Deadspin has exclusively learned—by reading this article in the San Francisco Chronicle—that Bonds' agent, Jeff "Don't Call Me Scott" Borris, has secretly revealed that Bonds has not played an official Major League game since 2007. Independent research of the back of some baseball cards has confirmed that fact to be correct.

Also, in an even more stunning turn of events, Borris has conceded the slim possibility that Bonds will not play baseball for money again. Borris confirms that his client has not actually retired, but surprisingly, not a single professional team is willing to hire a surly 45-year-old slugger with communication issues.

When 2008 came around, I couldn't get him a job. When 2009 came around, I couldn't get him a job. Now, 2010 ... I'd say it's nearly impossible. It's an unfortunate ending to a storied career."

His steroid career? Well, that's not a very nice thing for his agent to.... oh. Storied. Never mind. I guess I can cut him from fantasy team now.

Bonds' agent concedes slugger's playing days are over [San Francisco Chronicle]

The Yankees, Tigers and Diamondbacks are inching oh so ever closer to a maybe possible not there just yet—almost got it!; no, not quite!—but definitely a done deal that will have multiple baseball players calling the moving company. At the center is Granderson, the heart of Detroit's late-decade resurgence into respectability. The player who seemed birthed specifically to bat leadoff and patrol the gigantic centerfield acreage of Comerica Park for the rest of his days. Instead, he's just another Starting Lineup figurine to be placed on George Steinbrenner's beautiful oak shelves.

Oh, sure the Tigers are being well-compensated for their troubles and contract extensions, blah blah. Maybe it's not a fire sale, maybe it's not exactly the rich robbing the poor. (More like the ultrarich taking from the slightly less rich.) But it sure feels like it. Everybody likes Granderson. He could have been the face of the Tigers for many, many years ... a nice respectable, un-juiced, non-wife beating guy—and now ... just like that ... he's a fucking Yankee. Good for him.

Sigh.

Honorable Mention: The Memphis Grizzlies. Seriously, they actually won something. Savor it, fellas.

For unknown reasons, Nikolai went after Sun Bonds, Barry's wife from 1988 to 1994. He's been charged with suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, assault and battery, false imprisonment, vandalism, and obstructing and resisting an officer. Plus he spat on her.

In addition to allegedly assaulting his mother during the argument, Bonds smashed picture frames and vases, destroying $400 worth of property, Acker said. He also blocked the door so his mother couldn't leave, she added.

At one point, he threw a metal doorknob at her "so hard that it embedded itself into the wall, but it missed her," Acker said. Sun Bonds was uninjured.

So, sad story, but we should let private matters stay private, right? Not if you're Rob Neyer, who I respect immensely, but for some reason decided this was all Barry Bonds's fault.

He recalls the time Barry used Nikolai as a pretense to criticize media coverage of himself, a shady move to be sure. But then this follows:

I know that a lot of baseball players aren't exactly devoted husbands and fathers. By most accounts, Barry Bonds' dad was far from a model parent. But this was beyond the pale. Bonds did something a parent should never, ever do: he used his child as a weapon.

That's the day that he lost me. I don't suppose it's fair, but I've never felt any sympathy for Bonds since then.

I feel sorry for Nikolai Bonds. His father has never grown up, and it's hard to imagine that his family life has ever been remotely stable. At 19, he's still got a chance to grow up, maybe even become reasonably happy. It's not going to be easy, though. Not with the hand he's been dealt.

Barry Bonds is probably not a very good human being, but I'm not sure he's to blame for Nikolai's outburst. He and Sun were divorced 15 years ago, and thanks to a prenup, he owed nobody anything. But he still sends her money every month, and very publicly remained a part of Nikolai's life. So it's kind of a low blow here, Rob.

