Via the Daily News -

Rumors are flying in Major League Baseball and New York banking circles that the family that has owned Major League Baseball’s premiere franchise since Cleveland shipbuilder George Steinbrenner purchased the club for $8.8 million in 1973 is exploring the possibility of selling the Yankees.

Multiple baseball and finance sources told the Daily News they are hearing that the team the Steinbrenner family has led to seven World Series titles could be put on the block in the wake of the record sale price of $2.175 billion the Los Angeles Dodgers went for in April.

“There has been chatter all around the banking and financial industries in the city for a couple of weeks now,” one high-level baseball source told The News.

Yankee president Randy Levine adamantly denied the rumors: “I can say to you there is absolutely, positively nothing to this. The Steinbrenners are not selling the team.”

Sure, and, back in the ’50′s, the Dodgers and Giants said they were not moving to the West Coast…

Seriously, now is the time to sell for the Steinbrenners. The Dodgers sale set the market price. And, the Yankees know that their team is getting old and average…and the pipeline is not full of legit prospects. Factor in the changes in the draft and payroll taxes – and the Yankees product on the field is going to get worse in the future. Then attendance and TV ratings go down. That’s not going to help the value of the team. Better to sell now, and cash out, while the value is still high.

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Gosh, these are ugly.

Hat tip, no pun intended, to Chris Creamer.

More on this here.

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Via CBS -

Major League Baseball management has fired Shyam Das, the arbitrator who overturned Ryan Braun’s drug suspension in February.

MLB informed Das and the players’ association of its decision last week. Das had been baseball’s permanent arbitrator since 1999, part of what technically is a three-man panel that also includes a representative of management and labor.

“Shyam is the longest-tenured panel chair in our bargaining relationship,” union head Michael Weiner said. “For 13 years, from the beginning to the end of his tenure, he served the parties with professionalism and distinction.”

Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement says the arbitrator can be removed by the players’ association or management at any time with written notice.

“I had the distinct privilege to serve as chair of the MLB-MLBPA arbitration panel for almost 13 years,” Das wrote in an email to The Associated Press. “I have the greatest respect for the representatives of both parties I worked with during that period, and I wish the parties well in their ongoing relationship.”

MLB executive vice president Rob Manfred declined comment, spokesman Pat Courtney said.

The sides will now try to select a successor. If they cannot agree, baseball’s collective bargaining agreement calls for them to ask the American Arbitration Association for a list of “prominent, professional arbitrators.” The sides would then alternate striking names from the list until one remains.

A classic case of MLB taking its toys and going home?

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The Daily News is keep tabs.

I am still waiting for the judge to ask Clemens’ lawyer: “Did you say ‘yutes’?”

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Via Adam Rubin -

Major League Baseball is working on a scheduling reconfiguration for the 2013 season and beyond that likely will eliminate the Mets and Yankees as well as other “natural rivals” playing home-and-home, six-game series annually, baseball sources told ESPNNewYork.com.

With the Houston Astros moving to the American League West next season and the leagues becoming balanced at 15 teams apiece, natural rivals throughout baseball no longer will be guaranteed six games a season and home-and-home series, the sources said.

That goes for obvious intracity rivals such as Mets-Yankees and Cubs-White Sox, as well as for more-forced natural rivals such as the San Diego Padres and Seattle Mariners.

The Mets and Yankees will continue to play six games a season — three apiece at Citi Field and Yankee Stadium — when the AL East and NL East line up for long-form interleague play every three years.

But in the other seasons, a major league source added, the competition likely will be limited to three games at one ballpark, or two games apiece at each ballpark.

Sources cautioned that the 2013 Major League Baseball schedule, and the precise new configurations, are still being discussed.

I wish there was a way to get this right. If the Yankees are going against the Red Sox, Rays, Orioles and Blue Jays to see who finishes first in their division, then, those five teams should all play the same schedule. That’s only fair, right?

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On this date in 2006, then top Tampa Bay prospect Delmon Young was suspended indefinitely by the International League, a day after throwing a bat that hits a replacement umpire in the chest. Young was ejected in the first inning following a called third strike in the Durham Bulls’ Triple-A game at Pawtucket. And, today, we have this news on Young -

Detroit Tigers slugger Delmon Young was arrested early this morning after he allegedly assaulted a man in front of a Midtown hotel, police sources told The Post.

