The Trade That Ate New York
"Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still." - Chinese Proverb

It really wasn't surprising when the announcement came along that the Yankees had finally landed Randy Johnson. Johnson wanted to go to the Bronx and the Yankees drooled for him. Money was never an obstacle and winning is a priority so this was pretty much a done deal, even if it took five months of rumours to complete. As Mike Lupica notes; "Randy Johnson to the Yankees is inevitable the way Roger Clemens to the Yankees was inevitable once"

What is suprising is the amount of players involved.

It now appears the trade involves 10 players. So far, Johnson and a minor leaguer will be traded to the Dodgers and then sent on to the Yankees, along with another good leftie, Japanese left-hander Kazuhisa Ishii. The Yankees will then ship the disappointing Javier Vazquez to the Dodgers along with their two best minor leaguers -- catcher Dioner Navarro and third baseman Eric Duncan. From the Dodgers, the Diamondbacks will get slugger Shawn Green and right-handed pitchers Brad Penny and Yhency Brazoban.

What this also means is that in order to fill what was a major weakness last season, their starting rotation, the Yankees will now have about 10 starters. Well, not 10, but 6, still more than the usual requisite. In addition to Johnson and Ishii, the Yankees have already signed Carl Pavano and Jared Wright this season (which makes four new starters) to go with the still-untraded Kevin Brown, and Mike Mussina. That's six aces on one staff and the Yankees are still the likely highest bidder for free agent Carlos Beltran. Almost impossible to fathom financially, but with the Red Sox getting people like David Wells and Edgar Renteria, it appears the gap between the two sides is growing and maybe, just maybe, the bigger rivalry will become the bidding wars between the Yankees and the Mets in the future.

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It's more than a little suprising that not only did the A's deal one of their three aces, Tim Hudson, in a much maligned trade to the hated Atlanta Braves, but now they've dealt another, Mark Mulder to the Cardinals for a pair of relatively unknown pitchers in Dan Haren, Kiko Calero and prize prospect Daric Barton. So the A's, it looks like, are funding the National League pitcher's rehab movement and strengthening the Mets competition all in one fell swoop. Bastids.

Haren was considered a potential part of next year's rotation. He was 11-4 at Memphis last season and distinguished himself in the postseason by allowing only two earned runs in 8 innings. Calero was a versatile piece of the Cardinals' bullpen and finished 3-1 with two saves and a 2.78 ERA last season.

But the most significant expenditure might turn out to be Barton, 19, who was the club's No. 1 pick in the 2003 amateur draft. A lefthanded hitting catcher, Barton batted .313 with 13 home runs, a .445 on-base percentage and .511 slugging percentage at Class A Peoria.

Elephants In Oakland think this is an "out-bleeping standing move" by Beane.

Obviously, the A's have decided to go into the rebuilding mode. Perhaps there's a chance that they might even sell off the third ace, Barry Zito, and make it a clean sweep.

Ray Ratto knows the pain:

"Now our boys Matier y Ross are reporting that Lewis Wolff, who was supposed to be hustling up a new stadium for the A's, instead is fronting a group to try to buy the A's, in which case the Mulder trade makes sense in a lowered-payroll-means-easier-sell kind of way. Sure, it stinks for you, the ticket-buying fan, but those are the hideous realities of fun-filled predatory high-end capitalism."

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It's hard to believe, but here we are near christmas and MLB still doesn't know where the Expos franchise is going to be playing next season! Apparently, baseball is going to meet with the suddenly-well-known DC councilperson, Linda Cropp, perhaps to kidnap her or slap her until she comes to her senses and agrees to agree to what was already agreed to, fair or not.

Baseball is also contemplating that if the deal does not get renegotiated, commissioner Bug Selig will refuse to let the team play at RFK Stadium, home to the NFL's Washington Redskins, and could instead make the team play two seasons in Norfolk, Virginia. Then what are they, Norfolk Expos, Norfolk Nationals, Norfolk the Team That Time Forgot?

