She’s 31 and he’s 23.

Yeah, this is going to work out well…

Via the Post-Dispatch -

After years of false starts, St. Louis Cardinals executives joined their development partners and political leaders on Friday to cheer the groundbreaking of a long-awaited but scaled-down Ballpark Village. And they vowed, despite the stumbles of the past, to continue the development beyond its initial steps and still reshape the neighborhood.

Ballpark Village’s $100 million first phase calls for two buildings and a canopied space, with a total of 100,000 square feet of retail, restaurant and entertainment outlets to open by spring 2014.

The spaces are 85 percent leased, the developers say, and a new tenant will be announced Thursday. Other tenants will be announced during construction, according to the developer, Cordish Cos.

“It’s a relief,” Cardinals president Bill DeWitt III said about finally moving dirt on the site, which sits in the shadow of Busch Stadium.

Donning a red baseball cap with a Ballpark Village logo, DeWitt III was joined by his father, Cardinals’ chairman Bill DeWitt Jr., Cordish Vice president Blake Cordish and civic leaders as they turned over the ceremonial first shovels of dirt.

The 10-acre site has remained vacant since the former Busch Stadium was demolished in 2005.

The first phase features a 30,000-square-foot building, “Cardinals Nation,” which will include a restaurant, a Cardinals hall of fame and museum, and seating for more than 300 with views into the ballpark.

Nearby, a 20,000-square-foot “Budweiser Brew House,” to be built with a rooftop deck, will also offer views into Busch Stadium.

In addition, a “Live! At Ballpark Village” venue with a retractable canopy will be open year-round.

St. Louis is a great baseball town. The Ballpark Village will probably do very well there.

Sabathia is looking trim. And, now, we know what Jean Afterman does! Click on the images to enlarge them.

The 33rd Annual Thurman Munson Awards Dinner was held on February 5 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City. Pictured left to right are: YES Network’s Voice of the Yankees Michael Kay, who served as Master of Ceremonies, Munson Award honorees Mets Ike Davis, Yankees David Phelps (Rising Star Award), Grand Hyatt’s Jerry Lewin (Corporate Hero Award), Yankees CC Sabathia, Thurman’s widow Diana Munson, Jia Lewin, Olympic gold-medalist Aly Raisman, Giants Chris Canty, and former Knick/CBS Sports and YES Network hoop analyst Greg Anthony. Former Yankee and Met star hurler Doc Gooden (far right) joined the festivities. The gala benefited AHRC New York City Foundation, assisting children and adults with disabilities.

Yankees SVP and assistant GM Jean Afterman presents ace hurler CC Sabathia with the Thurman Munson Awad on February 5 in New York City. The 33rd annual Munson Dinner benefitted AHRC New York City Foundation to assist kids with disabilities.

Thanks to Tim Martin for the photos!

Via Bob Nightengale -

Seattle Mariners ace Felix Hernandez has agreed to a seven-year, $175 million contract that should be finalized before spring training, making him the highest-paid pitcher in baseball history, a person familiar with the contract details told USA TODAY Sports.

The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because the contract is not yet official.

Hernandez was scheduled to earn $19.5 million in 2013 and $20 million in ’14. Instead, his new contract will take effect this season and pay him a record average annual value of $25 million through 2019.

Seattle Mariners general manager Jack Zduriencik and Alan Nero, an agent at Octagon Sports, which represents Hernandez, declined comment.

Hernandez’s contract trumps CC Sabathia’s seven-year, $161 million deal, signed before the 2009 season, as the richest ever for a pitcher. The average annual value of $25 million trumps the $24.5 million that Zack Greinke will receive annually from the Los Angeles Dodgers as part of a six-year, $147 million deal signed in December.

Phil Hughes is the same age as Hernandez. But, I don’t think he’s going to see this kind of money on his next contract.

I would watch this movie.

(more…)

Via the Herald Online today -

In a rural cemetery far out in the country, there is no gravestone for the best ballplayer to ever come out of Lancaster County.

