Breaking News: Robbie Alomar and Bert Blyleven Elected to Baseball Hall of Fame

Congratulations to two very deserving new members of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Robbie Alomar who had three of his best seasons with the Indians was elected with 90% of the vote on his second time on the ballot. Bert Blyleven who played for Minnesota, Pittsburgh, Texas, Cleveland and the California Angels was finally elected on his 14th time on the ballot.

Alomar was considered one of the greatest second basemen in baseball history. Tremendous in the field with his glove work and dangerous offensively both at the plate and on the base paths.

Blyleven is 5th all time in strikeouts and 9th in shutouts with 60. Voters initially failed to warm to Blylevens career due to a less than eye popping winning percentage and a lack of understanding on the writers part that wins are more correctly a team stat than an individual one. A pitchers job is to limit the number of runs the opposition scores by keeping them off the bases. When measuring his effectiveness at performing that job, Blyleven is clearly one the top 20 starting pitchers all time and clearly deserving of this honor.

Former Red Barry Larkin made considerable progress towards eventual election by garnering 62% of the vote. With Alomar and Blyleven off the ballot and no great players among next years new candidates, Larkin has a chance to be inducted next year.

Very disappointed with Jeff Bagwell's poor showing. Bagwell was an absolutely fantastic hitter and a great base runner. It can be argued that prior to Albert Pujols coming along Bagwell was the best National League first baseman ever.

Breaking Silliness: President Declares H1N1 (Swine Flu) to be a National Emergency

This morning, President Obama declared the H1N1 (or Swine Flu) outbreak a national emergency. A week ago when I couldn't field a full baseball team due to the flu it was an emergency. Seasons over and now he declares an emergency? That's a day late and two players short.

The White House today said Obama signed a proclamation that would allow medical officials to bypass certain federal requirements. Officials described the move as similar to a declaration ahead of a hurricane making landfall.

Other than calling this silly, I'm not going to weigh in too much on this until I know what actions this proclamation allows. Obviously, coming from the administration that operates with a "never let a good crisis go to waste" mentality one needs to be concerned about how they may exploit this "national emergency" for political gain. This especially bears watching considering the fact that the politicians are currently debating the idea of completely overhauling our health care system.

Go wash your hands!

Breaking Non-News Item

New York Times claims David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez were on the list of 103 baseball players who tested positive for steroids in 2003. We have reached the point where no news regarding past steroid use is shocking.

Baseball Winter Meetings

The normal routine for the baseball off season is that trade activity and free agent signings are fairly limited until the biggest name signs a deal. Well, the largest target (figuratively and literally) this off season was C.C. Sabathia. Sabathia has long maintained that he wanted to sign with a west coast team to be near family and he desired to play in the National League so he could bat. So, this morning we wake to find that the closest thing to an NL team in California Sabathia could find was the New York Yankees. Huh? Wonder how that happened? Oh yeah, they offered a butt load of money.

Now that C.C. has signed the other dominoes start to fall and we will likely see most of the remaining top tier free agents put ink to paper within the next week. Here is a quick run down of top guys and potential destinations.
Frankie Rodriguez - Signed with Mets to be their new closer.
Kerry Wood - Close to signing with the Indians to close. Considerable injury history.
Mark Teixeira - Biggest bat on the market (sorry Manny). Orioles, Nationals, Red Sox, Angels, Yankees are all interested. Rumors so far have Nationals offering highest contract. I expect the Angels will make a strong push to re-sign him. If the Red Sox win out on Tex then they would need to move Mike Lowell.
Manny Ramirez - His agent is saying four teams have shown interest. I doubt they are showing the kind of interest the agent would like in length of contract. Yankees or Mets could step up late in the game, but I expect he'll stay in LA.
Raul Ibanez - With his past few season spent in the northwest city of Seattle, people don't realize how good a player Ibanez has been. For the last three years combined he has more RBI than Teixeira or Manny. I see him ending up with the Cubs.
Pat Burrell - No idea. A bat like his should be able to find a home, but teams with the need may not have the budget space for the contract he may want.
Adam Dunn - I assume an American League team will sign Dunn with the thought of DH'ng him.

I'm sure there are names I missed. By the end of this weekend we should see most of the players signed. I wouldn't be surprised to see several players take a one year deal and hit the market again next year hoping to see better economics lead to better deals.