Zen Dayley: Of Bonds, Bill Lee, Bud, ballparks and back-patting

Almost 14 months to the day that someone predicted he would never serve a day in jail, it appears Barry Bonds is accused of taking something that wasn't actually illegal.

That sounds like the classic MAD magazine definition of entrapment — "this guy is guilty of crimes he hasn't even been accused of." Yahoo! Sports is promising more relevations, but you can't blame people if they start wondering if the case vs. Bonds is as strong as the San Diego Padres' reasons for signing David Eckstein and Omar Vizquel for their middle infield.

This is more of a notebook-style Zen Dayley. Item the second is that MLB is giving lip service to the notion of participating in the Olympics if baseball and women's fastpitch are reinstated for 2016 (all four bidding cities say they will accommodate both sports). Selig didn't actually say how that would be accomplished, which makes one wonder if all the talk amounts to a belch in a windstorm.

This, that and the other

• Bill Lee's interview with the Toronto Star on Thursday was a scream. That's why they call him the Spaceman:

  " 'There's something inherently wrong with the Hall of Fame,' he offered. 'It's just a bunch of sycophants, apple polishers and everything else. Everybody's got faults; all but Brooks Robinson. Hey, Lucifer had wings at one time. Don Sutton was a cheater. No one cheated more than Gaylord Perry – except maybe Charles Barkley.' "

  Absolutely brilliant.
  
  
• It has been almost exactly one year since this site first co-opted Dan Rowe's phrase "uninterested ownership" to describe Rogers Communications' approach to owning the Blue Jays. It has, if one can be totally smug about it, made it easier to accept the Jays' winter of inactivity or not getting to hear Jim Hughson do play-by-play, which was a nice change of pace for the team's other TV voices. It is all water off a duck's back at this point.
• Geoff Baker, a former Star baseball writer who's now at the Seattle Times, is pretty candid about what it's like to cover a ballgame at the Rogers Centre, which he rated ninth out of 14 in the AL:

  "The press box food is pretty good, but the team is stingy on the portions. It's famous for putting up signs warning people not to take more than one cookie or pudding (most parks don't limit this). The press box is comfortable, but very high up. At night, the setting sun causes a glare around gametime that makes it tough to see your computer screen. The wireless access is among the worst in baseball despite the fact the team is owned by a cable giant. They also haven't figured out how to control the temperature in here and when they close the retractable roof after games, all the humidity gets trapped inside and turns it into a sauna. Getting to the clubhouse in this outdated, 1980s-style ballpark requires a hike down a long hallway, a ride on a terribly slow elevator and then a march down a very long basement concourse area. Security staff are not as bad as at Yankee Stadium, but tend to consider themselves as Canada's frontline to the War on Terror. No, that's not a joke. Well, it is, but it isn't."

Related:
Ever-drifting Spaceman cries out for integrity shift in Hall balloting (Richard Griffin, Toronto Star)
Bonds blockbuster: 'The Clear' was legal (Jonathan Littman, Yahoo! Sports)
Pressbox view of best/worst AL ballparks (Geoff Baker, Seattle Times)