Centerfield

Yancy, you're not seeing the big picture. $105 million is only like $60 million or so after taxes.

ABC News correspondent David Wright brings a well-traveled perspective to his reports for "World News with Charles Gibson," "Nightline" and "Good Morning America." In the past five years, he has visited some 40 countries, covering major news events in the Middle East, Europe, Africa, India, Asia and the U.S. Wright joined the network in November 2000 as a correspondent for ABC's Los Angeles bureau. Prior to that, he was a reporter and substitute anchor for KRON, then the NBC affiliate in the Bay Area. A native of Buffalo, NY, Wright is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College. He earned a master's degree at Oxford University, where he studied Renaissance English literature at Merton College. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Wright's poetry, essays and reviews have apppeared in print and online in Artful Dodge, Anon, The New Pantagruel, The Christian Century, The Nimble Spirit Review, The Avatar Review, and The Midwest Quarterly, among many others. David is the author of two poetry collections: A Liturgy for Stones (2003) and Lines from the Provinces (2000). He has been awarded an Illinois Arts Council Artist's Fellowship for Poetry and has given readings throughout the United States. He and his family recently returned to live in Central Illinois after several years in the Chicago area. Since 2001, he has taught writing and literature at Wheaton College. "David Wright's poems are alive with music and motion." �Jean Janzen ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David, from St. Louis, Missouri, is an arranger and composer of vocal music. He specializes in vocal harmony, especially barbershop harmony, but his work often integrates the close harmony style with jazz, blues, gospel, country, doo-wop, and contemporary a cappella. He is musical advisor and two-time former director for the St. Charles Ambassadors of Harmony, a 100-voice male chorus which won the Barbershop Harmony Society's International Chorus Contest in 2004 and had ranked as a top five medalist nine out of the previous ten years. David is musical consultant and arranger for the ten-time international champion Dallas Vocal Majority, as well as for the international champion quartets Ambiance (now retired), Gas House Gang, Joker's Wild (now retired), Nightlife, Revival, Michigan Jake, Four Voices, and Gotcha. He has researched the origins of barbershop harmony and teaches a course on the history of the barbershop style at the Barbershop Harmony Society's Harmony College and at Sweet Adelines International's International Education Symposium. Professionally, David is a mathematician. He received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from Columbia University, New York City, and is now a Professor and Chair of the Department of Mathematics at Washington University in St. Louis. As a researcher he has been an invited speaker at a number of international mathematics conferences. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. David Wright is an established expert on the technical aspects of arms control, particularly those related to missile defense systems and missile proliferation. He has testified before Congress on arms-control issues and is a frequently quoted source in the New York Times and on NPR. He has worked for a number of years on projects to help train technical arms control experts in other countries, especially Russia and China.

What happens to a pitcher who is suspended? He gets to participate in spring training right? Can he pitch in AAA while he is suspended? Or would he be exiled to St. Lucie?

I'm getting very impatient too. I keep telling myself demanding a big signing is to act like a MFY fan, but I want Zito signed already.

Vic Sage wrote: Loretta, at 35, doesn't offer us anything more than Valentin. Lets save our chips for a significant upgrade to the rotation, rather than frittering away talent/$$ on marginal upgrades/backups to the #8 hitter. That is assuming Valentin plays as well as he did last year and not the way he played the year before. Loretta is more of a sure-thing, and comes relatively cheap.

Me too. If only Harden went by "Dick". It would open up so much...

Answered my own questin...apparently the deal reported about Mark Loretta is being denied. I think I'd prefer Loretta to any of the other names I've been hearing.

So who's left? Belliard?

I feel bad for him. Like Strahan, it's not their fault that the media tries to hold them accountable for their own words. It's all a big conspiracy.

Yup. I've always felt MVP voting should be about who is the best player, team performance should have nothing to do with it. The way it stands now MVP means "best player whose teammates are also pretty good so they became a contender but not good enough to make them a runaway."

I'm with soup. I'd like to have him back, but if he goes, so be it. But, if he signed with Atlanta and his salary forced them to dump Hudson, that would be very very good.

Edgy DC wrote: You're a better lawyer than I am, but I think the evidence is credible. I think this is where we differ. The evidence here is simply evading a question. And that wouldn't be enough to get a suspension, much less a denial of the Hall. By the way, I am working with the premise here that if you don't vote for him, you don't think he's worthy of the Hall. Not simply because you don't think he's a "first-ballot guy". I never really understood that sort of reasoning to begin with.

Vic Sage wrote: If a HOF voter wants to use unsubstantiated rumor and innuendo and circumstantial evidence to reach conclusions about a prospective candidate, he/she has every right to do so. I'm surprised you would take that position. Especially knowing how different agendas can affect the rumors and innuendos that may be prevalent. But different strokes, I guess. I do realize it is a bit counterintuitive to promote a "Just the Facts" approach to a process that is so subjective to begin with. I'm just saying I want my subjective opinions reached as objectively as possible.

We've been at odds ever since Rudolph.

