Posted 3:55 PM by bob
WILLIAMS/DURAZO/PRINTZ/DELUCCI FOR WALKER FALLS THROUGH

The teams ceased talks after Williams vetoed the trade to remain with his family and the Diamondbacks failed to reach a financial agreement with Walker.

''Being there for my kids is everything in my life,'' Williams said. ''This responsibility outweighs anything in my baseball career. I must and will be with my kids.''

Posted 9:38 AM by bob
DARREN USCIANOWSKI RIPS THE METS A NEW ONE:

What has become quite clear by now is that the entire theory behind the team's construction needs to be completely overhauled. The Mets shortsighted approach got them into an expensive bind, and continuing to weave their psychotic tapestry will only sink them deeper into the confusing maze. What the Mets need to do is cut their binding cords and regrow the team from the roots.
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That the Mets pursued name Lou Piniella and signed name Art Howe to manage, and are rumored to have interest in names Tom Glavine and Denny Neagle shows that they have not changed from their dysfunctional philosophy.

Posted 9:32 AM by bob
GHANA'S GOVERNMENT HAS A SPORTS MINISTER. And, apparently, he has a lot of work to do:

Sports Minister Edward Osei-Kwaku...is one year old as the political head of Ghana sports promotion.
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There is nothing that the minister has not promised in his one year of leading sports as the political head. He has promised a new stadium wherever he has been. There is going to be a new stadium at Nkawkaw, a modern complex at the Kaladan Stadium at Tamale. Gyandu Park is to be renovated into a modern stadium with facilities for all manner of events.

Last Tuesday, he addressed National Sports Council's first meet the press series and promised seven sports stadia with modern facilities. At the same ceremony, the minister assured the media that the Kaneshie Sports Complex, one of the cruelest jokes of a sporting arena is to be re-developed into a modern complex at the cost of one million dollars.
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The minister said lesser-known sports like swimming; badminton, basketball and baseball will receive his ministry's attention and developed. Conceding that the nation at the moment has no swimming pool, Osei-Kwaku said the site for a swimming pool, which should have been constructed as part of the renovation of the Accra Sports Stadium for the hosting of the African Cup of Nations in 1978, has been cleared of the structures that hanged dangerously. The place would be redesigned and reconstructed or the pool will be constructed somewhere else.

He told the House that basketball courts will be constructed in all 10 regions of the country to boost the development of the game, not a bad idea given the dire state of facilities in the country.
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He took one hard look at the athletic tracks in Accra and Kumasi and pronounced them unfit for the exercise for which they were laid. The replacements are still on the drawing board.

Posted 9:25 AM by bob
FORMER ILLINOIS YOUTH BASEBALL COMMISIONER EMBEZZLES $80,000

The ex-commissioner for youth baseball is sentenced to eight years for embezzling thousands of dollars from a suburban league.
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George Lycos was the commissioner of Elk Grove Village's Youth Baseball League until it was revealed last year that he had embezzled nearly $80,000 in league money to feed his gambling habit.
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The administrator of the Illinois Gaming Board testified that Lycos has such a gambling problem he will now join a small number of people who are forever black listed from legalized gambling in Illinois.

Posted 9:18 AM by bob
CUBS TO RAISE TICKET PRICES. Actually, this seems to be a somewhat innovative new plan:

The Cubs laid out the three-tiered pricing system in a letter to season-ticket holders.

The plan divides the Cubs 81 home games into value dates, regular dates and prime dates.

Prices for the prime dates, which are Opening Day and weekends from June 6 through Aug. 17, range from $15 for upper-deck reserved seats to $30 for bleachers and as high as $45 for club boxes.

"We believe this new pricing plan more accurately reflects the actual demand for our tickets and provides better purchasing options for our fans," wrote Cubs director of ticket operations Frank Maloney in the letter.

Posted 4:12 PM by bob
BASEBALL CALENDAR. Upcoming offseason events:

Dec. 7 Last day for teams to offer salary arbitration to their former players who became free agents.

Dec. 13-16 Winter meetings, Nashville, Tenn.

Dec. 19 Last day for free agents offered salary arbitration to accept or reject the offers.

Dec. 20 Last day to offer 2003 contracts to unsigned players.

Jan. 5-15 Salary arbitration filing.

Jan. 8 Last day until May 1 for free agents offered arbitration to re-sign with their former teams.

Jan. 15-16 Owners meetings, Scottsdale, Ariz.

Jan. 18 Salary arbitration figures exchanged.

Feb. 1-21 Salary arbitration hearings.

Feb. 14 First day for pitchers, catchers and injured players to report to spring training.

Posted 3:55 PM by bob
ASU SIGNS SIX PLAYERS FROM BASEBALL AMERICA'S TOP 100:

A year after comprising the top recruiting class in the nation, ASU once again made a national statement signing the most players (6) of any Division I school that were rated in Baseball America's Top 100. ASU also received commitments from the six players, including four in the top 30, in TeamOneBaseball.com's Top 100. The class is made up of 18 high school players and eight junior college transfers.
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Highlighting ASU's top high school signees are top 100 players Quentin Andes (RHP, Albuquerque, N.M.), Jay Sborz (RHP, Great Falls, Va.), Patrick Bresnehan (RHP, Sherborn, Mass.), Colin Curtis (OF, Sammamish, Wash.), Ryan Smith (RHP, Enumclaw, Wash.), Jim West (RHP, Fort Mohave, Ariz.) and Zech Zincola (3B/RHP, San Bernadino, Calif.).

Of course, as mentioned in the article, any of those players could still be drafted and sign with a major league team.

Posted 3:52 PM by bob
MLB FORMS PARTNERSHIP WITH SOFTBALL.

Major league baseball wants to attract more women and families, and thinks softball might be one way to do it.

