Agent Jeff Borris argues that major league teams are conspiring to keep Barry Bonds out of baseball.

The Bonds Camp wants you to believe that Bonds is being blackballed over his ongoing steroids beef with the feds. Now that Barry won’t be going to trial any time this summer – thanks to legal wrangling by the prosecutors – he asked Borris to find him work.

Wish him luck with that pursuit.

Bonds will turn 45 this year. He has reached the DH portion of his life, ruling out National League employment, and he is universally regarded as a team-killing egomaniac.

If Barry could roll back the clock five years and get a personality transplant, teams would line up for him. Sadly, “the cream” and “the clear” can’t help him on those fronts.

STRAWBERRY, SUPPORTING A-ROD

Former big league slugger Darryl Strawberry feels for beleaguered Yankees star Alex Rodriguez, who is still reeling from steroid revelations.

Here is what the Strawman told the New York Daily News: “I have a hard time with the union when one player out of 104 players’ names comes out and it’s Alex Rodriguez, on testing that was done that there was supposed to be confidentiality. Obviously somebody has had it out for him. It’s not fair.

“If you’re going to name one, why don’t you name all of them? That’s the only problem I have with this situation. They have put him in a situation where it’s just him alone against the world. That’s not fair because he’s not the only one. He’s taking the bullet for everybody. He admitted he was wrong and everything. I think that should be enough for everybody.”

Yeah, but he’s A-Rod. He dumped his wife to flirt with Madonna. He plays in New York. He makes a gazillion dollars. He is not Derek Jeter. He chokes in the playoffs.

There are better steroid parody songs on the Internet, but most of them are too profane for this forum.

MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE

Questions to ponder while Keith Tkachuk sweats out the NHL trade deadline:

• Now that Chris Duncan has relocated his power stroke, will Colby Rasmus answer his challenge in the ongoing outfield competition?
• Who could have possibly guessed that Brad Penny would develop a sore shoulder in Boston?
• Are the Mets getting nervous about Johan Santana’s nagging elbow injury?

A MILLION LITTLE LIES?

Life in the minor leagues is colorful. Just ask Crash Davis.

But it is even more colorful when you make up key details about that happens. Let the New York Times explain:

Matt McCarthy, a graduate of Yale and of Harvard Medical School now working as an intern in the residency program at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia hospital in New York, has gained national attention in recent weeks for “Odd Man Out,” his salacious memoir of his summer as an obscure minor league pitcher. He writes about playing with racist, steroids-taking teammates, pitching for a profane, unbalanced manager and observing obscene behavior and speech that in some ways reinforce the popular image of wild professional ballplayers.

But statistics from that season, transaction listings and interviews with his former teammates indicate that many portions of the book are incorrect, embellished or impossible. It comes during a difficult period for the publishing industry, which has recently had three major memoirs — James Frey’s infamous “A Million Little Pieces” and the recollections of a Holocaust survivor and of an inner-city foster child — exposed as mostly fabricated. The authors of those books have acknowledged their fraud.

QUIPS ‘R US

Here is what some of America’s leading sports pundits have been writing:

Ray Ratto, San Francisco Chronicle, on the 49ers’ flirtation with Kurt Warner: “Oh, sure, having the 49ers in mild flirtation with the Arizona quarterback has its own exhilarations, given the lukewarm reaction to the team’s previous tire-kickings of Alex Smith and, for a few moments, Michael Vick. But as we consider the scene inside Singletary’s Fortress of Solitude, all we can hear is Warner’s voice cracking as he blurts, ‘Why is your playbook only 30 pages?’”

Jim Caple, ESPN.com: “Sure, Kevin Garnett has earned $174 million for running up and down courts in his gym trunks since 2000, but at least when he misses a shot, it doesn’t cost thousands of people their jobs. Richard Fuld, former CEO of Lehman Brothers, received $484 million during the same time period even though he led his company into bankruptcy and helped spur the current economic crisis.”

Jeff Schultz, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Thanks to Major League Baseball, the World Boxing Council is not the stupidest WBC in creation. The second World Baseball Classic begins Thursday. I’m not sure why. I guess because there are so many T-shirts, hats and “Go, Venezuela!” banners left from the first ‘Classic’ in 2006 that Bud Selig needed to waste another few weeks of our time to get rid of them. You won’t see much criticism of the WBC on MLB.com or ESPN. On a related note, ESPN and MLB Network will televise all 39 games. They’re leaving the money on Bud’s nightstand.”

Greg Cote, Miami Herald: “NFL commissioner Roger Goodell volunteered to take a 20 percent pay cut, but UConn basketball coach Jim Calhoun answered ‘Not one dime!’ when asked if he would do something similar to help the state’s economic crisis. Trying to figure which Jim has in greater abundance: Honesty? Or lack of shame?”

MEGAPHONE

“You have to swallow a lot of pride doing something like this show. It’s been interesting to let this side of me out there, and I’m really the only one with anything to lose. But the fact of it is, I’ve got nothing left to lose.”

NBA commentator Charles Barkley, on agreeing to star in a reality show regarding his terrible golf swing.