Cops were called to the hotel around 2:40 a.m. after Young, whose ballclub is in town to play the Yankees tonight, pushed the man to the ground, sources said.

Young, known for his powerhouse arm in the outfield, was “highly intoxicated,” sources said, and had to be taken to the hospital to sober up before being moved to a police precinct.

The victim suffered scratches on his arm and was treated at the scene.

Young, who has had problems controlling his temper in the past, was charged with assault in the third degree and is in custody while awaiting arraignment.

Anger managment issues, perhaps?

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…here’s Johnny!

Nice to see Damon land a home.

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Via the Patch -

Yankees first baseman Mark “Tex” Teixeira has a new team.

No, the four-time Gold Glove winner hasn’t been traded.

He’s signed on with Patch, as “Commissioner of Patch Baseball.”

Teixeira will interact with Patch users by regularly responding to questions, sharing baseball tips, and posting exclusive videos. Teixeira will also offer young athletes advice on how to stay in shape and why healthful eating is so important for optimal performance.

“I live in a Patch town now and I keep tabs on my original hometown via the Patch site there, so I’ve seen the ways that Patch supports its communities,” said Teixeira. “I’m excited to be a part of that by connecting with Patch users who have the same passion for baseball that I do. I’m eager to see what kinds of questions they toss my way!”

“Baseball is such an important part of so many of the communities we’re in–and if something’s important to our users, it’s important to Patch,” said Rachel Feddersen, Chief Content Officer at Patch. “Mark is a great representative of what Patch stands for. We’re thrilled to offer this exclusive opportunity for our communities’ baseball players, from little leaguers to college prospects, to interact with this World Series champion.”

Now that he’s the commish, does this mean Tex will have even more “pull”?

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Where we are today with the latest trouble that Ozzie Guillen has made for himself - via the Miami Herald:

Miami Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen said prior to Monday’s game against the Phillies that he would travel back to Miami after the game and hold a press conference Tuesday to address comments in a recent Time magazine article concerning Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

Guillen was quoted as saying he respected Castro for having been able to remain in power in Cuba as long as he has.

Guillen later apologized for the comment during the team’s road trip this past weekend to Cincinnati, saying: “I’m against the way he [Castro] treats people and the way [he has treated] his country for a long time. I’m against that 100 percent.”

The press conference is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Tuesday at Marlins Park.

“I was planning to do something Friday, but [Tuesday] we have the day off and I want to make everything clear so people can talk to me face-to-face,” Guillen said. “They can ask me whatever questions they want, and the sooner the better for the people, for the ballclub and for me. I want to tell people what is going on in my mind and what I believe.”

Guillen said he has been struggling with the situation the past three days and hasn’t been able to sleep.

“I want the people there,” Guillen said. “I feel embarrassed. I feel guilty not because I’m lying, but because this thing hasn’t let me sleep for three days. Only my wife knows how bad it’s been last few days. I feel very guilty, sad and embarrassed. Anyone who wants to be there, feel free. I want the Cuban people to understand what I’m going to say because everything I’m going to say is true.”

Guillen said he wasn’t surprised by the reaction and knew how deeply it would affect the Cuban community.
“I have to face it,” Guillen said. “I have to make people feel good about themselves. I will say what I said a couple of days ago. I don’t want to just make a statement and that’s it because I think when you do that, that’s a bunch of crap.

“I feel sad because I know I hurt a lot of people,” Guillen added. “I’m Latino. I live in Miami. I have a lot of friends and players [that are Cuban]. They know who I am. They know how I feel.”

This Ozzie thing reminds me of 1992 when Marge Schott said “Everything you read, when [Hitler] came in [to power] he was good…They built tremendous highways and got all the factories going…Everybody knows he was good at the beginning but he just went too far.”

At the time, Bud Selig, fined Schott $25,000 and suspended her for the 1993 season. Will he do the same now with Guillen?

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Sad news via Yahoo –

One of the nation’s top baseball prospects, a bright student headed to Vanderbilt, was found dead along the side of a Tennessee road on Tuesday after an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, sending shockwaves throughout the Volunteer State baseball community.

As reported by the Jackson Sun, the Nashville City Paper and a variety of other Nashville-area news sources, Parsons (Tenn.) Riverside High ace Stephen Gant was found dead in Perry County shortly after the local sheriff’s office had been called about a man walking up and down the road with a gun threatening to commit suicide.

