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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted at 12:17 a.m., Monday, February 18, 2008

Baseball: No offers in sight for Bonds, Clemens

By BOB NIGHTENGALE
USA TODAY

They've been on display for every team to scrutinize and analyze this winter, but not on the baseball diamond.

As players continue to report to spring training this week, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are home, instead of preparing for a season for the first time in more than two decades.

These two baseball icons, one with seven MVP awards and one with seven Cy Youngs and an MVP, are fighting to restore their legacies in courtrooms and congressional halls while also keeping in playing shape.

Clemens, 45, says he is leaning toward retirement, but then again, no team has publicly tempted him to try a fourth comeback.

Bonds, 43, hit 28 home runs last season, but no one has offered so much as a designated hitter's job. He was indicted in November on four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice after telling a grand jury he didn't knowingly take steroids but a trial is not expected until after the season.

"Barry has no intention of retiring," said Jeff Borris, Bonds' agent. "Barry's performance is still among the elite."

Clemens and Bonds are joined on the unemployment line by Sammy Sosa, who has 609 career home runs, and Mike Piazza, whose 419 home runs are the most by a catcher.

"How is it that Mike (Piazza) and some of these guys don't have jobs?" said Dan Lozano, agent for Piazza, 39.

Sosa, 39, hit 21 homers with 92 RBI for the Texas Rangers last year and still wants to play.

"In the '80s and '90s, these players were swallowed up," said Adam Katz, Sosa's agent. "Now, by looking elsewhere, it's one way clubs can save money and go young at the same time."