A year after his death, there’s just a faded tiny metal marker to indicate that is where Danny Clyburn Jr., who hit home runs in the major leagues, lies six feet under the red earth.

Danny Clyburn Sr., the father who mourns still in Lancaster – a widower who in his sixth decade of living tries to make ends meet as a custodian at a school so long after his son played in Major League Baseball – doesn’t have the money for a head stone.

“I wasn’t working last year when my son got murdered, so I’m still paying for burying him,” Clyburn said Wednesday. “Funerals and all cost.”

Clyburn died at 37 a year ago today from a gunshot wound. He was killed, police say, after an argument at a tiny home that was used as a guys’ clubhouse on North Market Street.

The alleged shooter, whom police and prosecutors said confessed to shooting Clyburn, knew Clyburn since both men were little kids in the same Barr Street/Market Street neighborhood where Clyburn was shot.

The killing, described by a police officer in court as the most senseless shooting he had ever seen, was because the shooter, Derrick McIlwain, claimed Clyburn never gave back to the guys in “the ’hood” he grew up with, prosecutors say.

That house has no marker, either.

A lady who stood on the porch said Wednesday said that the flowers and cross that used to be up were taken away long ago.

McIlwain, 37, who has drug and assault and possession of a weapon by a felon and other convictions dating back decades, remains in the Lancaster County jail. No trial date has been set, prosecutors said.

Clyburn was one of more than a dozen Lancaster men murdered in a violent 2012. But he was the only major leaguer.

Danny Clyburn had a big season in Triple-A back in 1997. I posted something on the B.A.T. facebook page today about this story. Maybe they can help?

The story.

Alex Rodriguez, Gio Gonzalez, Bartolo Colon, Melky Cabrera, Nelson Cruz, Yasmani Grandal, Ryan Braun, Francisco Cervelli, Danny Valencia and now Jesus Montero.

Half of guys here once played for the Yankees. Doesn’t Brian Cashman and his team keep track of their players and what they are up to?

Here is the story.

Wow.

I saw this three days ago, and didn’t want to share it then, as I suspected it would get lost in all the A-Rod news. But, here’s the story, now, via ESPN -

R.A. Dickey said the pictures and literature couldn’t have prepared him for the young boy who approached him last week on one of the squalid streets of Mumbai’s red-light district.

The boy was maybe 3 years old, 4 at best. He had no pants on. His body was covered with open sores.

“He was playing amongst the open sewage and filth with rats as big as dogs. Unsupervised,” the Toronto Blue Jays’ new knuckleballer told The Canadian Press on a conference call Tuesday from India’s most populous city. “You see these images and pictures that just don’t seem like they should exist. And you hope that it’s the only one … but that’s what’s representative, these lives that just don’t have a voice.”

The 38-year-old is in Mumbai to work with Bombay Teen Challenge, a Christian organization that has rescued women and children from sex trafficking for the past 23 years.

It’s a cause that Dickey says speaks to his own narrative. He wrote about being sexually abused as a child in his autobiography “Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity and the Perfect Knuckleball.”

“It’s authentic to me because of my past experience, also I have a sentimentality to it because the girls that I’ve seen firsthand in the streets, these 19-, 20-, 21-year-old girls. You have to look beyond that and see at one point they were daughters themselves, and having two daughters … that just for me was so compelling.”

He made the trip with his daughters, 11-year-old Mary Gabriel and 9-year-old Lila.

“I want to give my children a heart for humanity,” Dickey said. “The only way to really do that is to get them outside of the bubble that they live in, and expose them in very measured ways to what real life is to a lot of people. They’ve responded beautifully.”

The 2012 NL Cy Young winner said it’s been “a roller-coaster” visit, from the visceral red-light images of women in doorways and the cages where they keep them when they’re first trafficked.

But he also saw hope.

Dickey and his daughters stayed at Ashagram, a rehabilitation campus outside Mumbai that’s home to 300 women and children. They were the “most hopeful days” of the trip. They played cricket and sang songs with the children, many of whom are HIV-positive.