“We found the body of Stephen Gant about 30 feet from the roadway with a gunshot wound,” Perry County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Nick Weems told the Sun. “We do believe at this time that it was self-inflicted; however, we will continue to investigate to look at other possibilities to make sure it was suicide.”

To call Gant’s death a stunning turn of events is a vast understatement. The senior was a Vanderbilt signee with what many anticipated would be a bright future at one of the nation’s most impressive college baseball programs. In all three of his prep seasons he had been named the Sun’s Baseball Player of the Year, a remarkable achievement in a tough Tennessee baseball region.

In fact, Gant’s arm was so strong that some had even penciled the senior in as a likely first round draft pick in the forthcoming MLB draft.

On Tuesday, the communities that knew him and were looking forward to his arrival were still struggling to come to grips with the teenager’s tragic death, as Vanderbilt baseball coach Tim Corbin made clear in a statement released to the press.

“This stops you right in your tracks,” Corbin said in the release. “These are life occurrences that can’t be explained … there are no ‘do-overs.’

Indeed.

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Concubines that come back to haunt. Via the Record Journal –

The family of major league pitcher Carl Pavano told police that a former Southington High School classmate was trying to extort money and a luxury SUV from Pavano by threatening to reveal personal information about him, according to a search warrant affidavit filed by police earlier this month.

In the affidavit, Pavano’s sister, Michelle DeGennaro, said Christian Bedard, 36, of Southington, was “attempting to extort monetary funds for his fabricated, false information” and that he believes he can hold the Pavano family “hostage” with the information.

DeGennaro filed a complaint with Southington Police in December, after receiving messages from Bedard she considered harassing on the social networking site Facebook, The messages included demands for a luxury SUV.

“The only way your brother is getting out of this… is with a heart-felt apology and a navy Range Rover with tan leather,” Bedard said in one message to DeGennaro.

Police seized a laptop and a journal from Bedard’s Hunting Hill Drive home last Wednesday, but have not charged him with any crime. The warrant allowed police to seize documents naming Pavano and any computers used to send Facebook messages. It stated materials collected would constitute evidence in an investigation into second-degree harassment and first-degree criminal attempt to commit larceny.

Southington police said Wednesday they are not releasing information about the ongoing investigation. The Record-Journal obtained the search warrant affidavit Wednesday from Bristol Superior Court.

In an interview Monday, Bedard said he was writing a journal as a way of giving closure to what he said was an “emotional and physical relationship” between him and Pavano which lasted for three years while the two were high school classmates.

“I’m sure they don’t want any of this getting out there,” Bedard said Monday.

DeGennaro called Bedard’s contention that he had a relationship with Pavano “clearly false” and an attempt to “extort her family,” according to the affidavit. Bedard told DeGennaro that he had a $1.2 million book deal.

“That is my best offer, an apology and a Land Rover and I’ll kill the project,” Bedard wrote.

In a later message, Bedard said he rescinded the offer and said “the book is the best deal.” He also mentions his mother Elaine Bedard’s political connections and the fact that she is a local police commission member.

“What’s even better is my mom’s the police commissioner and there is an open file on you already,” Bedard said to DeGennaro in a Facebook message, according to the affidavit. Elaine Bedard, who is also Democratic town chairwoman, said Monday that she has nothing to do with the police investigation, which police confirmed.

Christian Bedard has a number of convictions, including for third-degree burglary, first-degree reckless endangerment and driving under the influence, according to the state Judicial Branch website.

He said he sent a letter to the Pavano family in November informing them that he was considering publishing his journal as a book and offering a chance for them to look over the material. He said he got no response.

Asked about the search warrant affidavit Wednesday, the Bedards declined comment. Carl Pavano’s parents, Carmen and Ann Pavano of Southington, could not be reached Wednesday. On Tuesday, they said they had no comment on the search of the Bedard residence.

DeGennaro did not return calls for comment. Pavano couldn’t be reached Wednesday and messages to his agent and the Minnesota Twins baseball team were not returned. Pavano is expected to be the Twins starting pitcher when they open their season April 6 against the Orioles in Baltimore. He previously played for the New York Yankees, among other teams. His four-year Yankee contract paid him nearly $40 million.

To be honest, given all the electronic/digital devices and media out there today, I think this type of stuff is going to be the wave of the future.

