Barry Bonds just cannot win right now.

• Nobody will hire him to play baseball.

• His 20-year-old son is going to trial for spitting in his own mother's face and other misdemeanors.

• The dude can't even get himself some chicken and waffles without being beaten to the punch by the San Francisco Giants' greatest rival, the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Thanks to Roberto Baly over at Vin Scully Is My Homeboy, we have a detailed blog-witness account of what happened when Bonds and the Dodgers winter caravan collided at Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles, a Hollywood institution and celebrity hotspot.

Barry ain't getting his waffles — that's what happens!

I like this photo, mostly because the sun shines on Roberto (he's the angelic figure at the far left) but there's a dark shadow cast over most of Bonds. Hey, hasn't Barry been associated with shadows somewhere before?

Below, more details from the Roscoe's stop on the caravan. Hurry up and get inside, Barry, or else you'll miss Lady Gaga!

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The BLS Blogbook aims to map the online information terrain by providing a separate web directory for each team. The product below is a result of submitted entries by team-specific bloggers and compiled information from the Big League Stew staff.

Please subscribe, follow and bookmark to your heart's content. If you're a blogger who would like to be listed, please visit this post for further instructions.

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It sounds like Adam Dunn is looking forward to his full-time move to first base for reasons other than simply avoiding on-your-butt mishaps like this one in Milwaukee's left field. 

While speaking with the WaPo's Dan Steinberg on a wide variety of topics, the  Nationals slugger said he also enjoys the social aspect of the position.

And after sampling some of the barbs he's going to hand out to NL East opponents, I'm thinking he would have fit right in during last month's late night mud slinging.

Check out what he has to say about guys like David Wright and Brian McCann.  

From DC Sports Bog:

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We all have questions about the 2010 season and Alex Remington luckily has some answers. The Stew's resident stats guru will address three  per week as Opening Day approaches.   

The Situation: Tommy Hanson was one of the best rookie pitchers in baseball last year, finishing third in the National League Rookie of the Year award despite not making his first appearance until June 7. He likely would have won the award if he had pitched 35 more innings, enough to qualify for the ERA title. As it was, he still won 11 games with a 2.89 ERA at the age of 22. Suffice to say that the former top pitching prospect in baseball lived up to his big expectations.

But after the departure of Javier Vazquez, the No. 1 starter on the Braves will be Tim Hudson, who has pitched 42 innings since returning from Tommy John surgery last summer. Four months into Hanson's career, the Braves will need Tommy to pitch like an ace if they have designs on the NL East title.

The Question: How much can the Braves really expect to get out of a 23-year-old who pitched only 127 big league innings in 2009? How do they handle him with baby gloves while also capitalizing on his great first season?

The Analysis: With any young pitcher, the need to protect their health is paramount. In fact, Hanson and the Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw did something that only seven other under-23 pitchers have done in the past 25 years, posting a 2.89 ERA in at least 127 innings.

The others to achieve the same feat? Kevin Appier, Mark Prior, Bruce Ruffin, Lance McCullers, Sid Fernandez, Bret Saberhagen and Doc Gooden (twice). Each saw their careers hampered by injury and were more or less out of baseball by their mid-30s. All were fabulously talented — Appier, Gooden, Saberhagen and Prior finished third or better in the Cy Young voting by their 25th birthday — which undoubtedly encouraged their managers to put a lot of miles on their arms.

But sooner or later, they all paid the piper. A great year for Hanson in 2010 could have adverse affects down the line, if the Braves aren't careful with his innings.

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Welcome to 'Duk's Dozen, a streamlined selection of 12 morning-fresh links and items to start your day. It welcomes submissions here or via Twitter.      

1. On Thursday, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published an open letter urging Bob Nutting to sell the Pittsburgh Pirates if he's going to renege on his promise of building a winner and instead treat the team like his personal ATM.

And you'd think that sort of thing would go over well in a city that would settle at this point for an 82-win season, right? Post-Gazette

2. Well, not quite. Most of the reaction I saw in the Bucs' blogosphere came to Nutting's defense. The open letter was kind of silly, but if this isn't a major case of Stockholm Syndrome, I don't know what is.

