, fans who make the yearly trek to Cooperstown, N.Y., won't be denied the chance to stare at a $12 baseball. Could any of us really live in a world where that sort of thing might have happened? Fashion designer Marc Ecko bought the souvenir for more than $752,467 last September. He apparently had promised to donate it to the Hall "unconditionally," until deciding later that he'd rather lend it, which sounds an awful lot like a condition.

When the Major League Baseball Players Association confirmed the other day that it's investigating whether the 30 big league clubs are conspiring to keep Barry Bonds out of the game this year, I couldn't help but laugh. Does anyone seriously believe it would take some nefarious scheme to convince everyone in the game to steer clear of Bad News Barry at a point in his career when he is (a) 43 years old; (b) barely mobile; (c) under federal indictment for perjury in the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative grand jury investigation; and (d)

I hope some club signs Barry Bonds this summer. And I hope he leads that team to the playoffs with a fusillade of walks and 450-foot homers. I don't wish for this because I have any rooting interest in Bonds. Whether he never homers again or hits 50 more, my opinion of him won't change. No, what I'm rooting for is the unconventional, a general manager who doesn't give a hoot about disapproving scrutiny as long as Bonds can help his team win. If we're going to create entertainment markets in which we reward those who win at all costs, then by Job, I want some executive to stick his neck out and make this move.

Somewhere, Barry Bonds is laughing. He's not working, but he's got to be laughing. Bonds, stuck in baseball limbo, probably is following the latest round of unsavory reports about Roger Clemens, this time involving - yuck - an underage girl. Bonds' sport rejoiced as it washed its hands of him last offseason, even though he escaped with the all-time home run mark. Still, it was supposed to have been that simple: Out goes Bonds, out goes our "problem." Now, a fresh dump truck-load of dirt lands on Clemens every other week, and as it does, it also lands on baseball.

Earlier this week, the Major League Baseball Players Association said it would look into whether there is collusion involved in Barry Bonds not being signed by a big league team so far this year. He has been in search of a new team since being released by San Francisco. Understand that union head Don Fehr isn't exactly breathing fire on this one. In fact, he's speaking kind of gingerly, saying that he's not making any accusations. It's really a matter of the union just doing what it's probably obligated to do on behalf of any player.

Did you know that every year at this time, in the San Francisco-area media, Barry Bonds is seen and heard pleading for organ and bone-marrow donors to help African-American children who are difficult transplant matches? Bet all the people letting bygones be bygones with Brian Roberts because of his charity work didn't know that. Here's some motivation for the Ravens: If they win their last two, starting today in Seattle, they'll become bowl-eligible. In a just world, Bobby Petrino would have to sit out from coaching for a year, same as a player who transferred before his commitment was up. Are you watching the bowl games?