Baseball

A good portion of this piece will call back to point two of my Off-Season Plan , please refer back if you missed it!

Sunday night, Bob Dutton reported that the Royals are rumored to be interested in shipping Alberto Callaspo to the Los Angeles Dodgers for 28-year-old (29 in April) catcher A.J. Ellis.  Seeing as though Ellis has worked his way up to a grand total of 13 plate appearances in two September call-ups at that advanced an age, it is hard to get overly excited about the prospect of this deal.

While most sports players like to adopt a different life style or put on a few pounds when they retire, Sammy Sosa has taken it a step further .

The former Chicago Cubs slugger made quite a sensation at last week's Latin Grammy Awards with his skin looking amazingly pale!

While fans throughout New York City and Northern New Jersey celebrate the 27th World Championship of the New York Yankees, there is a strong and awful odor coming from somewhere nearby.

People stop in the streets, sniff the air, put that "this-is-gross"-look on their faces, try to hide their noses underneath their shirts, and move as quickly as possible to a car or building, anything that will protect them from the smell of rotten eggs in burning garbage.

The smell wafts across the streets of Manhattan, terrorizing the people like a Godzilla stomping the citizens of Tokyo.

It was another disappointing October in Cleveland, as it has been each year since 1948.

It is perhaps a blessing that the Indians did not make it far enough to collapse on the big stage, as they routinely did throughout the '90s and again in 2007.

However, while the team as a whole did not reach the postseason, many Indians alumni got to experience the playoffs. Here's a look at the former hometown heroes who got a shot at glory.

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According to Fox Sports, the Seattle Mariners are going to "kick the tires" on the availability of All-Star left fielder Jason Bay.

With the bloated contracts of C Kenji Johjima, SP Erik Bedard, SP Jarrod Washburn, RP Miguel Bautista, and 3B Adrian Beltre coming off the books, it frees up roughly $45 million in cap space for them to use.

Bay has played for the Boston Red Sox since they acquired him in a three-way deal that saw the departure of slugger Manny Ramirez.

The GMs of Major League Baseball are meeting this week to review baseball policies and also to lay the groundwork for deals this winter.

Omar Minaya has arrived in Chicago for the meetings and is making it known that he is desperately seeking a power bat in left field and/or first base for 2010.

Every season the Mets make an impact move, Johan Santana in 2008, Francisco Rodriguez in 2009, and Matt Holliday seems the likely choice for the major deal this winter.

In 2008, Derek Jeter would often range to his left on a ball up the middle, but fail to get his glove down in time to make the play. Even if the shortstop did get some leather on it, a throw in the dirt would rarely get picked by first baseman Jason Giambi and the runner would be safe with a single.

This season, however, it seemed like the captain got to a lot more balls and even if he short-hopped the throw over to first, Mark Teixeira would make the play nearly every time.

Sept. 19, 2009 has two very different meanings for the San Francisco Giants organization.

On one end of the spectrum, their High-A affiliate, the San Jose Giants, celebrated yet another California League championship after completely steamrolling the competition.

On the other, their teammate Angel Villalona, who was in the Dominican Republic after being sent home to visit family before beginning offseason conditioning, was being accused of murder.

From top prospect to being 19 years old and a possible murderer. Not exactly what you call an ideal situation.