“Those are the miracles, the 300 lives in Ashagram, those are 300 living miracles,” Dickey said. “Sure, (my daughters) heard about the wickedness and the darkness, but they got to actually see the redemption, so their response has been really positive. This is a seminal trip for them.”

Dickey, who speaks openly with his daughters about his own sexual abuse, helped celebrate the opening of a clinic in the midst of Mumbai’s red-light district. He helped pay for the clinic, raising over $100,000 by climbing Mount Kilimanjaro last winter.

It’s very easy to root for a guy like Dickey, isn’t it?

Via the Daily News -

Mets fans had plenty of reasons to be optimistic after the 2006 season. The club — led by a slugging first baseman who appeared en route to a 500-plus home run career and a shortstop who could steal bases and hit for power — won the National League East by 12 games and went to Game 7 of the National League Championship Series.

Mets fans, of course, never got the chance to see Carlos Delgado and Jose Reyes spray World Series champagne all over each other. The Mets didn’t make the playoffs in 2007 and 2008 thanks to epic late-season collapses, and they’ve struggled to remain relevant in the standings ever since.

But Delgado and Reyes are together again — this time in Nassau County Supreme Court. Sports memorabilia dealer Spencer Lader and other defendants in the case want Reyes, now with the Blue Jays, to tell them under oath what he knows about Delgado’s relationship with Anthony Galea, the controversial Toronto sports medicine doctor — and human growth hormone proponent — who pleaded guilty in July 2011 to transporting misbranded and unapproved drugs into the United States.

“I’m not saying Delgado used steroids, but I do have a right to know if he did,” Lader says. “We thought his name had commercial value, but everybody knows players linked to steroids have no commercial value.

“I want to be the first person in memorabilia to keep these people accountable,” adds Lader, whose Authentic Memorabilia made headlines in 2007 when it marketed Darryl Strawberry- and Jason Giambi-autographed baseballs that said “Everybody deserves a second chance.”

Delgado signed an agreement with Lader in 2006 that made Lader his exclusive autographed memorabilia dealer. Lader says he later brought in other partners, including Nitin Doshi, the wealthy owner of a Long Island medical imaging company. The deal had soured by 2009 when the ex-Met filed suit in Nassau County Supreme Court, claiming that Lader, Doshi and the other defendants stiffed him out of at least $767,500. The defendants dispute Delgado’s claims; Lader says he should not even be a party to the suit because Doshi bought out his interest in the deal.

Lader’s attorney Robert McKay subpoenaed Reyes last year to question him about Galea, the Canadian physician who agreed to a plea deal and was sentenced to a year of supervised release in December 2011.

“Did he have acne on his back? Did they talk to each other about Galea or steroids? We have a right to ask those questions,” Lader says.

Galea, who worked with both former Mets and numerous other athletes, including Alex Rodriguez and Tiger Woods, was indicted on five drug-related counts in October 2010. He became a target for law-enforcement agencies on both sides of the border a year earlier, after American authorities found growth hormone and other drugs in his assistant’s car as she tried to cross the border.

“The essence of the information sought from Mr. Reyes in the subpoena directed to him relates to the use of steroids or human growth hormones or performance-enhancing drugs by the plaintiff, Carlos Delgado, by way of documents and testimony that Mr. Reyes is likely to provide,” court papers filed by McKay earlier this month.

Delgado’s lawyer, Michael Re, has tried to have the subpoena quashed. An attorney from Re’s firm, Moritt, Hock and Hamroff, said he could not comment on the litigation.

Justice Timothy Driscoll, according to McKay, said at a hearing last week that he is inclined to permit Lader’s lawyer to depose Reyes, but he would defer his decision until after Delgado is deposed. McKay said he expects to question Delgado sometime next month.

In a suit filed last summer in Central Islip federal court, Lader says Delgado was paid a “substantial portion” of the $325,000 the memorabilia dealer and his the other defendants agreed to pay him for the first year of a two-year deal.

