Sportswriters have long lamented the fickleness of sports stars, those ingrates whose loyalty can be bought by the highest bidder.

But 2007 was also a year when high-profile writers (and some announcers) did some job jumping themselves.

Connections can be good, but they can also become conflicts of interest.

Former U.S. Sen. George J. Mitchell released his report Thursday on the illegal use of steroids and other performances enhancing substances by Major League Baseball players.

Mitchell, 74, is widely respected, the sort of statesman who’s called in to fix problems others can’t solve. But he also has past and current links to baseball, including his role as director of the Boston Red Sox.

Barry Bonds struck out on his first attempt to hire a high-powered lawyer to defend him against federal perjury charges.

Negotiations broke down between the home run king and John Keker, a celebrated criminal defense attorney. Reports were that Bonds was put off by Keker’s fee — said to be $900 an hour — and other issues.

But Bonds stepped up to the plate again, and by the end of last week he had assembled a solid defense team of experienced lawyers.

Two major informants play central roles in the searing report on steroid use in baseball, released yesterday by former Sen. George Mitchell.

Kirk Radomski, a former Mets clubhouse attendant, and Brian McNamee, a former strength trainer for the Yankees and Blue Jays, provided much of the information linking players to drug use. The document named 89 players, including superstars Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Jose Canseco and Jason Giambi.

Pity the poor billionaire.

You start with nothing, make a fortune, give away millions.

Then what happens?

If you own a baseball team, sports columnists call you cheap. That’s right, cheap.

Carl R. Pohlad, the 114th richest person in American at $3.1 billion on the Forbes Magazine list, knows this all too well.

Baseball’s Barry Bonds would seem like a man in need of a really good lawyer, but he’s proving somewhat frugal, perhaps too frugal.

According to news reports, Bonds, who was indicted Friday on charges of lying to grand jury about steroid use, suffered from sticker shock at the $900 per hour fee charged by John W. Keker, a San Francisco defense attorney who has been involved in several high-profile cases.

“Image is everything,” a shaggy-haired Andre Agassi proclaimed as he hawked Canon cameras as a teenager.

Over the next 20 years, the tennis superstar traded handsomely on his world-famous name and image, earning an estimated $200 million through deals with Nike, Adidas, Head, Genworth Financial, Aramis and American Express, among others.

When it comes to Rudy Giuliani’s effort to win the Nascar vote, the national press corps just can’t resist stereotypes.

The latest sample comes from today’s Washington Post: “On Sunday, the Giuliani campaign came to the Homestead-Miami Speedway, past a handful of Confederate flags flying in the parking lot and beyond the Jack Daniel’s tent, to attend NASCAR’s Ford 400.”

There’s so much more to this picture than fast cars, bourbon and the Southern Cross.

Talk about a firm for all seasons.

We’ve already shown that investment bank Goldman Sachs is a power in politics and in finance, sending its executives off to presidential cabinets and elective offices and to lead other companies.

And now there’s proof that Goldman can hit home runs in baseball as well.

Word is out that two of Goldman’s managing directors, John Mallory and Gerald J. Cardinale, helped bring the New York Yankees and superstar Alex “A Rod” Rodriguez back into contract talks.

It would seem they did what Scott Boras, Rodriguez’s agent and one of the most powerful and vilified men in sports, couldn’t do. Though, rest assured, Boras will make money on this deal.

Like any sport, baseball needs its villains.

And right now, there’s no better villain than Scott Boras, the California-based sports agent who has the audacity to seek and get really, really good contracts for his millionaire clients.

Boras, 55, is so hateful, it would seem, that he will even upstage the World Series.