The Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO - San Francisco slugger Barry Bonds will skip the Home Run Derby before the All-Star Game next week in Chicago.

When asked why he won't participate, Bonds told a group of reporters, "Because I'm a grown man and I don't have to do it."

"Did Michael Jordan play in the slamfest every year?" Bonds said. "Nobody asked him why. I'm 30-something years old. They didn't even ask me. Go ahead and get mad at me. Say what you want, but no."

Cubs slugger Sammy Sosa, not picked for the All-Star Game, also will skip the derby.

BONDS HR BALL CASE: Bonds' record-setting 73rd home run ball fetched $450,000 at auction - $23,500 less than a lawyer says he's owed for representing one of the fans who claimed ownership of the historic ball. Martin Triano of San Francisco is suing his former client, Alex Popov, for $473,500 in legal fees. Popov was the Giants fan who briefly gloved the ball before being mauled in the Pac Bell Park stands in October 2001.

Represented by Triano, Popov sued San Diego college student Patrick Hayashi, who ended up with the Bonds ball after the scramble in the stands. In his suit, Popov argued that he deserved to get the ball, which represented the single-season record for most homers.

But after a year of litigation over who owned the baseball, a San Francisco judge ordered the two men to sell it and split the proceeds.

The ball was auctioned to comic book icon Todd McFarlane, the same man who paid $3.2 million for Mark McGwire's 70th home run ball in 1999.

BAKER STANDS FIRM: Cubs manager Dusty Baker didn't back down when asked about his recent comments that black and Latin players were better suited than white players to play in the heat.

"I meant what I said. I try to be as honest as possible, and if that's how I feel, then that's how I feel," he said Monday.

On Saturday, Baker said: "We were brought over here for the heat. Isn't that history? Your skin color is more conducive to heat than it is to the lighter-skinned people. I don't see brothers running around burnt."

Those comments have prompted debate across the country.

"It doesn't really matter to me because that's what I said. I'm not going to take it back," Baker said. "What I said to you guys is what I said to my team. I told my other teammates this a long time ago, too. When we talk about how hot it is, I told them that's why my ancestors were brought over here, for that reason, and that's history.

"My mother was a black-American history teacher in Sacramento," he said.