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Via the AP -

The New York Mets owners and a trustee for Bernard Madoff’s fraud victims settled Monday for $162 million in a case aimed at repairing the damage from a massive investment scheme.

The Mets owners will not pay anything for three years.

Jury selection had been set to begin in a civil trial to determine how much the team owners will owe other investors who trusted their money to Madoff, who cheated thousands of investors of roughly $20 billion over at least two decades.

Trustee Irving Picard had argued the team owners knew that Madoff’s corrupt investment scheme was a fraud but continued their investments anyway because they were making a lot of money. Lawyers for the owners insist their clients had no idea the investments were a sham.

The case has damaged the Mets’ financial picture, forcing the team to slash payroll and try to raise tens of millions of dollars by selling small chunks of the team.

Both Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, principal Mets owners, expressed relief outside the courthouse and Katz said the team’s finances were secure.

“Now I guess I can smile. … Maybe I can take a day off,” Wilpon said.

Judge Jed Rakoff said Picard had reviewed the evidence and will no longer pursue a claim of “willful blindness” against the defendants.

“I am very, very pleased for ourselves and our families. This was really a team effort,” Wilpon said as he left the courthouse.

“We are not willfully blind… We acted in good faith,” he said. He said he was going to Florida Tuesday to resume work at “trying to bring the New York Mets back to prominence.” Asked if the Mets will have to raise any more money through other investors and he said: “We’ll address that.”

Katz said he was “very pleased to have this behind us.” He said outside the courthouse that the Mets were on secure financial footing. “Always was,” he said.

David J. Sheehan, the lawyer for trustee Irving Picard, said outside court that the settlement enables the Mets owners to try to recover the $162 million through the efforts Picard makes to recover $178 million in claims the Mets owners have made against the Madoff estate. “In a sense, we’re now partners.”

Sheehan said he thought the outcome was fair.

So, the Mets have three years to raise $162 million. They should be able to do that, no?

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Via the Daily News -

Alex Rodriguez captivated his teammates before Friday’s game against the University of South Florida, speaking from the heart about dedication, determination and what it takes to win.

No, he wasn’t auditioning to become the next captain once Derek Jeter retires. He was simply taking his turn.

With an eye toward team unity, Joe Girardi decided that one afternoon at the Improv wasn’t enough. The manager has implemented a new tradition that calls for a different player or two to stand in front of the entire team every morning and recite a quote of his choosing, followed by an explanation of what the quote means to him.

“Words from your teammates can be really powerful,” Girardi told the Daily News. “They can be motivating. It also tells you a little something about that person from what they pick, so we get to know them. It’s worked out well.”

Rodriguez, however, impressed by taking a unique approach. He declined to discuss his presentation, but a witness said that instead of reciting a quote, the third baseman took the word “score” and used each letter to deliver a different message.

“What Alex did, it blew me away,” Eric Chavez said. “To get up in front of the whole team, out of your element, he really embraced it. I don’t see myself doing that. I can’t knock down those walls, so to see Al do it, it was like, ‘Wow.’”

Said A-Rod: “One of the hardest things to do is to communicate in front of your peers. I bet if you asked them, some guys would probably be more nervous about doing that than playing in the World Series. It’s hard to stand in front of 85 people that you trust and respect. It makes you feel vulnerable. It’s a great exercise and it’s setting the right tempo for our team.”

Girardi came up with the routine as he sought to better use the 15-minute block of time he had set aside to meet with the team each morning

“It just kind of came to me,” said Girardi, who often receives inspirational quotes via email from his friend, basketball Hall of Famer Nancy Lieberman. “The biggest fear in life is public speaking, so this really encourages them to do a lot of different things.”

Girardi gave his players only two rules they must follow when choosing their quote. They were not allowed to use any of the motivational quotes that hang in and around the clubhouse at Steinbrenner Field or ask Chad Bohling, the team’s director of mental conditioning, for help.

“It gives guys an opportunity to get to know themselves,” Girardi said. “Guys are doing research, looking for something that’s really good and that appeals to them. Some of them are really deep. I’ve been wowed.”

Rather than assigning the days to players randomly, Girardi started with the oldest player in camp — 42-year-old Mariano Rivera — and told the team it would go in reverse order of age. That meant 39-year-old Raul Ibanez followed Rivera despite the fact that he has been a Yankee for less than a month.

