There may be no bigger baseball fan in Congress than Rep. Joe Baca, so it comes as no surprise that the Inland lawmaker was crushed to hear the litany of star players implicated as steroid users in the newly released Mitchell Report.

Baca, D-Rialto, said he was particularly disturbed that some of the players named in the report were current and former members of his beloved Dodgers, including catcher Paul Lo Duca and pitchers Kevin Brown and Eric Gagne. Most surprising, Baca said, was the inclusion of star pitcher Roger Clemens.

"Here's a Hall of Famer -- a shoe-in," Baca said. "It's mind boggling. These guys have a responsibility to the fans and the kids out there."

Special to The Press-Enterprise

Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Palm Springs, was married last week to Rep. Connie Mack, R-Fla., in a private ceremony in North Carolina.

Baca, who played college ball and made it to the semi-professional level as a shortstop, said his Joe Baca Foundation is putting on a free clinic Jan. 19 for kids from Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Coaches will teach the fundamentals and will also talk to the youths about the dangers of performance-enhancing drugs.

As for Baca, he's still playing. He struck out six batters and walked none as pitcher for the Democrats in this year's Congressional fast pitch game. Bragging that he still has a drug-free 72 mph fastball, Baca joked that some major-leaguers should look to him as an example.

Miss Mack, Mack, Mack

On the heels of her marriage to Rep. Connie Mack last weekend in North Carolina, Rep. Mary Bono had to decide whether to take her new husband's name.

Bono, R-Palm Springs, who famously replaced husband Rep. Sonny Bono in Congress after his 1998 death, has enjoyed the value of name recognition in politics.

Besides, since her engagement to Mack, R-Fla., she had to endure the ribbing of friends who reminded her of the children's song about "Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack, all dressed in black, black, black."

The lyrics to the song (there's a Wikipedia site) are surprisingly dark. But all the same, she decided to combine both names and announced this week she will henceforth be known as Mary Bono Mack.

What's in a name, anyhow?

Peeping Russ

The latest salvo in the contentious battle for state Sen. Jim Battin's seat comes from a labor union in the construction industry.

This time it's former Assemblyman Russ Bogh who's under fire. The State Building & Construction Trades Council is taking shots at Bogh, a Beaumont Republican running against Assemblyman John J. Benoit, R-Bermuda Dunes, for the state Senate job.

The union recently sent a glossy mailer to likely Republican voters in the Inland district accusing Bogh of selling "your privacy to the highest bidder." The front of the mailer features a color photo of a family praying at dinner time with a black-and-white image of Bogh's face peering eerily through the window, like a peeping Tom.

The union is not endorsing or donating to anyone in the race and spent the money independent of the Benoit campaign, said Bob Balgenorth, president of the council.

The council didn't intend to make Bogh look like a peeping Tom, but "I guess one could look at it like that," he said.

Instead, the council hopes to keep Bogh from returning to the Legislature because they think he has been too tied to big business and "has done a lot of things that are not good for voters."

Bogh rejected the mailer as an attempt by a "liberal labor union" trying to control him. He said he has been a staunch defender of privacy rights and finds it ironic that a union would target him on this issue.

Thedistrict stretches from Desert Hot Springs to Corona and includes Hemet, Lake Elsinore and Riverside.

Republican Rancor

The Legislature passed many bills this year that relied solely on the votes of majority Democrats.

Not so the legislation that Gary Jeandron, a Republican candidate for the 80th Assembly District, chose to criticize in a recent news release.

"State legislators should not be tying the hands of locally elected school boards," wrote Jeandron, the Palm Springs police chief, praising Gov. Schwarzenegger's October veto of SB 406. The measure would have imposed new rules on school districts issuing work permits.

Left unsaid is that almost every Assembly Republican supported the measure -- including the lawmaker who has endorsed Jeandron as her successor, Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia, R-Cathedral City.

Jeandron spokesman Andre Levesque said the candidate, a member of the Palm Springs Unified School Board of Directors, believes strongly in local control.

"He definitely likes to communicate where he is on the issues," Levesque said, adding that Jeandron will be issuing more such news releases in the coming months.

Far From Home

If former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee continues his surprise transition from no-name to front-runner and clinches the GOP presidential nomination, Upland resident Paul Darafeev can say he knew him when.

In March, when Huckabee campaigned in near obscurity, Darafeev became the first resident of Riverside or San Bernardino counties to cut him a check. He donated $2,300 after a lunch with Huckabee in which he learned they held similar views, were about the same age and shared an affinity for playing bass.

"It will be terrific if he wins Iowa and amazing if he wins California," said Darafeev, a furniture manufacturer. "Back in March, that would have been a miracle."

This week's Political Notebook was compiled by staff writers Ben Goad, Jim Miller and Michelle DeArmond.