Today’s happy news is that MLB are working overtime on getting the House Government Reform Committee to excuse the likes of Jason Giambi, Curt Schilling Rafael Palmiero, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire from tesimony in exchange for…..uh, making steroids twice as illegal as they were a week ago?

I think we’re long past the right time for Major League Baseball to serve up a patsy or two. Hand over Randy Velarde. Ban (the retired) Brady Anderson. Send a registered letter to David Boston letting him know that not only don’t the Dolphins want anything to do with him, but neither do the Marlins. Anything to spare Mark McGwire the embarrassment of having to break down in public like a pint-sized version of James Hetfield in “Some Kind Of Monster”.

The San Francisco Chronicle’s Bruce Jenkins on the Fear Of A Barry Bonds Planet.

Welcome back to the latest installment of that long-running drama, “Anything You Want, Barry.” Let’s review some previous themes:

For years, Bonds had the run of the Giants’ clubhouse, welcoming a shady entourage that, in some cases, violated baseball’s rules of admittance.

If he wanted his own half-acre inside that room while other guys had a basic cubicle, no problem.

If he skipped the team photo year after year, while teammates surrendered an early afternoon for the occasion, management looked the other way.

If he made reporters within 5 feet of him wait 20 minutes so he could get dressed, then blew them off, hey, don’t mess with the genius.

He certainly didn’t invite the BALCO investigation, but with an unassailable and deliberately vague answer on the steroid issue, he left himself impossible to pin down (at least for now).

Baseball cringes at the thought of Bonds breaking time-honored home run records, but if the Giants ask permission to allow a DH in National League exhibition games, it’s carte blanche.

ESPN’s daily coverage of Bonds gives him the media outlet he has sought for years. He can continue to blow off reporters. He can stiff the ESPN crew (and has) if he likes. But if he has something to say, it goes national, without a misquote.

Now comes the latest hilarious/sad/pathetic episode: The House Government Reform Committee plans a steroid hearing without Bonds.

Amazingly, committee members can’t even come up with a decent explanation. Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., undoubtedly stunned by Bonds’ tempestuous news conference in Arizona, said he didn’t want the proceedings to turn into “a hearing about Barry Bonds” (So true; you wouldn’t want riveting testimony getting in the way of congressional grandstanding). On ESPN’s “Outside the Lines,” Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., stumbled over his words before admitting he didn’t really have an answer. Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., told the Boston Globe, “It’s not clear to me why. He would seem to be the subject who might throw the most light on the situation.”

It seems clear that we aren’t getting the whole story, only the perception that Congress is terrified of Bonds — like everyone else in the known world. Join us as we walk just ahead of Bonds, clearing obstacles that might ruin his day.