Menlo Park Police Arrest Son Of Barry Bonds After Assault [Palo Alto Daily News]
A Sad Story Gets A Little Sadder [ESPN.com]

Why Dock Ellis? Forget about the acid thing for a second, and forget about the fact that he once said he never pitched a game in the minors when he "wasn't high." Forget the drugs, forget the drug counselor career he curiously, redemptively embarked on later in life. The guy was a fucking character. Ellis used to wear hair curlers during warm-ups so he could accumulate sweat to throw spitballs. Ellis admitted to inflaming racial tensions just so he could get reporters to talk to him. Ellis' sworn enemy was Reggie Jackson. Reggie Jackson! Ellis loved to throw at other players' faces. He lived for the intensity and bullshit and trashtalk of sport, not for the competition of it, but for fun. Ellis was one of those characters in baseball's age of personality who make everyone who came before him look like nothing but a steak-and-martini gormandizing dolt, and everyone after him a faceless, anonymous, contained machine devoid of life. Our baseball players now have about as much personality as they can fit into a shot of their cocks on this here site (and the cock-loiterers who post them). That's why we need The Untitled Dock Ellis Story: to remind us that there were once interesting people playing sports, and that the major leagues are now, like everything else that goes corporate to suck of the teet of The Man, homogenized, soulless bullshit. Dock Ellis is the antithesis of that. Dock Ellis is self-expression in athletics personified. Dock Ellis is the man. And yes: Dock Ellis pitched a no-no on acid.

Because this is a biopic, we're obviously going to have to cut between the epic no-hitter and everything else that happens in his life. Because Deadspin Films are innovative, we can even go into Ellis' future in a Tarantino-esque time-split, which is kind of an accurate representation of what it's like to live on acid for a day: you see through time. Time is your bitch when you're on acid. It has the consistency of a DORITO CHIP. It can easily be crushed and consumed and come out pretty much exactly the same on the other end.

Your best titles in the comments, please; the winner goes in the headline.

[This is FEK, BTW.]

Dock Ellis, as played by Dave Chappelle. Aside from his ability to pull off profoundly funny Drug Humor, Chappelle possesses the classic comic skill of originality when it comes to being incredulous with the way the universe works. Chappelle's been gone for way too long, and he's a good enough actor/comic to merit an Oscar-bait role, but not the kind of self-serious turns that comedy actors-turned-wannabe-drama actors take (see: Jim Carrey in The Truman Show, The Majestic, etc).

Donald Hall, as played by Jack Nicholson. This man will be our Naked Indian-like mystic, except he's going to be Dock's Crunchy White Friend, Donald Hall. Hall, who was eventually the U.S. Poet Laureate, wrote the book on Ellis, literally: Dock Ellis in the Country of Baseball. Hall is a fucked-up druggie with whom Ellis finds a common bond with. When Hall originally wrote his book, he wrote that Ellis was drunk on the day he threw his no-no. Which: no. Ellis was getting strange on some acid—fucking ACID—and Hall wrote as much in the 1989 epilogue to the book's paperback release. Why the hiding? Because Ellis was playing for the Yankees when the book was published in '76, and him and Hall worried about what George "The Narc" Steinbrenner would think.

Reggie Jackson, as played by Michael K. Williams. Every story needs a foil, and the rules and regulations of drug-fearing America are too obvious (and too easily evaded) for a guy like Dock. He needed a bigger problem, and he got what he asked for in Reggie Jackson, who was rightfully controlling a lot of the discussion about race in baseball when both players were in their prime. Mr. October had been around longer, was less mischievous, was the well-behaved of the two when it came to having decorum and sportsmanship. For what it's worth, he was also the better player, which maybe Ellis might've had the potential to be recognized as had he not played each game on drugs (but: bygones). Reggie Jackson famously hit a pitch thrown by Dock Ellis in the 1971 All-Star Game into a transformer, and Dock Ellis famously retaliated by hitting Reggie Jackson in the face with a pitch. This was basically how Dock Ellis did business. Michael K. Williams played Omar on The Wire. If you've never watched The Wire, I'm sorry. if you have, you know exactly—exactly—what I'm talking about. This is perfect.

Act 1: Dock's Old Age. In fact, the first flashback/flashforward—so we can get to the peak stuff in the story at the end—should be of Ellis winning the World Series in 1971 with the Pirates, a year after he pitched his no-hitter on acid. We then go into old age, when—living with his wife and his stepdaughter—he finally comes to realize that all anybody wants to talk about are the drugs he did. For the longest time, Ellis had to keep quiet about his incredible feat, for which he'd be inevitably shamed. People would throw accusations of performance enhancement and pejoratives about how bad drug-users like Ellis are not just for society, but for sport. Ellis eventually became a drug counselor and helped people out with drug problems, but let's get one thing straight:He eventually came to happy terms with his feat. And another thing correct, here: ACID is NOT a performance-enhancing drug, kids. Anything that can give you permanent psychological scars just from looking at your dick will not help you pitch *better.* We will talk about Dock's inevitable struggle with this fact when dealing with the people he helps advise when he becomes a drug counselor in his later, post-baseball years.

