Steff

I think you were kidding.... But to elaborate, I do think they are definitely the most kid and stomach friendly. Best FUNdamentals in all of baseball and the menu is to die for.

Shhhh... don't give them any ideas..

Keep them crossed.. this orginization does everything just in spite of their fans. I have no doubt that the Sox wouldn't agree to Mark's salary + 10% and a couple prospects. Hopefully not.. but nothing would surprise me.

Didn't George say that last year though.. and wasn't Joe supposed to be the first to go?

Because he can, and obviously will, buy whomever he wants. And if anyone thinks that Mark wouldn't leap over to the Yanks faster than flies on a garbage heap.. :headshake It's business. It hasn't been "for the love of the game" in a long time..

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/gammons/story?id=1736367

Ag Tm Lg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG TB SH SF IBB HBP GDP CHW AL 93 352 68 91 20 6 8 42 22 8 49 51 .259 .348 .418 147 4 1 0 0 0 SFG NL 46 180 30 48 10 3 3 9 7 3 23 22 .267 .353 .406 73 1 0 0 1 1 Didn't do too much better with the Giants..

I wonder if any other owners are on the horn to Bud saying "don't allow this"....

Off to lunch... hopefully they've done more work upstairs and I can at least tell you guys about that. :headshake

Must be why so many male fans...

GD'it Rex.. what did I tell you about this?!?!?

Can you imagine all the words I thought about using instead of "giddy"..

I meant to type 2 years.. Should have kept him... :headshake

C'mon Aboz.. don't you get all giddy when you think about George calling to take a teams star player..

I think one doesn't have to look any further than this deal to prove that comment.

Thanks, Mike. I seem to see "they'll go BUY" all over the place....

Geez Aboz.. aren't we depressed enough about this year..?

C'mon Tex.. At least 13..

With this... Lofton CF Jeter SS Rodriguez 3B Giambi 1B Sheffield RF Williams DH Matsui LF Posada C Wilson 2B Pitching wont matter. Lofton's been "on the decline" for the past THREE years :headshake . I wish we had him while on his "decline". Half way decent pitching is all they need.. and if they need more, they'll go buy it.

Aw hell Rex... there ya go making sense Fan.. I think It's posting in the other thread I started.

CS Fan... no sweat. It's obvious the majority of us feel the same way.

Yep. Once it gets past the union.. it's pretty much done. Bud didn't have a chance to have a say in the Boston deal.. lucky him.

Alex Rodriguez belongs in pinstripes Mon Feb 16, 7:24 AM ET Add Sports - USATODAY.com to My Yahoo! Turn a deaf ear to the Pittsburghs and Kansas Citys screaming bloody murder over this union of embarrassing contract and embarrassing payroll. Alex Rodriguez-to-the-Yankees, ladies and gentlemen, is good for baseball. You can't have the Michael Jordan of your sport playing for the Los Angeles Clippers (news) forever. One way or another, Rodriguez had to escape to New York. Baseball couldn't afford to keep him locked up in the Texas wastelands, where high school football under the Friday night lights will always be bigger than the ALDS. A-Rod flirted with the Mets, and he went to the altar with the Red Sox, but George Steinbrenner's team isn't called the Evil Empire for nuttin'. Steinbrenner gets what he wants, when he wants it. Rodriguez, a shortstop, will play Graig Nettles' position, and off toward the $300 million payroll barrier King George trots. Rodriguez lugs along a chunk of his $252 million contract bigger than the courthouse behind the Stadium's right-center wall, and you can already hear the ranting and raving in baseball's cheap seats, where A-Rod's monthly wage equals half a team's operating budget. But now that he's finally divesting himself from the business of small-market dreams, Bud Selig should understand just how good this trade is for his cherished game. The feds are fixing to bring down some of Selig's superstars, names that are Martha Stewart (news - web sites) big. The commissioner didn't just need A-Rod to knock steroids and grand juries off the front and back pages. He needed A-Rod to play for a franchise that held a permanent place in America's consciousness. "The commissioner's dream one day is to get a lot closer to equal footing, so that every team has a chance to compete," said one baseball official. "But he absolutely appreciates what a trade like this means. When A-Rod almost went to Boston, Bud thought it was good to get him to a baseball hotbed and put him in the middle of an intense rivalry. Now A-Rod's going to New York. Bud knows it certainly doesn't hurt to have your best player in the top market." A-Rod was so desperate to get out of Texas that he approached Selig at Sammy Sosa's November birthday party in the Dominican Republic to let the commissioner know he was extremely unhappy with the Rangers. Selig listened closely as Rodriguez explained why he wanted out. When news broke about the possible Manny Ramirez trade, Selig figured Boston represented an ideal landing place. It didn't happen, thanks to union leaders who exist to rain on parades. But neither Donald Fehr nor Gene Orza stood in Steinbrenner's way. The Yankees didn't want to devalue A-Rod's landmark contract; They only wanted the Rangers to pay their fair share of it, and to accept Alfonso Soriano as a reward for being so kind. Truth is, this trade became inevitable the first day Rodriguez realized he'd let Scott Boras talk him into a Faustian deal. A-Rod had sold his soul to a devil too comfortable in the hell that is last place in the American League (news) West, and Tom Hicks and Buck Showalter weren't about to convince him otherwise. Like Roger Clemens before him, Rodriguez got better than he deserved in this trade to first place. After making such a big deal out of naming A-Rod their captain at the New York baseball writers' dinner, the Rangers should've just left him behind with the soiled napkins. Rodriguez and Derek Jeter, old flames who've had more breakups and makeups than Ben and J-Lo, will remain in each other's arms until someone reminds Jeter about those nasty things A-Rod said about him before they started making commercials together. For the time being, nobody's asking why A-Rod is going to third when Jeter is the second-best shortstop of the two. That question will come after the honeymoon. All in all, the left side of the Yankees' infield initially signed for a combined $441 million. If A-Rod and Jeter aren't another Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, they're another Bill Gates (news - web sites) and Warren Buffett (news - web sites). Steinbrenner is the only owner who would even entertain the notion of absorbing the two biggest individual contracts in sports history, precisely why Rodriguez isn't playing in Arlington, Queens or Fenway Park. The Mets had their chance after losing the 2000 World Series (news - web sites) to the Yankees. Rodriguez was born a Mets fan and raised on Kiner's Korner, and he wanted to go head-to-head with Jeter for prince-of-the-city rights. Instead of making him an offer, Fred Wilpon proved he doesn't have the stomach for the big-market fight. He told A-Rod where to stuff his hometown dreams, and that sure looks like a brilliant move now. The Red Sox at least gave it the ol' college try. In the end, they did beat the Yanks to Curt Schilling. If baseball's pitching-is-everything principles hold up in another ALCS, Schilling will be more important to the Red Sox than A-Rod will be to the Yanks. But there's six months of Arena Baseball to play before anyone finds out. A-Rod, Jeter, Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield. The Yankees will score, score, score, and hope they can get to Mariano Rivera without the help of Clemens, Andy Pettitte and David Wells. It should be a wildly entertaining ride. And to think, Aaron Boone started all this by jumping into the middle of a pickup basketball game. His wrecked knee gave baseball a chance to get its Jordan in the right place. They'll never believe it in Pittsburgh or Kansas City, but the sport couldn't let Alex Rodriguez rot away in Texas. Eventually, his embarrassing contract had to land in the one place where embarrassing contracts are collected like lint.

