When the San Francisco Giants signed Barry Zito to a $126 million, seven-year contract, I am sure they were not expecting a horrid 2007-08 season and an 0-6 start to the 2008-09 season.    This is just another example of how ridiculous salaries have become in all major sports especially baseball.  You can suck at what you do and be a multi-millionaire.  Only in MLB!!!

I remember New York Mets GM Omar Minaya saying to the press that he just could not justify to the Mets’ ownership giving Barry Zito a 7-year contract instead of a 6-year deal.  Well, lucky them.  I give much credit to super-agent Scott Boras for his incredible negotiation skills in getting Zito this huge deal and for suckering the Giants.   

I commend the New York Mets for acquiring super stud pitcher Johan Santana for 4 prospects.  When you have a chance to acquire a dominating #1 pitcher, you do it.   No doubt, Santana will be a dominating pitcher in NY and in the National League.

The small market Minnesota Twins had no choice but to give trade Santana as there was no chance that they would be able to pay Santana enough money to keep him when he was scheduled to become a free agent after next season. 

This is yet another example of a small market team forced to  give up All Star players to a large market team because they cannot afford to keep them and because players do not want to play there.  This is a problem for MLB when a small market team is forced into these trades in order to stay profitable.  It hurts baseball and hurts the fans.  Its too bad that in many professional sports a mediocre team can make money.  There is just no incentive to improve your team and keep/acquire good players.

Congrats to Rich “Goose” Gossage on his election into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2008.  This was well deserved since Gossage was able to succeed in at a time when when relievers when 2-3 innings per outing. 

I commend the Committee for keeping the election to the Baseball Hall of Fame very difficult.  I look at the rest of the list and see several very good players on this list that were not elected.  Other thane maybe Jim Rice, Andre Dawson, and Jack Morris I do not see any player that put together great numbers consistantly throughout their careers.  I think Jack Morris is one of the best “big game” pitchers ever and he has 4 Wrold Series rings to show for it.  Despite pitching in some of the biggest games in the postseason, he never won the Cy Young award and yet still fell short of election this year.

http://web.baseballhalloffame.org/hofers/voting_year.jsp?year=2008

Alex Rodriguez and the New York Yankees are finalizing a $275 million, 10-year contract.  Apparently, A-Rod met Wednesday in Tampa, Fla with the Steinbrenners and without super-agent Scott Boras. 

The news is a not surprising since there were not very many teams that could afford to sign A-Rod and most of those teams including the San Francisco Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers were not very good to begin with.    In the end, that left pretty much the Anaheim Angels, Boston Red Sox, and the New York Yankees.  Where else could A-Rod go? 

It is obvious that A-Rod finally realized that it was a mistake to opt out of his original contract with the Yankees given what few choices he had to sign elsewhere.  In the end, when you are the best player on the planet, these mistakes get resolved easily.   Congrats to the Yankees and Pay-Rod!

In what should come as no surprise to anyone, today Barry Bonds was indicted on perjury and obstruction charges for telling a federal grand jury he did not knowingly use performance-enhancing drugs. 

The Feds have been after Bonds for years as if he were a terrorist that this indictment was only a matter of time.  All that Bonds had to do is tell the truth to the grand jury back in December 2003 about his use of  steroids and/or performance enhancing drugs and none of this would have happened.  What an idiot!