Hot Stove Blotter

Hot off the press, Barry Bonds has been indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice in the ongoing federal probe into use of illegal steroids. This has nothing to do with steroids in baseball, and everything to do with lying to federal investigators or misleading them in a way that prolonged the investigation.

Having nailed Marion Jones, Bonds was next up in their sights.

The indictment definitely is a major story, but baseball fans have to really worry about the looming Mitchell Report, which will name names - and quite likely many who you never saw coming.

Meanwhile, fresh off its failed attempt to make New Yorkers pay for online purchases via Amazon.com and other online entities, New York State is going after Derek Jeter for claiming that he was not liable for personal income tax to New York. Derek had claimed he was a Florida resident.

This is a battle fought regularly by athletes who can't stand paying taxes (who doesn't), and who seek tax havens like Florida or Nevada. New York would have a case if they can show that Jeter was present in the state for more than 183 days. I hope Derek has a good tax lawyer, because he might need one.

Finally, in another Yankee related item, I can't stand the coverage relating to the Alex Rodriguez soap opera. ARod is going to be crawling back to the Yankees to the tune of $275-$290 million dollars. That's a whole lot of cash. It's more than he was making under his prior contract. And if you think that Scott Boras didn't plan things out to include this contingency, you've got another thing coming.

Boras is one of the most calculating sports agents in the game, and he created a market for ARod and set figures. This creates the win-win scenario for ARod. He gets to look like the good guy for "crawling back" to the Yankees because no one else was accepting his pie in the sky offers, and he can blame Boras for looking bad. There's one problem with all that.

ARod is the one who makes the final decision on strategy and has to sign off on what happens. He knew that this was a possibility, and he's still ending up with more money than I'll ever see in my lifetime. ARod gets the money and stays with the team while possibly getting fans to warm up to him in a way that they haven't until now.

More power to him.

I just don't buy his shtick.

UPDATE:
Here's the Bonds indictment.