A whole heap of baseball

I'm trying to figure out how the St. Louis Cardinals losing the awesome Adam Wainwright, who needs Tommy John surgery, with an elbow injury means they're now likely to deal Chris Carpenter, with the New York Yankees already a rumored landing spot.  Carpenter says he wouldn't object to a trade. Unless they're trying to blow up the team and alienate Albert Pujols, how do you throw in the towel before March has even hit?  Very classy of Cincinnati Reds Johnny Gomes and manager Dusty Baker to make light of the injury though.  Careful crossing the street, fellas.  Hey, wasn't Gomes the guy that had a heart attack?  Jayson Stark looks at how awesome Wainwright has been the last few years.

Tough times being a New York Met fan these days.

Yes, the NBA trade deadline passed yesterday, and there were a flurry of moves. 

Bruce Arthur at the National Post looks at the NHL without Sidney Crosby, and says they should be terrified.

How will Carmelo Anthony adapt to life in New York?  Joel Sherman looks at that in light of some of the successes and failures that moved to the Yankees over the years.

Detroit Tiger first baseman Miguel Cabrera finally showed up to spring training yesterday after his arrest for drinking scotch from a bottle on the side of the road, and being utterly hammered while doing so.  He did the usual apology routine, and while I'm no 12-stepper, I'm going to guess that saying you're not a doctor and therefore are incapable of assessing whether you're an alcoholic or not is not exactly in the "admitting you have a problem" bucket.

I'm sure Toronto Blue Jay fans will be thrilled at the news that 38 games this year - almost a quarter - will appear on Rogers SportsNet One.

Eye Magazine in Toronto recently worked with a bunch of celebrity and quasi-celebrity judges to get a new nickname for Toronto.  "El Toro" emerged as the winner.  Not bad, to be honest.  Certainly better than the incredibly lame entries DiverCity, The Big Maple, The Hub, Pronto (based on what?  The Gardiner?), and Global City.  Two things: what happened to T Dot?  Also, did like the T-Bone entry as well.  In the end, guess "PreTentiOus" wouldn't have lent itself to too many marketing angles.  Here's some of the Twitter react.

The Toronto Raptors host the Phoenix Suns tonight and Doug Smith actually lays out an interesting, non-Calderon-slurping, scenario: "Steve Nash is leading the break and the fans are waiting for something magical to happen.  He lofts a brilliant pass just over the out-stretched hand of a Raptor defender and the joint goes crazy with cheers. Vince [Carter] catches it, dunks and the fans stop mid-cheer to boo."  It could happen.

This is a whole new way to draw a foul in soccer.  Pathetic.




But, all is not wrong in the soccer world when the best in the game (or at least, nobody better than) doesn't dive, as this three minute compilation of Lionel Messi getting butchered will show.