WELCOME TO WORLD’S MOST EXPENSIVE COTTON CANDY: We here in Los Angeles are pleased to welcome Mr. Barry Bonds to the Basin tonight, and we’re sure that he’ll be treated with the utmost dignity and respect by our fellow Angelenos. Or at the very least enjoy the same treatment he has afforded fans and media lo the last 22 years.

Tonight’s game is completely sold out, and ticket brokers are asking around $300 for seats in the right field “all you can eat” seating areas. Can you say flying Frosty Malts, Dodger fans?

Of course, we in no way are endorsing the practice of heaving frozen milk-based projectiles onto the field if Bonds burglarizes baseball’s most-prized record while in town.

Left field seats are going for similar prices, which is rathering interesting considering exactly one of Bonds’ 29 career home runs at Dodger Stadium has been hit to straight-away left.

• The NEW YORK DAILY NEWS reports that last weekend in Cooperstown Cal Ripken’s merchandise company, Ironclad Authentics, “had its own trailer behind one of the hotels in town and also rented an entire corner of the Cooperstown Bat Co. to peddle Ripken memorabilia and wear.”

Last Monday Ripken also hawked his goods on QVC, “which did not sit well with a lot of veterans“.

• LEAGUES = WOMEN FANTASIZING ABOUT BEING ON TOP: The NEW YORK TIMES reports women make up 15% of fantasy sports participation, which is up 12% from 2000.

Indiana University Kelley MBA Sports & Entertainment Academy co-director Thomas Bowers said about 40% of the female players polled “said that part of the appeal of fantasy sports derived from the illusion of being in control.”

Bowers added that for men, the “fun of fantasy sports may be less about dominating the players on one’s roster and more about dominating the other managers in the league”

• Frank Deford to the CBS Evening News on why baseball should unconditionally accept Barry Bonds’ home run record: “The 1919 World Series was fixed but it’s in the record book.”

• NASCAR’s Tony Stewart in a live, undelayed TV interview after winning Sunday’s Allstate 400 at the Brickyard: “This one’s for every one of those fans in the stands who pull for me every week and take all the bull—- from everybody else.”

• ESPN.COM INSIDER SUBSCRIPTION RE-UP REMINDER! ESPN.com’s Jemele Hill, on Brynn Cameron asking for $30K per month in child support from Matt Leinart (who eventually agreed to $15K monthly payments): “White boy — caught up in baby mama drama. … Usually, this is something that black athletes have been vilified for.“