But the slugger proved difficult to work with. Delgado signed A-Rod baseball bats — instead of bats with his own name — and sent those to the memorabilia dealers to sell, the lawsuit says. His signature was “virtually invisible” on blue Mets caps because he used a black pen. His autograph was smudged on signed baseballs. The memorabilia Delgado supplied to his partners, the suit says, were “worth nothing or close to nothing.”

Delgado never did reach the 500 home run club. He hit 473 home runs in a career that ended with a whimper. Delgado played in just 26 games for the Mets in 2009 before his season ended that May with hip surgery. Hip problems are a long-term side effect of performance-enhancing drug use, Lader notes.

I don’t think this guy has a snowball’s chance in you know where to get the answers he seeks and/or any of his money back. But, as a guy who owns a Barry Bonds autographed bat and a Roger Clemens autographed baseball, which I bought around the year 2001, I feel his pain. (And, yes, years later, I realized that the autographed memorabilia thing is s sucker’s market. I can’t begin to tell you how many balls have turned brown, how many signatures have faded, or careers have turned among my collection. That’s why I stopped adding to it several years back.)

Awesome story.

Sad news.

Rough around the edges; but, a brilliant baseball manager.  One of the best ever.

A-Rod goes under the knife today. Anyone nervous about what they may find?

Update:

The New York Yankees announced on Wednesday that surgery to repair third baseman Alex Rodriguez’s left hip “went as planned and without complication” and he will be released from the hospital on Thursday. Full recovery is anticipated to be six months, which puts A-Rod on track to return after the All-Star break.

The procedure was performed by Dr. Bryan Kelly at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York.

See you in July Alex…

Dude would scare me if I met him in a dark alley.

There seems to be a lot of arrogance there for someone so young…

I don’t remember Derek Jeter being that way as a rookie. And, I don’t think Mike Trout is that way today…

Here’s some more on this via a Press Release which I received:

Foley’s NY Pub & Restaurant (18 W. 33rd St.), New York’s premier baseball bar, celebrates its ninth anniversary on Thursday, Jan. 31 from 6 to 8 PM with former major league pitcher Tommy John as guest bartender. All of Tommy’s tips at the bar and a percentage of Foley’s revenue that day will be donated to the baseball great’s Let’s Do It Foundation, which supports the STOP Sports Injuries Campaign that seeks to reverse the alarming trends in “professional-level” injuries among youth sports participants, and the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention (AFSP).

“It is important for everyone who plays a role in a young athlete’s life to put youth health and safety first,” said John, who went 91-60 with a 3.59 ERA in eight seasons with the Yankees. “As parents, coaches and healthcare providers, we must quickly and honestly communicate about issues of pain, injury and the need for proper recovery.”

Tommy John won 288 games in a 26-year career spent primarily with White Sox, Dodgers and Yankees. A four-time All-Star (1968, 1978, 1979, 1980), John won the 1976 NL Comeback Player of the Year Award following an operation that replaced a ligament in his left arm with one from his right arm. The revolutionary procedure is now named after him and has become somewhat commonplace. The soft-tossing lefty, who won the Hutch Award in 1976 as the MLB player who “best exemplifies fighting spirit and competitive desire.”

“Tommy John is an inspiration to athletes and everyone who has faced adversity,” said Shaun Clancy, owner of Foley’s, which has raised tens of thousands of dollars for a variety of causes including, most recently, local victims of Hurricane Sandy. “We are proud that our 9th anniversary party will support two causes that are important to him: reducing professional level injuries to young athletes and suicide prevention.”

More good work from T.J.

Via CBS -

Major League Baseball is set to announce unprecedented measures against HGH (human growth hormone), reports Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com. The announcement will take place by commissioner Bud Selig at the owners meetings in Arizona Thursday.

Beginning this season, MLB will conduct random, unannounced, in-season blood testing for HGH. MLB will also keep detailed records on T/E (testosterone to epitestosterone) ratios to combat questions about testosterone levels. All players will be tested at least once.

Punishments will be the same as the punishments for steroids, which is a 50-game suspension for the first positive test, a 100-game suspension for the second positive test and a third positive test will result in a lifetime ban from the game.