Cingular Ups AT&TW Stakes to $38 Billion Mon Feb 16, 7:35 AM ET Add Business - Reuters to My Yahoo! By Kirstin Ridley and Siobhan Kennedy LONDON (Reuters) - Cingular, the second-largest U.S. cellphone group, has thrown down the gauntlet to British rival Vodafone Group Plc by raising its bid for U.S. target AT&T Wireless to $38 billion, a source close to talks said on Monday. Cingular Wireless, which is controlled by SBC Communications Inc and BellSouth Corp, raised its bid from $35 billion, or around $13-per-share, and the source said Vodafone was expected to hit back with its own improved offer on Monday. "They (Cingular) have bid $14-per-share," the source said. "We believe Vodafone will at least meet it ... Vodafone couldn't match Cingular yesterday, and they needed today to do that." A $14-per-share bid values AT&T Wireless at just over $38 billion. Sources familiar with talks told Reuters on Sunday that AT&T Wireless, which put itself up for sale on January 22 after a series of poor results, had asked Vodafone and Cingular for sweetened offers after both groups bid roughly the same price. Concerns that a takeover would reduce Vodafone's future earnings drove shares in the world's largest mobile phone group down 3.7 percent to 130.9 pence by 1105 GMT. The stock has fallen around nine percent since AT&T Wireless called for bids last month. "I'm at the point where I really want to see something from the companies," said one London analyst. "If you're buying or selling Vodafone shares today, you're just dealing into uncertainty. Show me the deal." CALLING FOR A QUICK DEAL Up to Friday's bid deadline, Vodafone said only it was examining whether a bid would be in investors' interests. Since then, the group says it makes little commercial sense to show its hand in an auction that was called after Cingular bid an informal $30 billion in cash for its smaller U.S. rival. But sources familiar with talks said the two camps were battling it out over the long U.S. bank holiday weekend and pressure was mounting for a fast deal. AT&T Wireless, which is 16 percent-owned by Japan's NTT DoCoMo, has given itself until February 29 to reach a final decision, although an announcement could come as soon as Tuesday. While some Vodafone investors remain unconvinced about the merits of a bold offer, a growing number are braced for Chief Executive Arun Sarin to fight for an asset that would give the group long sought-for control of a company in the world's most powerful economy and bring its brand across the Atlantic. Vodafone's camp has been frustrated that auction tactics have prevented it from arguing its case to investors, who have been skeptical of a bid that risks diluting earnings for 10-15 percent for years -- and spells a return to empire-building seen under former CEO Chris Gent. The market is split on whether Vodafone, which would have to sell a lucrative 45 percent stake in top-ranked Verizon Wireless , can justify out-gunning Cingular. Cingular says it can save an annual $3.0 billion by cutting overlapping staff and businesses in two networks. "We still see Cingular in the driving seat," said another London analyst. "They have more shareholder support and stand to get more synergies." Cingular's shareholder SBC said in January it thought the U.S. mobile industry, in which six major national brands and a handful of regional players battle for market share, is ripe for mergers and that it might consider a deal that hurt earnings. AT&T Wireless is losing both money and customers. The group reported a fourth-quarter loss and in January alone lost nearly four percent of its customers and saw its operating income fall more than 20 percent from a year ago, sources close to the situation have said. Hopes of a bid war sent AT&T Wireless shares to almost $12 on Friday, valuing the group at $32.56 billion.

Yea, I know. :headshake