] I went into journalism with the idealistic belief that somehow I could change things, that I could expose the bad guys and elevate the good guys. Over the years, I have learned it often is just beating your fists against a steel door. However, we must continue to try. Lines like this from Wallace Matthews really get under my skin. It is a wonder one can be in journalism for as long as he has been and still not understand the difference between what he set out to do and what he is doing. If Wally really wants to "expose the bad guys", how about some investigative journalism. How about digging around, finding out what really went down, expose the whole steroid phenomenon and make baseball deal with it. Report some facts, some substance, something we can view objectively and conclude "Wow, McGwire used steroids." What Wally is doing is sitting back, spouting an unsupported opinion, and then attempting to characterize said opinion as socially responsible. Give me a fucking break. Perhaps the reason the steel door remains strong is because Wally is attacking it with paper-thin arguments.

Mine seems to be the minority opinion around here, but I think every writer should vote for McGwire. It is one thing to deny someone the hall for bad character. It is another entirely to deny someone based upon suspicion of bad character. He has never failed a test and there has been no credible evidence he used steroids. If he had been caught, then I would understand a writer withholding his vote...but since he wasn't caught, I don't think it's justified that a writer withholds simply because he thinks McGwire cheated. Now, I understand that his answers before Congress were pretty damning...but those crappy answers are no where near enough to establish him as a cheater. He could have answered that way for a number of reasons...it could have been just bad advice from his lawyer. But the reason that shouldn't come into play is only a select few were required to testify. Ripken wasn't asked about steroids. Neither was Gwynn. Do we really know they didn't use? How? Is it fair to penalize McGwire for his answers when the others weren't even asked the question? We go down a slippery slope here. What if a player denies using steroids but a writer doesn't find his testimonial convincing. Should that writer be allowed to reach the conclusion he used and therefore deem him unworthy of the Hall? Baseball needs to take responsibility here and find out who cheated and who didn't. And if it's impossible to establish that now, then we have to assume everyone is clean. Otherwise this turns into Salem.

Edgy DC wrote: Part of me sees the Yankees swooping in to make a grab at him. Which part?

I want to re-sign Cliff. Is it too early to trade Alou? The new CBA got rid of deadlines and stuff right?

As per the scroll on ESPN News. I think, if I remember correctly, 8 years, $136 million. Too much I say. If that's what he got, I'm glad we passed.

Well this sucks. I didn't realize that one of the goals this offseason was to field as old a team as possible.

I am no longer in touch with Doug, but I hear through the grapevine that the couple is doing well.

I originally posted about it when it happened in 2001, but since we have a lot of new people... At my old job, there was this guy...we�ll call him Doug. No one liked Doug. When a bunch of us would go out to lunch, Doug would always be short on money. And because he was short, rather than paying what he had, he would ask you to cover him promising to "get you next time". Doug would talk openly in front of the boss about how quiet the office is late at night even though the rest of us saw him duck out as soon as the boss�s taillights could no longer be seen from the window. And if you left the office before Doug, he would say stuff like "Half day Bob? Must be nice..." Doug was condescending to the support staff, mean to waiters/waitresses and would often take two spots in the parking lot because he couldn�t be bothered to park properly. He also had bad breath and repeated jokes. But to his credit, Doug was a legitimate Yankee fan. When asked, he wasn�t sure if it was Randy Velarde or Tony Fernandez who played shortstop before Jeter, but knew it was one of them. In fact, he knew all the Yankees going back to the late 70's. No one could accuse Doug of being a bandwagon fan. This, of course, didn�t stop him from being annoying. Doug was very proud of his Yankee knowledge and would often accuse other Yankee fans of not being worthy because they didn�t remember Butch Wynegar. After Yankee wins he would walk around the office imitating John Sterling "The Yankees win, THUUUUUUH Yankees win." He would talk about the Yankees as if they were his close friends...Bernie, Paulie, and of course, Tino. When he scheduled his wedding in 2001, he made sure to schedule it one week after the World Series was over because he knew the Yanks would be in it ("Though I doubt they'll need to go to Game 7"). He bragged to us about his foresight. Doug was a really big fan. As it turned out, in 2001 the baseball season was delayed a week because of 9/11. So when Doug got married, it coincided with Game 7 of the World Series...Diamondbacks versus Yankees. I wasn�t there, but people say when Soriano hit the HR off Schilling in the ninth, Doug was out of control. They say he yelled "It�s over baby! Mariano is automatic!" He even went as far as to say that the Yanks winning the World Series was a sign that his marriage would be a championship marriage. After all, as Doug pointed out, since he met his bride in 1998, the Yankees had not failed to win the championship. A co-worker who was at the wedding says he will never forget that moment when Gonzalez�s floater carried into the outfield. He says he can�t adequately describe how eerie it is when entire wedding goes silent. Doug was close to tears...and while the Dbacks celebrated on the field, Mets fans and people who don�t like Doug tried to conceal their joy. Sometimes I like to think about the DJ trying to pick up the mood...turning on the music in a fruitless attempt to get everyone back to the dance floor. I wonder if Doug�s bride had any reservations about turning on the game in the first place, or whether she resents the Yankees or Doug for ruining her wedding. In any case, after putting up with Doug for many years, I think about this story and realize it was all worthwhile.

There is nothing worse than being invited to a stupid wedding while the World Series is going on. Especially when you have a bride that starts complaining and demanding you take the TV outside the church. Of course, without the current format, I wouldn't have my favorite World Series Wedding story, so I can't complain.

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I have no memories of Royce Ring.