Sticking with baseball news for a moment, Manny Ramirez signed an 8 year deal for $160M with the Red Sox yesterday and it immediately looks like chump change. There is some talk that the Sox are now interested in dealing for Sammy Sosa as long as the Cubbies take Carl "Mr. Personality" Everett as part of the deal. Now if the Red Sox owners were really clever and wanted to enhance the value of the team as they prepare to auction it off, they would find a way to trade Dan Duquette to the cubbies for Andy McPhail as part of that same deal. Duquette and Everett seem to get along with each other and neither seems to be able to get along with a majority of the other bipeds on the planet.

Darren Dreifort decided to stay with the LA Dodgers at $11M/year for 5 years. I said before that I thought that Dreifort was one of the potential bargains in the free agent market this year; but at $11M/year, I have to wonder. He is a sub-.500 pitcher for his career with a career ERA near 4.5. He had a great second half of the season last year which could mean that he finally mastered his talents and is ready to explode on the scene. Or it could mean that he realized that his contract was up and he needed to work extra hard or face the possibility of working middle relief for the Bozeman Boogers next year. The Dodgers investment in starting pitching with losing records for their career in this offseason is now $18.5M/year. If Ashby and Dreifort come down with fat-wallet syndrome, the Dodgers may position themselves in the NL West race such that "they can see 'em all."

Sandy Alderson announced that the baseball management and the umpires met at the winter meetings and actually agreed on something. This will prove conclusively that Richie Phillips is out of the picture because Richie would orchestrate a work-stoppage over a disagreement about whether or not the law of gravity is constitutional. The agreement is that the umpires will call the strike zone as it is described in the rule book. If that actually happens there are two potential outcomes:

1. Games may actually be shorter by a few minutes next year.

2. Mo Vaughn may strike out over 200 times if he feels a need to swing at even more high pitches.

In the world of jurisprudence, the soccer players in MLS had their anti-trust suit against MLS tossed out of court. The jury decided that players in MLS had plenty of opportunity to play elsewhere (Europe and Latin America being two areas where the game has been known to be played at the professional level) and various indoor leagues in North America. It seemed that the jury stopped short of pointing out the fairly obvious limitation that most MLS players face in trying to command big salaries in the European and Latin American leagues: they are nowhere near talented enough! But the players are going to appeal the verdict and in case you are wondering how these underpaid and underprivileged folks can afford the high power lawyers to make this case, the legal bills are being underwritten by the NFL Players Association.

Rae Carruth's trial continues and it is televised on Court TV so that the summaries of the testimony can be seen in the evenings. Yesterday, they had one of the police investigators on the stand. Let me just say that he was not the highest amperage fuse in the fuse box! But in some kind of an impromptu gathering with microphones and cameras present, Carruth's attorney said that he is considering the possibility of putting Carruth on the stand but would not make that decision until "an hour before we decide to do it". I'm not sure that if I am on trial for my life, I want my attorney winging it on decisions of that type.

One of the members of the Minnesota Legislature filed a complaint with the state employment commission challenging the legality of Jesse Ventura's deal with the XFL to announce the games. The state office has ruled that there is no conflict of interest and that this deal with the XFL would not "affect the governor's independence of judgment in the exercise of his official duties." I hope that conclusion did not take more than about 15 minutes to arrive at. And here is a more direct message to the legislative goober that filed the complaint in the first place:

He is your governor. Get over it. If you don't like it, run against him in two years and beat him. Otherwise do something important like shovel snow.

Now it looks like Mike Riley will be allowed to take the USC job if it is offered to him since the Chargers have reversed their position and will not stand in his way. Conspiracy theories abound here since Jimmy Johnson has been hired by the Chargers as some kind of overseer/advisor and Jimmy is tight with Norv Turner who is "available" at the moment. Jimmy has been known to cross swords with meddlesome owners in the past and that may multiply whatever sympathies he may have for Norv.

In what would not be a good career move in the long term, Norv Turner supposedly has been talking to the people at CBS and FOX about some kind of studio analyst gig during the playoffs. This is not Norv's milieu; he can't be in desperate financial straits; I hope that this never gets to fruition.

Danny Boy Snyder seems to have gotten himself at odds with the NFL's financial committee. If he stays on the path he is on, Danny Boy is on target to piss off Mother Teresa on 23 December; can this guy be involved in anything that just goes along smoothly without a problem? It seems that he has already been fined $250K by the league for failing to get NFL approval of his buying out of minority owner Mort Zuckerman earlier this year. Now he is seeking a variance on part of the deal that he proposed to the NFL when he bought the team. He was to pay down his debt by $50M by the end of this calendar year and now he does not want to do it because it would hurt him in his taxes. Excuse me, there have been only minimal changes in the tax laws in the last two years and so why was this not clear when you proposed it in the first place? I understand why he makes boneheaded decisions regarding football; he does not know enough to know that he does not know anything. But he is supposed to be a business mensch and a boy-wonder; so how did this $50M tax problem escape his scrutiny when he put the deal together. Or doesn't he know that much about that stuff either…???

Danny Boy's purported genius is in the area of marketing and customer communications. Well, the Redskins announced yesterday - to no one's surprise - that Jeff George will be the QB for the rest of the year. Fine. Now move on. But the communications experts in the Skins' organization felt the need to add to that announcement that the reason was that George was more mobile than Brad Johnson and thus better able to avoid the rush that may come with the injuries to the OL. Please spare me. Jeff George is indeed more mobile than the Lincoln Memorial - but not by much. He was sacked 5 times by Dallas who was last in the league in sacks going into Sunday's game; in their first 13 games, Dallas had only 18 sacks for the year. Now they want us to believe that Jeff George is actually Eddie George in disguise.

Memo to Danny Boy: Did you mistakenly think you were signing Eddie George last summer? If so, maybe you actually signed Wrong George. Hey, you are the communications genius, try selling that. It can't be any more transparently phony that some of the other crap you are peddling.

"I'll be home for Christmas,
You can count on that.
Please lock Dan
In the can
So we can all get fat…"

Doctor: Troy, are you OK?

Troy: Tuesday.

Doctor: Do you have any sharp pain anywhere?

Troy: Minnesota Giants, 14-6.

Doctor: How many fingers am I holding up?

Troy: Batman.

Doctor: Coach, I think he should sit out the rest of the half but he may be able to go in the second half if he's able to tell the difference between a Cowboy Cheerleader and Mike Ditka back in the locker room…

Finally, we have a potentially heartwarming story from the NBA. Shaq will miss this Friday's game with the blessing of the Lakers so he can go to LSU to pick up his diploma. He is graduating with a bachelor's degree in general studies. He has been taking courses since leaving there 8 years ago. If left there, this could be something we could all agree is a positive thing, but Shaq managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. He said that this degree is "something for him to fall back on" and that you "need an education to manage your money." Why couldn't he just say that this was a goal for him and he achieved it and this is a proud moment in his life? Why did he have to remind me that "general studies" often means "never having to take a course above the 100 level"? Just go and pick up the diploma and get back to business, please.

But don't get me wrong, I love sports...