Act 2: Dock's Rise To Fame.More time sequencing! Dock's trying to trace back what the hell kind of wack-ass shit happened over the last 50 years. How he got to be who he was, the racism he faced as a kid. After his career, why he was left unfufilled by it. Even though he'd won the World Series, all he ever wanted to do was win a title as a Yankee. He got to the Yankees, but he didn't win a title. What he did do? Make a name for himself. Like the time a few months before he won the World Series in '72, on May 5, when a stadium security guard maced him in the face. Or like the May 1, 1974 game where he pitched at the heads of Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, and Dan Driessen, Tony Perez, and Johnny Bench (hitting the first three), before which, he tried to lift the spirits of his team with one of the best motivational speeches in baseball: "We gonna get down. We gonna do the do. I'm going to hit these motherfuckers."

Act 3: The Dock Ellis Acid No-No. The legendary game. Now he remembers. This is who Dock Ellis was. Mischief, incarnate. The spirit of the prankster. The guy pitched a no-hitter on acid. Fucking ACID. And the world was better off. People are still trying to petition to get MLB TV to show the game that Dock Ellis couldn't live down or past: he showed up twisted out of his head on drugs, and pitched the hell out of his game. We cut from the second-to-last pitch, to Dock Ellis, the drug counselor, living out his last days in California.

Finale: Looking back on baseball and the bewildered look on his face he had after he won his no hitter, an older, wiser Ellis realizes: MLB's full of cheaters, liars, addicts, and assholes, most of whom aren't even charming. At least he stood for something. Let's face it: Ellis was never gonna be Reggie Jackson, drugs or no drugs. If he tried, he would've ended up second-rate. The guy was something on to his own, and when he both comes to peace with and embraces his legacy in our denouement, he sees the light: Dock Ellis, Fuckup, Drug Addict, Folk Hero. A title over black: "Dock Ellis died on December 19, 2008, in Victorville, California, of liver problems. He was living out his last days as a drug counselor." We flash back to that last no-no pitch in his glove, ready to be thrown. Everyone in the stadium is going wild. It all goes quiet. And right as Dock Ellis throws, the ball starts singing to him, and it's singing this song. He throws, and we cut to black over the song.

One hundred and eight players, almost a tenth of the league, received medical exemptions due to their attention-deficit hyperactivity disorders. That's up slightly from last year, and up from 28 players in 2006. Completely coincidentally, MLB's stimulant ban went into effect in 2006.

While ten percent sounds like a realistic number of ADHD sufferers among Park Slope's helicopter parents, only about 4% of children are affected, with more than half outgrowing it by adulthood. Additionally, these are major league baseball players, who are loath to admit to any psychiatric disorder, and probably would have had a tough time excelling in life as they have had they been serious sufferers.

Besides those 108 players, 12 more without an exemption tested positive for ADHD drugs.

Is there something unique about the sport of baseball that attracts individuals with ADD? I suspect not. It seems to me an excessively high number," said [Dr. Gary] Wadler, chairman of the committee that determines the banned-substances list for the World Anti-Doping Agency.

On the bright side (if you invest in a designer steroid lab), only one player tested positive for steroids in 2009. And, from the Times article,

Two players received exemptions to use performance-enhancing drugs because of hypertension, two for low levels of testosterone, one for narcolepsy, one for obsessive compulsive disorder and one for postconcussion syndrome.

Any guesses?

Number of M.L.B. Players Given Drug Exemptions Up Slightly [NY Times]

Allan Huber Selig gave us the Wild Card, two new teams in the Sun Belt, and landed MLB hugely impressive TV deals. Is that enough to overcome the myriad fiascoes? Let's take a stroll down memory lane...