(Also, this not a good sign for newspapers when the public  decides it's the lesser of two evils to take the side of a sports owner who's put together more than a decade of losing.)  Bucs Dugout

3. Here's a really funny send-up of the P-G's letter. Roethlisberger for mayor! Bucco Fans 

4. So Steve Phillips is scheduled to talk about his affair on Monday morning's "Today" show. Considering we'll all still be high on the Super Bowl, that's some deft scheduling by his handlers. But is anyone really interested in what he has to say or the details he's going to offer up? At this point, I wish he'd just go sell insurance and stay out of the spotlight. NYT

5. Nick Piecoro reports that Mark Reynolds and the Diamondbacks might be talking extension, even though he's still one year away from arbitration. What would, say, a three-year deal look like for a guy who already has 40+ homer power? AZ Central

6. The ball that Alex Rodriguez hit for his 500th home run was sold in an online auction on Thursday night for $103,579. Anyone want to bet it was A-Rod that bought it? NYDN 

7. Larry Stone puts on his Hall of Fame sorting hat and reveals he's been reading a little too much Harry Potter. But, hey, we're all struggling for ideas these days. Seattle Times

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The BLS Blogbook aims to map the online information terrain by providing a separate web directory for each team. The product below is a result of submitted entries by team-specific bloggers and compiled information from the Big League Stew staff.

Please subscribe, follow and bookmark to your heart's content. If you're a blogger who would like to be listed, please visit this post for further instructions.

Read More »

The BLS Blogbook aims to map the online information terrain by providing a separate web directory for each team. The product below is a result of submitted entries by team-specific bloggers and compiled information from the Big League Stew staff.

Please subscribe, follow and bookmark to your heart's content. If you're a blogger who would like to be listed, please visit this post for further instructions.

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... how confident would you be in making your wager? 

This is one of my favorite questions to ask people at a party or in a bar because it can tell me so much about their baseball knowledge and their propensity for risk and greed.

I actually phrase the question with a few more qualifications, though, and my game show query usually goes something like this:

"Let's say you're on 'Jeopardy!' and you're absolutely routing your two opponents. You have $40,000 going into the final round, while one of your opponents has, let's say, $15,000. You're guaranteed to move onto the next day, but the final category comes up and it has something to do with baseball, which is your favorite sport. How much — if anything — do you risk?"

It's at this point where most people usually tell me that they'd risk just enough to ensure that they would win even if they got the question wrong.

And it's at this point that my response to those people is always the same: "You'd be crazy to leave free money on the table. I'd bet the whole thing."

The person then responds by calling me an idiot while I try to back up my reasoning.

Among my Turd Ferguson-inspired arguments:

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I'm still not exactly sure why you have to apologize for having someone else spread nearly-nude photos of yourself across the Internet, but Indians star Grady Sizemore(notes) finally got around to it a few months after his female fans cursed that coffee mug. 

Here's what he told Tom Withers (heh) of the AP at a Cleveland awards show on Wednesday night:

"This is a private matter," he said. "I never intended for any of this to get out. I hate to have to put everybody through this, but in the end it just wasn't meant to come out. It was meant for me and my girlfriend and it just happened to work out the way it did.

"You always have to be careful, but this was something that was stolen out of an e-mail account. It wasn't like we intended for these pictures to go anywhere. We weren't flying them anywhere. We weren't showing them to friends. This was stolen out of an e-mail account."

So, to recap: These pictures weren't intended for anyone's eyes but Grady's girlfriend. And they were stolen out of an email account. Does that cover it?

Perhaps it's the hippie in me, but I don't get too offended when guys like Grady or Greg Oden find themselves in a, uh, "pickle" after deciding to delight their lady friends with some self shots. They were taken in a private setting and not intended for anyone else. Why must they apologize for the actions of others who either robbed or betrayed them?

At the same time, it amazes me that so many people — and not just athletes — fail to understand that every nude picture you take on a digital camera or a cell phone is instantly translated into many 1s and 0s that are extremely easy to copy and spread to every interested party on the Internet. I mean, if you're going to apologize for anything, shouldn't it be for failing to invest in an old-fashioned Polaroid? 

Those poor Mets fans. As if they weren't getting enough reminders about their favorite team's recent slide to the bottom from everywhere else, the Legend of Cecilio Guante notes that the Mets' day-by-day calendar is now getting into the act with negative team trivia. The above entry is from Wednesday, Feb. 3, but LOCG notes at least one other example.

I'm pretty sure that some publishing company has some poor sap holed up in a cubicle writing these calendars and  coming up with 365 questions for the Mets has to be tough — especially if this guy is a Yankees or Phillies fan (and it seems like he is).

At any rate, let's give him a bit of a hand for the 2011 edition and post our best factual yet awkward Mets questions in the comments below. Best entry will be awarded the contract that Omar Minaya was going to give Bengie Molina(notes).