Friday, December 29, 2006

Hot Stove Happenings

There's a bunch of big ticket items to cross the hot stove wires within the past couple of days:

Former NY Yankee, and current announcer, Bobby Murcer is recovering after undergoing brain surgery to remove a tumor. Get well soon! Murcer complained of headaches and fatigue and tests revealed a tumor.

The Yankees are preparing to send Randy Johnson back to the sender. A deal is in the works to send Johnson to the Diamondbacks. Good riddance. I wasn't a fan of the deal that brought him to the Yankees, and his performance was never worth the price.

The Mets struck out on Barry Zito. Good luck on finding starting pitching to keep the rotation afloat until Pedro returns. The San Francisco Giants ponied up $127 million to get Zito, and Zito doesn't even have to move. He simply has to drive across the bridge to get to his new office at PacBell. That's the richest deal ever for a pitcher. Moving to the National League makes sense as it is easier than dealing with the DH in the American League.

So, when the owners start complaining that the economics of the sport are all out of whack, I wont be listening or sympathetic to their whining when they claim that some teams are on the brink of failing. After all, they're the ones handing out huge contracts like $42 million over four years the Brewers handed to Jeff Suppan. The salaries are insane, but so are the owners and general managers who are signing off on these deals.

Angels outfielder Juan Rivera broke his leg in winter ball. There's no timetable set for his return and the Angels signed Shea Hillenbrand to cover the loss of the All Star outfielder.

Meanwhile, eight of 10 players implicated in the BALCO scandal tested positive for steroids. Ouch. But apparently there's good news in that for Barry Bonds. His lawyer says he was one of the two players who didn't test positive:
The identity of all 10 players is not known, but Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield are known to be part of the group implicated in the BALCO investigation. If Bonds failed a drug test, it could help the U.S. Attorney's Office indict the Giants outfielder for perjury. It is not believed that any other players would face legal action.

Bonds' attorney, Michael Rains, said his client is not one of the players with a positive test.

"My response to that is that's all well and good, but that means two [of the 10] players didn't test positive and Barry is one of the two," Rains told The Post. "What a terrible break for the government that eight of the 10 players tested positive, but Barry didn't. I think it's another nail in their coffin in trying to go after Barry."

The 2-1 appeals court decision was a defeat for the Major League Baseball Players Association, which has been fighting the government's seizure of drug testing samples and data from two laboratories in 2004. The data includes the names of 104 players who failed tests for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003, the first year MLB tested. If the list is leaked and contains superstars never before implicated, it would deal another blow to baseball's integrity.

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