•Led a secretive group of owners ("The Great Lakes Gang") in pushing for commissioner Fay Vincent's ouster. As the most vocal, he became de facto acting commissioner.

•After one year in office, rescinded George Steinbrenner's lifelong suspension. Denied that the fact that the suspension was handed down by Fay Vincent had anything to do with it.

•Upheld, to this day, Pete Rose's lifelong suspension, despite overwhelming public opinion. Denied that the fact that the suspension was handed down by close friend Bart Giamatti had anything to do with it.

•Oversaw the 1994 strike.

•Opened the door for replacement players.

•Gave us interleague play, which, for every White Sox/Cubs game gives us Pirates/Rays and Padres/Athletics games.

•To compensate for 1998's expansion, one AL team had to move to the NL, with a considerable financial advantage. Selig's Brewers were selected.

•Though acting commissioner for the past six years, Selig continued to operate the Brewers. Upon officially being named commissioner, Selig transferred his ownership interest to his daughter. Many suspected he continued to make decisions for the team up until their sale in 2004.

•Threw daughter under the bus, claiming the Brewers' disastrous performance under Wendy Selig-Prieb is proof that he was no longer running the team after 1992.

•Helped to write the hagiographies of Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds. Perhaps they should have been fact checked first.

•Saw the NFL institute an almost-total instant replay policy in 1999. Nine years later, introduced instant replay only for home run calls.

•Two days after the thrilling and inspiring 2001 World Series, held a vote on contracting the Twins and Expos. Was charged with racketeering and settled the case outside of court. Got the Expos moved anyway.

•Oversaw the 2002 All-Star Game in which both sides ran out of players. From then on, the ASG determined home field advantage in the World Series. The National League has yet to win home field advantage.

•Commissioned the Mitchell Report, led by Director of the Red Sox, and which seemed to rely on two sources and revealed nothing new.

•Failed miserably at keeping a secret list of steroid users secret. Fans now look forward to the annual reveal of superstar names.

•Saw other sports praised for their parity; oversaw an uncapped league where one team regularly spends six times as much as others.

•Made sure October baseball regularly ends after midnight.

•Made sure October baseball regularly ends in November.

Please do remind me in the comments of what I'm forgetting.

These have been making the rounds in an email forward, purportedly meant for Grady's girlfriend, Playboy Playmate Brittany Binger...

...that's her spread propped up by the mirror. I think it's kind of creepy that he travels with her Playboy issue.

Perhaps you remember the batshit lady who emailed every site on the Internet trashing Brittany. Wonder how she's taking this.

Nathaniel Hornblower he's not.

Okay, I'll just shut up and let you look at his junk.

[Pics courtesy of ONTD]

Pete was in Houston doing a radio interview, because that's where he and his as-yet-unnamed girlfriend met with a Playboy talent scout. But lest you think the young lass is nothing more than a pair of freakish fake breasts,

[M]y girl's a real educated girl - she graduated from Arizona State. She had a very prestigious job several years ago when she was a flight attendant for Korean Airlines, which is really a big deal in Korea, and she's Korean."

Pete also laid the sole blame for his ban on Bud Selig, but let's be honest. You only clicked on this post to make that photo bigger. You haven't read this far down.

Pete Rose Goes To Bat For His Lady! [Sports Radio Interviews]

Give them credit. When baseball's "leaders" stick their head in the sand, they really stick it in there. No outside noise will ever affect their judgment. The 2009 postseason was the most embarrassing display by the umpires in recent memory. It wasn't that they missed a lot of close plays—the calls they botched were glaringly obvious mistakes. Even the most ardent anti-replay sticklers had to admit that it probably would have come in handy more than a few times this October. The time was ripe! So, of course, baseball's GMs said "No, thanks."

"Right now, the commissioner doesn't see any reason to consider it."

Really? No reason at all? I guess they just want to spare baseball fans from 10-minute replay reviews on Sony Watchmans (mens?). On the other hand, they can't even figure out how to announce the league MVPs within two months of the actual season taking place, so when has speed ever been a concern? The sport's "old fogey" reputation remains solidly intact.

Trail to instant replay must be laid with dollar signs [CBS Sports]
What controversy? Baseball's GMs bypass instant replay debate for umpires' calls [Cleveland Plain Dealer]