Based on what I have heard, read and seen of him, I cannot imagine having more respect for a person than I do for Joe Girardi. He’s the guy you want as your neighbor. He’s the guy you want your daughter to date. He’s the guy you want your son to grow up to be, etc. And, in terms of being a big league baseball manager, while he’s not perfect or close to it, you could easily do a lot worse than having Girardi skipper your club.

That said, this “new tradition that calls for a different player or two to stand in front of the entire team every morning and recite a quote of his choosing” has to be one of the stupidest things I’ve heard in a while now. It’s turning a baseball clubhouse into a Dilbert comic strip.

What I wouldn’t give to see one of the Yankees stand up during one of these show and tell sessions and say “I remember signing a contract, to play ball not to be put to sleep by some two bit carney hypnotist or to be part of some corporate bullshit eyewash exercise. I won’t do that Joe! I can’t…”

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Via the Daily News -

A federal judge in Manhattan ruled Monday that the contentious and highly public battle between the owners of the New York Mets and the trustee overseeing the Bernard L. Madoff bankruptcy case will proceed to trial, continuing a case marred by leaks and sordid accusations that has jeopardized the ownership of the Mets for more than a year.

U.S. District Court Judge Jed Rakoff refused to dismiss the suit, ruling that the trustee, Irving Picard, can proceed to trial on three counts against Fred and Jeff Wilpon and Saul Katz and their partners in Sterling Equities and can claim as much as $83.3 million in “fictitious profits” without a trial.

Picard must prove to a jury that the Mets’ owners were “willfully blind” to Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme and ignored warnings that he was operating a fraud, a standard about which Rakoff said he “remains skeptical that the Trustee can ultimately rebut the defendants’ showing of good faith, let alone impute bad faith to all the defendants.”

Rakoff went on to say that he is concerned that the “evidence” the parties produced didn’t comply with the Federal Rules of Evidence and probably wouldn’t be admissible at trial.

“Conclusions are no substitute for facts, and too much of what the parties characterized as bombshells proved to be nothing but bombast,” Rakoff wrote. “Nevertheless, there remains a residue of disputed factual assertions from which a jury could infer either good or bad faith depending on which assertions are credited.”

Last year, Rakoff threw out most Picard’s $1 billion lawsuit against the owners, saying Picard could pursue only $386 million.

How many minutes to Wapner?

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Some story, eh?

As O.J. once said…it never hurts to lawyer up.

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I’ve already shared my feelings on The Kid and his battle with cancer. That said, it’s been amazing to hear what former teammates and fans have said, over the last 12 hours or so, about the quality of the man that Carter was…very impressive.

Players with 3+ seasons of 100 games at C with HR>=20 and RBI>=70:

.

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Via Clark Spencer -

Who’s more important? Joe DiMaggio or George Brett? Because that’s what it comes down to in the retiring and unretiring by the Marlins of No. 5, a uniform number they have allowed no player to wear until now.

The Marlins retired the number to honor Carl Barger, their first president, who died before the team’s first season in 1993. Then owner Wayne Huizenga had the number retired because it was once worn by DiMaggio, Barger’s favorite player.

But when [Logan] Morrison asked recently to wear the number to honor his late father, who was a George Brett fan, the Marlins obliged. Until now, Morrison had been wearing 20. The Marlins will allow Morrison to wear Brett’s “5″ but place a plaque in their new ballpark to honor Barger.

The decision is not sitting well with the Barger family, which said it was never contacted by the Marlins to discuss the change.

“My family and I are disappointed that that is the decision,” said Betzi Barger, a daughter of Carl Barger. “We weren’t informed of it. We were not contacted by anyone in the Marlins’ organization. I would have liked to discuss it with the family. He was certaintly dedicated to that organization.”

Retiring a number for a front office member or owner is stupid. Then again, Logan Morrison asking for it now is somewhat ballsie too. This whole thing is a mess from a lot of different angles.

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First, this via the AP -

YES Network television host Bob Lorenz has been charged with drunken driving in Connecticut where police say he was found passed out in his car in his hometown of Westport.

The 48-year-old Lorenz was arrested early Wednesday morning. Police say they found him slumped over the wheel of his car and when they woke him up he drove away slowly and nearly hit a utility pole. Officers say his speech was slurred and he smelled of alcohol.

