Frayed Knot

Beltran to 'Stros fans: "F--- You"Cammy to Met fans: "F--- You"Floyd to Oswald: "F--- You"It's just an F--- You kinda day.

Let's kick this Springer guy's ass!

I send Minky there also.Worst that happens is that he's out and it's 1st & 3rd/2 outs - as opposed to 2nd & 3rd w/2 ... but with Reyes at 1st it's almost as good.Make THEM make the tough play.

Atta Boy!

Pull the ball, don't bunt Mienty!!!!

Omar (paraphrased): '... unwilling to give up prospects for relatively minor deals for non-impact players'So it sounds like those Petit-Baez rumors (Newsday) or the Petit + Heilman for Baez swap (from wherever) were never really close to the truth.

The Padres & Mariners exchanged scrub catchers by swapping Miguel Oliva for Miguel Ojeda.I'm not sure who went which way since I can't tell the difference between the two and I'm not sure I care to either. I just thought I'd include it so it could be submitted as exhibit A in the 'players traded with most similar names' category.

JEEZUSFUCKINCHRIST - is ANYTHING going to go our way in the near future???!!?Not that we're playing so as to deserve many breaks. But even if you ignore the: our HR 2-feet foul/theirs 2 feet fair syndrome - there's now been 3 calls in 3 days that I've never seen before.- First the Cameron drop on the glove/hand transfer- Then the 'I'll run into this pitch while bunting and get awarded 1st even though it was a strike' call- And now this 'Oh, I called time for no fucking reason even though the play was still in progress so we're going to erase that out you just recorded' callWhen it rains ...

Trax threw 5 IPs and about 70 pitches at Bingo today.Maybe just one more rehab start.

OFer Randy Winn from Seattle to the Giants in exchange for C Yorvit Torreabla and P Jesse Foppert.Foppert was considered a high level prospect at one point a couple years back but his star may have fallen a bit since.

Mets & Sox apparantly dropped the D-Rays as a possible trade partner and tried talking just to each other. One suggestion was Manny & money for Cammy & Milledge - but the Mets wanted more money and the Sox wanted more prospects ... and so it's "99.9% dead" according to Jayson Stark on BB2N.Now my biggest worry is that Omar will feel pressure to "do something" after all these teases and so will do something simply so they can say that they did something.

]Does he know Dunn is available after all this weeks' smokescreens from Reds' management?I suspect statements like that fall under the category of: 'rumor/speculation reported as fact'. Why, for instance, would the D-Rays, who jettison every player making over $6.82/hour, even consider trading an up-and-coming min wage guy for Adam Dunn who's about to go to arb next year for mega-millions?I find it always helps if you keep the concepts of 'ESPN' and 'Journalism' is seperate parts of the brain. Unless it's coming from one of their baseball specific writers (Gammons, Olney, Stark) those topics rarely come within close proximity of each other.

Nevin apparently does NOT have no-trade protection to Texas so he has no say in this deal. It is however still pending "league approval" which means it must include a sizable money transfer as suggested.Here's my question: Where does Texas plan on playing Nevin?1st & 3rd are tied up in Teixiera & Blalock. He has played corner OF and even caught but neither are really his positions.I don't see anything where that Byrnes/Bigbie thing became a 3-way involving Shoppach (NTTAWWT) as suggested in another thread. It's a straight one-for-one deal between Bal'mer and Colorado from all reports.

Latest news (as of midnight Friday) is that the deal is on ice for now and that the teams have given themselves a Noon Saturday deadline to either come to some kind of agreement or abandon it.Of course it seems to me that the parties making that deadline are the same ones who are in charge of enforcing it so they can always just extend any extension and keep talking until 4PM Sunday if they wanted. I guess they want to give themselves a chance to work on something else if they can't agree in another 12 hours.

1) Now Nevin heads to Texas in exchange for Chan Ho Park.Not sure if it's Nevin-approved yet.2) Eric Byrnes packs again, to the O's for Larry Bigbie.

Three team Mega-Deal has "hit a roadblock" according to the latest from espn's Jayson Stark"A source said the Red Sox felt they could not go ahead with trading Ramirez and two prime prospects -- reportedly catcher Kelly Shoppach and right-hander Anibal Sanchez -- if all they were receiving was New York's Cameron and Tampa Bay's Huff. So they went back to the Mets "for more pieces," the source reported. At that point, the Mets "squashed the whole thing" and talks broke off. ... A baseball man with knowledge of the discussions said the Red Sox asked the Mets for a "key player," whom the Mets felt they couldn't trade."