The sport on Thursday announced a partnership with National Pro Fastpitch, the new name of the 5-year-old Women's Pro Softball League.
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Major league commissioner Bud Selig is trying to strengthen the game's family involvement after an ESPN-Chilton poll showed an 11 percent increase in female fan base since 1996.

"Our decision to partner with them is based on a five-year history of success," said John McHale, baseball's executive vice president for administration. "We believe this relationship has the ability to grow our fan base."

Posted 3:48 PM by bob
CUBA WINS THE INTERCONTINENTAL BASEBALL CUP by going unbeaten in the tournament.

A homerun from second base Yobal Dueñas with a player on base gave Cuba the 2 to 1 win over South Korea it needed to become the unbeaten winner in the Intercontinental Baseball Cup, taking the title for the 11th time.

The Cubans delighted their fans with 10 wins and no defeats, the best score in this year’s Cup, after losing to Japan in Barcelona ’97 and the home team at Sydney ’99.

Posted 9:58 AM by bob
THIS NEW CANADIAN BASEBALL LEAGUE is intriguing to me for many reasons:

"There are always pitfalls in the first year," said Hall of Fame pitcher Ferguson Jenkins, who is the league's commissioner.

Ferguson Jenkins is the commisioner? Apparently he is more than that, since the championship trophy is named after him!

Each team will play a 73-game regular season from May to the end of September, followed by two five-game division series and a best-of-seven league final called the Jenkins Cup.

Then there is the issue of the salary cap:

The teams will have 25-man rosters and a monthly salary cap of $60,000 Cdn. Officials said they'll be able to attract over-the-hill major-leaguers and minor-leaguers with better than average salaries.

What, exactly, is a "monthly" salary cap? Does it apply to the entire year, making each team have an annual payroll of less than $720k (12 x 60k)? Or does it apply for only the baseball season (May to September...five months), making it an annual cap of $300k (5 x 60k)?

The new Canadian Baseball League announced yesterday it will have franchises in eight cities starting next spring, including a Calgary team named the Outlaws.
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The CBL will have no affiliates and all franchises will be owned by the league. All games will be played Thursday through Sunday to make it easier for parents to take children to games.

Should be interesting to see what effect, if any, this new, basically independent league has on major league baseball.

Posted 9:46 AM by bob
THANK YOU, PUERTO RICO!

Expos president Tony Tavares said that with the guaranteed income from the games in San Juan, his team will not have to conduct a "fire sale" of players such as Vladimir Guerrero and Bartolo Colon. Still, he did not reveal the Expos' planned payroll.

Posted 9:43 AM by bob
EXPOS ANNOUNCE NEW AAA MANAGER

Dave Huppert will become the Trappers' 12th manager in the team's 21-year history, while former big league pitcher Tommy John -- who won 288 games over 26 seasons in the pros -- also arrives as pitching coach.

Huppert, 45, has 16 years of minor league managing experience and makes the move to Edmonton from Double-A Harrisburg, where the 79-63 Senators made an Eastern League championship appearance last September.

Huppert takes over in the first year of the Trappers' affiliation with the Expos.

Posted 9:41 AM by bob
REBUILDING AFGHANISTAN, ONE RUN AT A TIME:

He said there really is "a partnership" on the ground between the American military and the Afghans.

"We are the police, the Red Cross, the food relief," he said. And they taught the children to play baseball.

Big free agent signing in 2020: Abdul, power-pitcher, from Kabul?

Posted 9:34 AM by bob
MADDUX TOO EXPENSIVE FOR PADRES.

In February, Padres executives said the club would bid for pitcher Greg Maddux if he reached free agency, partly because they projected him as an invaluable mentor to their young pitchers.

But yesterday general manager Kevin Towers said Maddux, a free agent, is too expensive for the Padres. Towers said there has been "zero" contact between the team and Maddux's agent, Scott Boras.

Looks more and more like this is going to be a bleak winter for free agents. Players who signed big, multi-year contracts between the 2000 and 2001 seasons should be counting their blessings.

Posted 9:32 AM by bob
SHOULD MLB TARGET FEMALE FANS? John Gaffney thinks so, and he has some statistics to back him up:

The study revealed that Major League Baseball was the biggest hit among women 18+ over the last four years, with the number of loyal female MLB fans jumping from12% in 1998 to 28% in 2002.

Posted 9:29 AM by bob
MARINERS TO OPEN SEASON in Japan.

Posted 9:28 AM by bob
FAY VINCENT, the lost hope of baseball? Ben McGrath ponders what might have been:

But would Fay's big ideas, however admirable, have had much chance of implementation? Probably not. In office, Vincent practiced what might be called a politics of friendship, in which loyalty to one's pals trumps ideology and progress is made through a credit-bank exchange of personal "chits." (One of his best baseball buddies, George W. Bush, passed over for the commissionership, has applied more or less the same strategy to world governance.) But Vincent could never muster the kind of support that Selig, for instance, has demonstrated particular aptitude for shoring up. Selig may not have many true friends in the business, but he's adept at securing his power base. His relentless working of the phones enabled him, arguably, to defeat the union this year for the first time in more than three decades of collective bargaining.

In other words, Vincent needed a power broker like Selig to get his agenda on the table. Selig, on the other hand, proves every day that he needs a smart, independent player like Vincent to keep his ambitions in check. And yet Bud got rid of Fay and Fay now hates Bud. All they needed was each other.

Posted 9:27 AM by bob
EVER HEARD OF A PHOTOBLOG? Me neither. But David Gallagher has, and he wrote an article in Slate.com about them. Inspired me to set one up at fotolog.net myself. It's pretty ghetto, but check it out if you want to see me kicking a strange balloon-soccer-ball at Downtown Disney.