In July of 2010, minor leaguers began facing HGH tests and then last offseason — with the new collective bargaining agreement — MLB started HGH testing during the offseason, in spring training and with “reasonable cause” cases.

Now everyone is on notice all the time.

If this sounds like an obvious step, it’s still a first step. Plus, Major League Baseball will become the first major U.S. sport with such testing in place.

Also of note here is that for years the MLB Players Association was averse to any sort of testing whatsoever, but in the past two years — under the leadership of Michael Weiner, who took over as executive director in December of 2009 — significant strides have been made in the effort to clean up the game. To be clear, a testing plan was implemented on the watch of Don Fehr, but under Weiner things have been taken to a new level.

Well, this could be interesting…

On December 3rd of last year, the Red Sox and Napoli agreed on a three-year contract. But, to date, it’s yet to be signed. At some point, both sides need to walk away from this, no?

RIP.

There goes the A-Rod bio.

Via Wally Matthews -

According to [Brian] Cashman, Jeter’s fractured left ankle, which was surgically repaired on Oct. 20, is out of the walking boot and he is able to wear regular shoes. Cashman said Jeter has been walking and running on an underwater treadmill, and he was recently seen riding a bicycle near his home on Davis Island, Fla. During his recovery period, Jeter had ridden a specially-made, one-legged bicycle at the Yankees training camp in Tampa.

But Jeter has yet to be cleared for any baseball activities and is not likely to before mid-to-late January.

When does the TMZ footage of Jeter on his bike start to surface?

Via DJF -

According to Mel Antonen of assorted baseball writings, Tim Raines is set to join the Blue Jays coaching staff. The former Expos great and poster boy for Hall of Fame arguments involving Jack Morris will be the outfield and base-running coach for the club in 2013.

After 4 years in Newark it’s great to see The Rock get a gig back in the big leagues.

There’s only a 6.6 % total tax that state residents in Nevada pay as a percentage of per capita income…

More on the whole state tax issue for baseball players via the AP last month -

With baseball contracts worth as much as $275 million (Alex Rodriguez) and the major league minimum $480,000, tax policy affects every player who spends most of the season in the big leagues.

All-Star shortstop Jose Reyes, who has a $10 million salary next year, was traded from the Miami Marlins to the Toronto Blue Jays. While Florida has no state income tax, Reyes remains a New York resident from his days with the Mets and had high taxes to begin with. Ontario’s provincial tax rises to 11.16 percent — on top of a Canadian federal level as high as 29 percent.

Among states with big league teams, income tax rates go as high as 10.3 percent in California and 8.82 percent in New York. At the other end, Florida, Texas and Washington have no state income tax. The top rate in the District of Columbia is 8.95 percent.

“I like ours; we’re a no-tax state,” Seattle Mariners general manager Jack Zdurienck said. “When we sit down with players, that’s a huge benefit. I think any player out there that has an opportunity to play in a no-tax state gets benefits, enormous benefits. We hope that weighs in our favor.”

According to an analysis done by a tax lawyer on the staff of agent Scott Boras, a player with a $10 million salary and average deductions who plays in Florida and is a resident of that state will see his taxes rise from $3.45 million this year to $4.09 million next year under current law. If traded to the Blue Jays, that player’s 2013 tax would rise to $4.27 million. And if dealt to a California team, the tax would go up to $4.4 million.

Sad news today:

First Coast News sports director Dan Hicken has learned that Ryan Freel, a Jacksonville native and former Major League Baseball has died at the age of 36. The cause of death is suicide.

Freel played baseball at Sandalwood and Englewood High School. He played for five different MLB teams from 2001-2009. He is most known for his six-year tenure with the Cincinnati Reds.

His career batting average was .268 and he stole 143 bases in his career.

Since his retirement from professional baseball in 2009, Freel was a part of an organization on the First Coast called BLD Baseball. BLD stands for Big League Development. Through this organization, Freel coached local youth baseball players.

