Jesse Orosco has signed a deal with the Arizona Diamondbacks for next year. It is a minor league contract, but if he makes the major league club he will get $800K and incentives. Orosco is 46 and is the oldest player in the major leagues by more than a few days. I'm sure that lots of people will be asking him and writing about his secret to longevity over the winter as space needs to be filled in newspapers and nothing important in baseball is happening. Satchell Page used to say that the secret was never looking behind you; that way you never knew if someone was catching up to you.

In other baseball news, Tino Martinez was traded from the Cards to the Devil Rays for a minor league player and the proverbial player to be named later. Martinez will earn $7.5M next year, which is a huge price tag for the low-budget and youthful Devil-Rays, but the Cardinals will pay $7M of that salary. Martinez also has an $8M option for 2005 but there is a $1M buyout clause in the contract so the Devil Rays will not be forced to take on a huge salary number next year if they don't want to. In baseball trades, unnamed minor league players and players to be named later usually turn out to be roster fillers for minor league affiliates and not much more. If that is the case here, then Martinez is essentially being paid by the Cardinals to play somewhere else. That is not nearly as public or as explicit a statement by the Cardinals about Martinez as the one that the Bucs made about Keyshawn Johnson, but there is a possibility that the Tampa area might be getting its “locker-room-annoyance” replacement.

Here's a tidbit from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that is interesting. The Texas Rangers have had four players earn MVP awards in the last eight years (A-Rod, Ivan Rodriguez and Juan Gonzales, twice). Over that eight-year span, the Rangers also have a losing record. Here is a big part of the reason for that losing record. In the last four seasons, not a single pitcher for the Rangers has even received one vote for the Cy Young award.

I need to mention something about MLS here for just a moment. In the championship game, the San José Earthquakes beat the Chicago Fire. I know that most of you do not care about that even a little bit. But I do want to be on record here as saying that if the major earthquake that will certainly hit the northern California area one of these days happens to arrive before MLS folds its tents, there will be criticism of the insensitivity of the team name, Earthquakes. So, for all the sensitive souls out there, let's get that out of the way now and demand that the franchise change its name now or hold your water when/if the disaster happens.

In the world of college football, writers and talk radio hosts continue to feast on whatever they perceive to be flaws in the BCS system. The New York Times computer rankings for college football are part of the formula that determines the BCS rankings. That is sort of interesting in light of the fact that the Times does not have its reporters/columnists participate in the voting for major individual awards. Since its computer rankings are often questioned, I wonder if it is possible that the only reason these rankings are given a second thought is that they are associated with the name New York Times? Suppose the same rankings appeared in the East Buttmunch Thursday Shoppers Guide, do you think anyone would pay attention to them? Since you know the answer to that question, now ask yourself what it is about the New York Times that gives it any special insight into the statistical analysis of college football teams so that they can distinguish among the umpteen-jillion possible ways to write a computer program about this topic. The answer is – in brief – nothing at all. Oh, you didn't actually think that the sportswriters or the editorial board of the Times actually did the computer work, did you?

Since the Times has been so successful in putting its name on a computer program and having it accepted as something worthy of attention and consideration, maybe the shareholders in that company should demand that the Times put its brand on other things too and make some money off them. Wouldn't "New York Times Peanut Butter" fly off the shelves in your supermarket? If the New York Times sold used cars, could you even consider buying one anywhere else? How about “New York Times Health Food Stores” or “New York Times Surgical Centers”? Face it folks, the “New York Times Computer Rankings for College Football” are no better and no worse than the rankings that some geek might come up with by spending 8 hours a day on the Internet while he lives in his parents' basement. That is the bottom line.

I always thought that Rich “Our Miss” Brooks looked like a deer in the headlights when he was on the sidelines with the St. Louis Rams. After a coaching hiatus, Brooks is now at Kentucky where he has a QB that looks like Baby Huey. Jared “the Refrigerator” Lorenzen is listed at 260 lbs on the roster available at CBSSportsline.com; without further ado, I'll take OVER. Brooks led his Kentucky team into Georgia last week where they lost, but that is not unusual for the Kentucky football program. Here is what is unusual. Kentucky went into Georgia after losing the prior week to Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt wins SEC conference games about as often as Presidential candidates say, “I don't know.” I wonder if “losing to Vanderbilt” triggers a clause in Brooks' contract having to do with his continued employment?

After getting pasted by cross-town rival USC 47-22, UCLA coach, Karl Dorrell, was quoted in the LA Times saying, “There are no answers why we are where we are and why they are where they are.”

Translation: “USC is a whole lot better than we are and I don't know how they got that good or how the UCLA team can get that good.”

Memo to Coach Dorrell: The answers to this question do exist; it's just that you don't know them. This is certainly not the attitude/image you projected at your interview to get your job. The alumni and the AD that hired you ought to be wondering at this point why you have your job if you haven't a clue how to get the team to a higher level of competency.

Alonzo Mourning will need a kidney transplant and will probably never play NBA basketball again. This leaves the Nets with Jason Collins as their only true center and Kenyon Martin as someone who can pretend to play center for them. The Nets should be in the market to get someone to share the inside duties with Collins.

As of last Sunday, the Toronto Raptors were averaging 77.4 points per game as a team. Here is one time when we need to cue Bill Walton:

“That's horrrrrr-i-bull."

Speaking of the Horrabulls, they fired Bill Cartwright as their coach yesterday and named an interim coach. The Bulls came out of the gate at 4-10 this year but when I look at the players on that roster, I don't see a team that could reasonably be expected to have been 10-4 at this point. I doubt that this team is a coach away from greatness.

The same can be said for the Orlando Magic – and if they continue to play the way they have been playing, there should be consideration of changing the name to the Orlando Tragic. Firing Doc Rivers after a 1-10 start is something that teams are expected to do, but absent a hugely significant change in the team roster, the Magic will disappear from the NBA interest zone by January.

The LA Times quotes Clippers' announcer, Ralph Lawler, on 5' 5” Nuggets' guard, Earl Boykins:

“I've had wives bigger than him.”

Memo to Mr. Lawler: So did Tom Arnold.

Finally, Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio seems to have gotten it right. It's men's' teams are known as the Lords; its women's teams are known as the Ladies.

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

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