It's all getting quite absurd but absurdity has plagued this Montreal Expos franchise for several years now. First it was the weirdness of being owned by the owners, then they came out with the assinine, vagabond "home" schedule that took them to San Juan, Puerto Rico for several dozen games a season.

The Nats blog has a list of ways for Nats fans to raise the $140 million the city needs for the stadium.

The Nats blog also reported on WTOP's report that The sex industry funded part of a campaign that opposes the construction of a new baseball stadium on the Anacostia waterfront:

"WTOP Radio has learned up to 20 percent of the $50,000 came from Robert Siegel, an Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner whose business would have to move to make way for the stadium.

Siegel is a major landowner on the South Capitol stadium site, an area that Siegel calls "D.C.'s unofficial Red Light district."

He owns 11 properties, several of which house gay nightclubs. He also owns a gay porn shop and adult theaters."

This is just too weird for words, almost - gay nightclubs versus Major League baseball. Then again, with former crack-smoking mayor Marion Barry acting as the shadow antagoniser behind Linda Cropp, it isn't that surprising after all.

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Although the battle of the rookie quarterbacks ended yesterday pretty much the way everyone expected, with the Steelers defeating the Giants, Eli Manning finally looked as though he had a clue about what he was doing out there. At Manning's request on Monday, Coughlin reduced the previous package of plays in the offensive game plan to those Manning had been using since training camp and it made all the difference.

Meanwhile, Dan Roethlisberger, another rookie QB who has helped lead the Steelers to 12 consecutive victories since he started playing, led the Steelers to either a touchdown or a field goal on every possession, except for two interceptions and the game-ending ball-control drive. He hit 18 of 28 passes for 316 yards.

But even in Pittsburgh, they can see that Eli Came of Age in this game.

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Yet another star landed in the NYC area when the soon-to-be Brooklyn Nets traded for Vince Carter and gave up virtually nothing in return to the Toronto Raptors, in the form of Alonzo Mourning, Aaron Williams, Eric Williams and two first-round picks.

First of all, Alonzo Mourning isn't even expected to join the Raptors. So in essence this is five time All Star Vin-sanity for Aaron and Eric Williams and a couple of unknown draft picks.

Maybe it's just possible that Nets owner Bruce Rattner isn't the greedy pig intent on gutting the Nets that everyone has made him out to be. First he acknowledges it was a mistake to trade Kenyon Martin to the Nuggets and now he's traded for someone who could be one of the most exciting players in the NBA, giving up virtually nothing but a bad front court in return.

The Nets will have to be faaaast because they aren't going to outrebound anyone with no one in the front court who isn't a stiff, but having J-Kidd, budding star Richard Jefferson and Vince Carter on the same side is almost an All Star team by themselves. It is a great move for the Nets AND allows them to one-up the Knicks, who had also been after Carter but couldn't come up with acceptable personnel for the deal.

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The real excitement of the end of the week came with the Champions League draw for the knockout round was made. There are some really good matchups out of this:

Round of 16 - Matchday 7

22/02/2005

Real Madrid 20:45 Juventus
Liverpool 20:45 Leverkusen
PSV 20:45 Monaco
Bayern 20:45 Arsenal

23/02/2005

Porto 20:45 Internazionale
Barcelona 20:45 Chelsea
Man. United 20:45 Milan
Bremen 20:45 Lyon

We've still got a few months to think about it but there's the list anyway.

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And, for all those readers in Grenchen and Basel who have been driving me nuts with emails every hour asking me who the Swiss Sportsman of the Year was going to be, the vote is in:

World tennis number one Roger Federer.

Of course if you're like me, you'd naturally wonder, who the hell else in Switzerland was in the running? A bunch of skiers nobody's ever heard of and some yodelers?

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Lastly, it appears that a gorilla named "OJ" is having "trouble" with love and is being shipped back to the SF zoo as the new King of of Gorilla World...

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If it's Mets news you're lusting after, check out the sister station at Archie Bunker's Army.