Lorenz hosts pregame and postgame shows for the New York Yankees and New Jersey Nets. He was arraigned Wednesday at Norwalk Superior Court and his case was continued to Feb. 29.

There’s no phone listing for Lorenz and it’s not clear if he has a lawyer. A Yes Network spokesman declined to comment.

And, then there’s this from the Daily News -

The woman accused of stalking and blackmailing Yankees GM Brian Cashman has injected steroids into the sordid mix.

From Rikers Island, Louise Meanwell claimed Wednesday that Cashman told her he misled federal investigators over what the Bombers’ brass knew of steroid use by players.

Meanwell, who claims she had an affair with Cashman, told the Daily News that Cashman confided to her that he was grilled in June or July by “the feds.”

She said Cashman told her he made it seem like the Yankees had no knowledge of players’ steroid use when, in fact, they did.

Cashman’s spokesman Chris Giglio vehemently denied the accusations.

“These claims are complete and utter fiction, the latest installment of a carefully concocted campaign of harassment now spewing from a jail cell by a person who is being held on serious criminal felony charges of harassment and extortion,” Giglio said.

A friend of Meanwell’s told The News he sent an email to federal investigators advising them of her claims.

The friend said he sent the email to Ron Gardella, chief investigator for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, and FBI agent Brian Jacob.

The email, obtained by The News, went on to say that Meanwell had “specific details” on dates and times that Cashman was aware of steroid use by players.

Both the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s office refused to confirm or deny that Meanwell had informed them of her claims.

Cashman was on prosecutors’ witness list for Roger Clemens’ trial on perjury charges last July before Judge Reggie Walton declared a mistrial on the first day of the proceedings in Washington. Walton has scheduled a new trial for April.

I’m sure the Mets don’t mind the Yankees making the headlines with all this “stuff” and taking the spot-light off them and all their problems…

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Via the AP -

Along with a new uniform, Jose Reyes is getting a new look.

The All-Star shortstop, who has let his dreadlocks grow since 2007, planned a nationally televised haircut Friday on the MLB Network.

Reyes left the New York Mets in December for a $106 million, six-year contract with the Miami Marlins. His new team has a rule prohibiting hair below the helmet line.

Reyes planned to have a barber from the Bronx perform the haircut at the MLB Network studios. Network spokeswoman Lorraine Fisher said the trim will benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Southern Florida, which planned to auction the hair on eBay.

Other players who have had to cut their hair to comply with team rules include Jason Giambi and Johnny Damon when they joined the New York Yankees.

I cannot imagine who would want to own any of these locks.

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$6,000? That’s nothing compared to what Kei Igawa got from Cashman. The story via the AP -

A woman stalked and shook down New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman, getting him to pay her $6,000 and demanding more by threatening to harm his reputation, prosecutors said Thursday.

The case represents “a long-term effort to control and manipulate the victim,” Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Eric Iverson told a judge as Louise Neathway, 36, was arraigned on grand larceny, stalking and harassment charges.

Her lawyers said Cashman had had “an inappropriate relationship” with Neathway, a medical sales worker and single mother of a 14-year-old daughter, and he turned on her when it ended badly.

“The Manhattan district attorney’s office bought his account of how this happened, hook, line and sinker,” lawyer Stephen G. McCarthy said. He and fellow Neathway lawyer Alan M. Abramson said Neathway denied the allegations.

Cashman said through spokesman Chris Giglio that he is “very grateful that this matter is in the hands of law enforcement.”

The Yankees declined to comment.

Neathway — who has a history of arrests on similar charges, prosecutors said — sometimes called and texted Cashman more than 10 times a night and threatened to harm someone he knew, prosecutors said.

After he told her last April that he didn’t want to talk to her anymore and even changed his contact information to avoid her, she asked him to pay for a $15,000-plus medical procedure and threatened to contact the press and his family with claims that would hurt his personal relationships and professional standing, according to a court complaint.

In response, he put $6,000 into two of her bank accounts Jan. 18 and tried again to extricate himself, but she instead demanded more money for operations, the complaint said.

A British native who also goes by Louise Meanwell, Neathway has a record that goes back to a 1998 trespassing arrest in North Carolina, Iverson told a judge. She’s still on probation stemming from a 2008 trespassing conviction in a New Jersey case that involved allegations of stalking and sending someone as many as 200 text messages in a weekend, and she has an open 2010 Manhattan harassment case, Iverson said.

