Morning Briefing: Alex Rodriguez is rooting for Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens

Alex Rodriguez is hoping Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens get into the Hall of Fame one day, because it would help him get into the Hall too.

“Of course I want them to get in, because that would mean that I have an opportunity to get in one day,� Rodriguez told ESPN’s “First Take� on Wednesday.

Bonds and Clemens are Hall of Fame locks on the surface but have never made it because of the performance-enhancing drug use allegations surrounding them.

“If you think about Roger and Barry specifically ... if you stopped their career at the age of 33 or 34, they were both first ballot, and then the noise [about PEDs] started,� Rodriguez said.

“I’ve taken the approach that I think talking about it is best,� Rodriguez said of taking PEDs, which he has admitted doing and, as a result, was suspended for the entire 2014 season. “I’ve made my mistakes, I’ve paid huge penalties.

“I would love to get in [to the Hall of Fame], but I understand that I made my own bed. So if I don’t make it to the Hall of Fame, I can live with that. I will be bummed, it would suck and I can’t believe that I put myself in this situation.

“But if that happens, I have no one to blame but myself.�

Bad day

Poor James Nunnally. While the country was honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday to celebrate his birthday, he was losing his job because of the holiday.

You see, the Houston Rockets traded Carmelo Anthony to the Chicago Bulls that day, which would have opened up a roster spot for Kenneth Faried.

With the trade all but finalized, the Rockets signed Faried so he would be available for that night’s game. No one had to be cut because of the trade, right? Wrong.

The NBA league offices were closed Monday, so the trade couldn’t be officially processed. That means the Rockets suddenly had too many players on their roster. So they cut Nunnally, who was on a 10-day contract.

“It just not right,� Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni said.

Imagine how Nunnally feels.

Prime-time junior

Remember Deion Sanders? Of course you do. Two-sport star, better at football than baseball. Doesn’t seem all that long ago. But in the “Boy I feel old� Dept., his son, Shilo Sanders, committed this week to play football at South Carolina. Sanders, a cornerback, chose the Gamecocks over Colorado State, Nebraska and Tennessee.

Since he’s Deion’s son, they ought to let him play for all four colleges at the same time.

Best sports movies

It’s Oscars season, so our daily online newsletter, “The Sports Reportâ€� is going to take advantage of that natural tie-in to poll all of you on what the best sports movie of all time is. The poll will be broken down first by sport, starting with football. So, what are the five best football movies of all time? You can type in this url to vote: poll.fm/10220498. Or you can email [email protected] and list your picks for the five best football movies.

New name

Miller Park is no more. A new company successfully bid for the naming rights for the Milwaukee Brewers’ stadium, and the name of the stadium will roll right off the tongue. Are you ready for it? American Family Insurance Stadium.

OK, AFI hasn’t officially said that will be the new name, but they certainly didn’t bid millions of dollars (exact figures haven’t been released, but the old naming rights went for $15 million) to not put their name on the stadium.

The good news is that the new name doesn’t take effect until the contract with MillerCoors to call it Miller Park ends after the 2020 season.