Thirty-six. That’s very sad. He got to play professional baseball from the time he was 19 until he was 34 (when he last played in Somerset in 2010). How many people can say that? Thirty-six? He had a lot of life left in front of him. Gosh.

As someone who has more past behind him than future left, as I am fifty, this is very painful to see…someone so troubled that it’s not worth it to them to play out the rest of their game. It’s so, so, sad.

Wonderful story via the Daily News -

The mother of slain teacher Victoria Soto received a surprise phone call Wednesday from one of her courageous daughter’s heroes: Yankee Derek Jeter.

The Bronx Bombers captian rang Donna Soto the same day she laid her 27-year-old daughter to rest. The Sandy Hook Elementary School teacher was killed Friday as she shielded her first-grade students from deranged gunman Adam Lanza.

“Vicki loved the Yankees — that was part of her eulogy,” her cousin James Wiltsie said Wednesday night. “No one in the family reached out, so (Jeter) must have heard about it and … reached out.

Wiltsie did not give details of the conversation but did say it was uplifting.

“It was a surprise and unexpected. Donna was ecstatic over it and very happy. She spoke to him for quite some time.”

Vicki’s sister Carlee tweeted the family’s excitment.

“Derek Jeter just called my mom!!!!! Thanks Vicki, she needs it thank you @yankees this meant a lot to my mother and all of us.”

This morning, I had to take my wife to the hospital – to the same day surgery unit. She had to be there at 7 AM for a scheduled 9 AM surgery. (She’s home, fine, and recovering now.) While she was in there, and I was in the waiting room, they were airing (on the TV) the tolling of church bells commemorating one week since the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

I was reading Matt McCarthy’s book when it started. And, out of respect for those killed, I stopped what I was doing and paid silent and serious attention to the faces of victims as they appeared on the TV (with the toll of each bell).

There were probably, at least, ten other people in the waiting area and they all did the same thing. One man, in his late 70′s, was very moved and started to cry. Soon after, some of the women there also started rubbing their eyes. It was a very emotional moment.

To be honest, I still can’t get rid of my anger over what happened last Friday. I don’t have the answers to anything that could have stopped it. I know that there are a lot of things at play here. And, they all should be addressed. Nonetheless, again, to be candid, I want someone “to pay for what happened.” But, I realize that’s not possible. (That’s part of the reason why I can’t get rid of my anger, I suppose.)

My heart goes out to everyone who was impacted by the events of last Friday. I know that their lives will never be the same. It’s terribly unfair.  To say that it was a senseless tragedy doesn’t seem like enough. It’s very hard to put into words how horrible this thing is…at least for me.

But, it was great of Jeter to reach out and try to provide some comfort to one of the families.

I know he’s not the only one. And, I am sure there’s more that’s not getting reported, like Jeter. Yet, it’s still a nice thing to hear…that he personally took the time to try and help.

Via Bryan Hoch -

The Yankees are concerned that Alex Rodriguez’s surgically repaired right hip may be damaged, according to a report in Monday’s New York Post.

Citing a person with knowledge of the situation, the newspaper reported that Rodriguez recently visited Colorado-based specialist Dr. Marc Philippon after experiencing tightness in the hip.

“It’s an issue,” the person told the Post. “A big issue.”

Yankees general manager Brian Cashman mentioned Rodriguez’s hip on Sunday when speaking to reporters in Stamford, Conn., where he was participating in the city’s Heights and Lights holiday event.

“He is always going to have hip issues to deal with. That’s just part of his winter program,” Cashman said.

Rodriguez had hip surgery before the 2009 season and missed the first month of games, as Philippon repaired the right hip labrum, removed an impingement in the joint and drained a cyst.

At the time, it was believed that Rodriguez would have a follow-up procedure after the ’09 season, but Philippon was so encouraged by Rodriguez’s progress as the Yankees charged to the World Series title that he said the slugger wouldn’t need the second operation.

