This has nothing to do with baseball or even sports, but since a lot of sciencey types read THT, I thought it worth noting. From an AP story about the size of our galaxy: Take that, Andromeda! For decades, astronomers thought when it came to the major galaxies in Earth’s cosmic neighborhood, our Milky Way […]

I am far from an arbitration expert, but the book on the process over the years is that it is one to be avoided for several reasons. For one thing, there is no baby splitting, meaning that if you lose, the other side’s number wins, and nothing in between. Yes, this is probably intended as […]

According to Rosenthal, it’s two years and $16 million for Pat the Bat: The Rays, filling their need for a power hitter, are close to signing free-agent Pat Burrell to a two-year, $16 million contract, according to major-league sources. Burrell, 32, will serve as the team’s designated hitter. The Rays, nearing their payroll limit, could […]

It’s for sale, anyway. Nice digs. Paid $3.5 million for it in 2005 and now wants north of $7 million. If he remains unsigned when spring training comes it means that he’s overvaluing the market for corner outfielder/DH types just as much as he’s overvaluing the market for real estate.

Richard Justice tries to get his mind around Andruw Jones falling off a cliff: Whatever the reason, Andruw Jones is one of the real strange stories in sports because few players have fallen so far so fast. The Dodgers can’t even give him away. Even after he agreed to a restructuring of his contract, Jones […]

I’m a cat person, and as such, I don’t like to hear about anyone’s cat dying — not even George Bush’s. That said, it’s pretty spiffy that he named his cat after Ruben Sierra.

Someone has taken the trouble to calculate the tax revenue to the State of New York by virtue of the big salaries being handed out to Sabathia, Teixeira, and Burnett, as well as existing obligations to Jeter and A-Rod: Here’s another way to add revenues to the hard-pressed state treasury: have pro games played in […]

Here’s a story from Saturday’s Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel about the relationship between the Foley & Lardner law firm and Major League Baseball: Mary K. Braza, the head of the sports industry team at the Foley & Lardner law firm, has a nice view of Milwaukee and Lake Michigan from her office at the U.S. Bank Center. […]

MLB.com has a profile on Trevor Hoffman and Mariano Rivera’s eventual Hall of Fame chances. Straight forward enough, but this stuck out: “Trevor Hoffman is a Hall of Famer, in my opinion,” Commissioner Bud Selig once said. “So is Mariano Rivera. Look, Yogi Berra once said, ‘If you ain’t got relief pitching, you ain’t got […]

There was talk last summer that the baseball facility built for the Olympics would help spur development of baseball in China, maybe even one day helping to make the land of billions a real source of talent for the bigs. Now it seems like the only development it will spur is that of an Orange […]