Between legitimate distractions and frivolous ones, it was a hard weekend to concentrate on baseball news. Thankfully, aside from the usual injury stuff you see this time of year, there wasn’t a heck of a lot of it. The highlights:
- Ruben Amaro gets a four year extension. And he was so slick about it that Phillies ownership didn’t know they were even giving it to him until the papers had already been signed. He’s that good.
- Major League Soccer thinks the Wilpons would make great owners. I’d crack wise here, but given that just about every MLS team’s entire payroll runs to around what the Mets are paying Mike Pelfrey, I figure that even the Wilpons could swing it.
- The Nationals apparently feel that Bryce Harper is not quite ready to have somebody else carry his bags, to hit white balls for batting practice, to play in ballparks that are like cathedrals, to stay in hotels that have room service, to be around women with long legs and brains and, most importantly, to face pitchers who throw ungodly breaking stuff, exploding sliders.
- The Bergen record reports that Johan Santana will miss all of 2011. The Mets and Santana say that the Bergen Record is lying. In other news the Mets stand by their denial that Kelvim Escobar is unable to grip a baseball and anticipate his first action of 2010 any day now.
- The Red Sox indicate that Diasuke Matsuzaka and Tim Wakefield could be had in a trade. In other news, I’m selling some real estate on which I speculated in the Las Vegas suburbs in 2006 and an old truck I drove into the ground for the past 20 years. Tailgate is broken. Serious inquiries only, please.
- Bengie Molina is basically retired, but he’ll consider a comeback if the right opportunity comes along. He’s a good candidate for that seeing as though “getting back into playing shape” is more of a theoretical concept for him.
- Mitchell Page enters baseball Valhalla. He hit .307/.405/.521 in 592 plate appearances in 1977. That was a better OPS than Reggie Jackson and George Brett had that year.
And into the week we go.