It is interesting to watch A-Rod turn into Juan Gonzalez before our very eyes…

Update:  Big OUCH! for the Yankees and A-Rod.  He’s out until June of next year, maybe longer…

Does the Yankees captain need some P90X DVDs for  Christmas? Via the Post -

The ankle we knew about. The gut, not so much.

Derek Jeter was spotted at a hotel on South Beach in Miami yesterday wearing a walking boot to protect the left ankle he broke in the playoffs last season. Yet the 38-year-old Jeter also seemed to be carrying another burden — some extra weight hanging from the Yankees shortstop’s normally fit frame.

According to general manager Brian Cashman, Jeter has been in a non-weight bearing situation and will continue to be until January. That means if he has been able to work out at all, it has been limited to upper body because he can’t put any weight on his left foot.

Jeter has also been seen at the team’s minor league complex in Tampa a couple times this offseason, but not on a regular basis. It’s unknown if he has been there for treatment, workouts or something else.

I dunno…

Looks like he’s wearing a loose T-shirt, out, on a windy day. But, maybe he has gained ten pounds or so since his injury, given that it’s not allowing him to workout? I guess we’ll have to wait for him to appear in Central Park with his shirt off, just to be sure…

Very close.

And, not close at all.

Via MLB.com -

When the Marlins hired Mike Redmond as manager last week, it opened a pipeline with the Blue Jays.

The two organizations didn’t waste much time tapping into each other’s resources.

On Tuesday night, the Marlins were reportedly working on a blockbuster trade with Toronto, sending away five established veterans, including Josh Johnson and Jose Reyes, while shedding nearly $160 million in payroll commitments.

Heading to Toronto would be Johnson, Reyes, Mark Buehrle, Emilio Bonifacio and John Buck.

In return, the Marlins would receive shortstop Yunel Escobar, second baseman Adeiny Hechavarria, right-hander Henderson Alvarez, left-hander Justin Nicolino and catcher Jeff Mathis.

Miami also would acquire outfield prospect Jake Marisnick, who played for Redmond at Class A Dunedin, and right-hander Anthony DeSclafani.

The trade was not officially announced as of early Tuesday night. But Johnson and other players were informed that they were being dealt.

The Red Sox, last season, swung a deal to shed tons of payroll. And, now, the Marlins are doing the same. But, the Yankees will probably be saddled with the contracts of A-Rod, Teixeira and Sabathia until they expire. Why is that?

Unless, of course, this deal is being made so that the Marlins can clear payroll in order to take on A-Rod’s contract from the Yankees?  Oh, to dream…

This thing that the BBWAA is doing with the MLBN is really weird in a Heisman Trophy Show kind of way…

But, these two guys have a reason to smile today. And, how cool would it be if they went into Cooperstown together too?

Via Ken Rosenthal -

David Ross is considered perhaps the best backup catcher in baseball. And now he is joining the Boston Red Sox.

Ross reached agreement Saturday with the Red Sox on a two-year, $6.2 million free-agent contract, according to major-league sources.

Ross will be “more than a backup but not a starter” for the Red Sox, according to one source. The Sox could move one of their current catchers, Jarrod Saltalamacchia or Ryan Lavarnway. The team’s plans are unclear.

The deal will become official once Ross passes a physical, ending his four-year tenure with the Atlanta Braves.

I suspect that Red Sox Nation is going to love Ross the way that Yankees fans loved Ron Hassey back in 1985 and 1986.

Via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

The Pirates have hired longtime scout and baseball executive Bill Livesey as senior adviser to general manager Neal Huntington, the team announced today.

Livesey, 72, has been a professional scout with the New York Yankees since 2008 and spent 18 years with the Yankees from 1978 to 1995, eventually being promoted to vice president of player development and scouting. He was hired as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays special assistant to the general manager in 1995 and later served as director of player personnel. He has also worked for the New York Mets and Toronto Blue Jays.

Livesey’s son, Jeff, has been the Pirates minor league hitting coordinator for the past two seasons and has worked in the Pirates’ organization for 10 years.

I was happy when Livesey came back to the Yankees. So, I am sad now to see him go. Pittsburgh’s gain is New York’s loss, here.