That's a particularly good piece for those who were too young to remember - or maybe just not into baseball back then - what a great game that was before it ever got to Fisk in the 12th!! In the video-clip recall trend that drives nostalgia these days that game unfortunately gets reduced to that one moment, but it was a classic all night long.I think it was also a big game in baseball history. The sport was in a downturn as the '60s turned into the '70s and it was the '75 World Series in general and that game in particular which gave it a kick start on its way to revived popularity.

I know Joey was a bit of a 'day trader' in his later years, hence the song to CNBC's 'Maria Bartoromo'. She's sometimes referred to as 'The Money Honey' by those who frequent that channel.

Buster Olney on espn is reporting some wacky shit where the Mets would wind up with Manny - plus Baez from the D-Rays - while we'd give up Cameron plus "prospects" (which I believe means every single player from all 7 of our farm teams ... or something like that) which would go both north to Boston and South to Tampa.Who knows?

Someone I knew from the publishing biz told me that whenever an author was in town for a book-signing appearance Joey was always one of the peeps hanging out right there in the line waiting to get his newly purchased tome autographed.

]Who are our two top prospects? With Humber on the shelf, that leaves Milledge for sure, but sources seem to be split among Hernandez and Pettit, with Bannister sneaking into the mix also the first half of this season. Hernandez as in the infielder from the Vance Wilson trade? ... I wouldn't think so.'Closest to ready' is different from 'best prospect' and so Milledge & Petit would still be up top, with Gaby Hernandez next in line.Neither Hernandez nor Bannister are considered to have the upside of those three and so would be below them on the pecking order even considering that they might be closer to the bigs.P.S. Milledge is perfectly capable of - and may even wind up better at - playing a corner OF position. In no way should he be considered more disposable because his spot is "blocked" by Beltran.

Let's retitle this as 'Steve Phillips Gets Fuckin Ridiculous'I no longer post at another site because it became a place filled with nothing more than rampant postings of WATPs involving parameters like 6 teams & 14 players, each of which depends on the assumption that each of the others goes through exactly as proposed ... yyybbb.It's stupid and they (espn) should stop catering to it - although I realize that they'd lose most of their audience if they did.And Just My Opinion:a) Manny's not getting traded, at least certainly not in-season.He may have "demanded" a trade but it isn't the first time and he has no official ability to force one. In fact, with a probable no-trade clause now - and 10/5 rights after this year in any case - he has the ability to reject more deals than he can create. So Boston not only has to find some team who'll accept that contract, but they'll have to find one that their fickle prima-donna will approve.b) If he is dealt ... I don't want him (there, I said it)His contract isn't just high, it's stratospheric (nearly 20% above that of Beltran) - there's a reason why 29 teams passed on it when it was available for NO players in return! It was one of those inflated "dot-com era" deals that's now simply out of date - particularly so since you've now missed the peak years of it and would be picking it up just in time for the declining phase (he'll turn 34 next spring). And if he was an "AL player" at the beginning of this deal he'll be even more of one later on. He's not just a bad fielder/base-runner, he's a fucking train wreck, and while that's livable at times when he can DH every once in a while and only has to cover a small LF in Fenway, it's another if you've got that with the probable lesser numbers of a 34, 35, 36 y/o who's got to play the field every day.

Retired players:Gil Hodges - Sorry Brooklyn fans, but no Bruce Sutter - No. Not good enough for long enoughGoose Gossage - No, but I wouldn't cry about it if he wasJim Rice - NoBert Blyleven - see GossageAndre Dawson - NoTony Gwynn - YesMark McGwire - YesCal Ripken Jr. - YesRickey Henderson - YesEdgar Martinez - NoTim Raines - NoRoberto Alomar - YesActive players: and here I'll use the 'Hit by a Train' method. In other words, if they never played anouther game ...Mike Piazza - YesIvan Rodriguez - Not yet, but almost certainly does enough from here on outRafael Palmeiro - YesSammy Sosa - YesBarry Bonds - YesRoger Clemens - YesRandy Johnson - YesPedro Martinez - YesGreg Maddux - YesTom Glavine - ProbablyJohn Smoltz - Not yet, but still mightTrevor Hoffman - NoMariano Rivera - Is actually just now eligible, but has already done enoughAlex Rodriguez - Also just passed year 10, he too is in this soon Ken Griffey Jr. - YesLarry Walker - NoJeff Bagwell - Maybe but this injury hurts those tack-on yearsManny Ramirez - Almost certainlyCraig Biggio - I think he will, another good year or two can seal itFrank Thomas - Not yet - depends on how the next few years goJeff Kent - Not yet

The other threads are so filled with possible deals, rumored deals, suggested deals, rejected deals and WATPs that just reading them was starting to make my hair hurt.

These type of games rarely turn out well for the road team.I just hope they don't use this game as a panic excuse to "do something".