McCarthy noted in court that the Manhattan case had been put on track to be dismissed, and he suggested prosecutors were making too much of the New Jersey case.

As for the current case, “it would be unfair to all of the parties involved to speculate about what occurred,” he and Abramson said in a written statement.

Neathway was being held on $300,000 bond. Her next court date is Tuesday.

And, Deadspin offers another angle here.

Does all this make Brian Cashman “Steve Phillips minus the hair”?

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No, it’s not the name of my rotisserie baseball team for 2012…

It’s just a story that the New York Yankees will have to deal with…or ignore…

At the least, it suggests that the buzz last summer was not someone blowing smoke.

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Via Newsday -

The Mets expect to sell 10 minority shares of the team by the end of February, a person familiar with the process said Monday. The units, priced at $20 million each, would raise $200 million for the cash-strapped franchise and be used to pay existing loans and operating expenses for 2012.

It previously was believed that the Mets would close on a minimum of four units by the end of January. No reason was given for the new timetable or whether the closings would take place at the same time. None of the potential investors has been revealed. Major League Baseball has been involved in vetting the partial owners.

Earlier this month, principal owner Fred Wilpon expressed optimism about the process, but the Mets Monday had no comment on when the new investors will be in place.

Initial proceeds of the sales, those involved in the transaction have said, are earmarked to pay a $25-million loan the Mets obtained from MLB in November 2010 and a $40-million bridge loan from the Bank of America in the last quarter of 2011. The concept of selling up to 40 percent in smaller shares came after negotiations with hedge fund manager David Einhorn broke down last September over control issues.

General manager Sandy Alderson said the team lost $70 million in the 2011 season. It recently hired CRG Partners, a bankruptcy and financial turnaround consulting firm, to assist in fiscal matters. The team has said it will not seek bankruptcy proceedings.

At this point, the Mets should just have a Lotto thing…sell 400,000 chances at $500 each and then pull a winning ticket from the bunch. If your ticket comes up, then you own 40% of the team. It may be the best way for them to get the $200 million that they need…

…and, yes, I am joking…sorta/kinda.

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Really.  Here’s the story.

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Well, he knows the town…since his father played there.

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Here is the story.

From a baseball fan perspective, I totally get it. Why not go for the total reboot when they switch leagues? However, if I were a fan of the team, I think I would be upset over this possible change. They’ve been called the Astros for the last 47 years. That’s a lifetime for some fans. Granted, it’s not the greatest name ever for a baseball team. But, it’s been their name for almost a half-century. It’s hard to sweep that under the rug.

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Now, this is a great idea.  Every major league team should do something like it.

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Sean Forman will be on Clubhouse Confidential on the MLB Network. He is taping this afternoon and is pretty sure it will be broadcast tonight. The show typically airs 5:30pm and 7:30pm ET. Check it out!

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The vote:

Barry Larkin 495 (86.4%)
Jack Morris 382 (66.7%)
Jeff Bagwell 321 (56.0%)
Lee Smith 290 (50.6%)
Tim Raines 279 (48.7%)
Edgar Martinez 209 (36.5%)
Alan Trammell 211 (36.8%)
Fred McGriff 137 (23.9%)
Larry Walker 131 (22.9%)
Mark McGwire 112 (19.5%)
Don Mattingly 102 (17.8%)
Dale Murphy 83 (14.5%)
Rafael Palmeiro 72 (12.6%)
Bernie Williams 55 (9.6%)
Juan Gonzalez 23 (4.0%)
Vinny Castilla 6 (1.0%)
Tim Salmon 5 (0.9%)
Bill Mueller 4 (0.7%)
Brad Radke 2 (0.3%)
Javy Lopez 1 (0.2%)
Eric Young 1 (0.2%)
Jeromy Burnitz 0
Brian Jordan 0
Terry Mulholland 0
Phil Nevin 0
Ruben Sierra 0
Tony Womack 0

Brad Radke got two votes?

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Here is the story.

No word if we can expect a Torre/Verducci book entitled “The MLB Years” now that Joe has moved on to his next quest.

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This is very sad news.

I didn’t really know Greg.  But, from what others are saying, seems like he was a really nice guy and a great baseball fan.  And, whenever we lose someone with those qualities, too soon, it’s very, very, sad news…indeed.

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