Well, now that the whole Madoff/Ponzi Mets scam has been settled, the team can now just suck on the field; that much be of great relief to anyone foolish or forlorn enough to root for the Mets.

Miggy Cabrera took a ball off the face yesterday and hopefully it didn't actually hit him in the eye, but unlike what his manager, Jim Leyland, is saying that the shot would have hit any thirdbaseman in the league like that, but I doubt it. As a thirdbaseman, Cabrera makes a damn good DH, he makes a fine piece of furniture. Tigers just hoping he drives in more than he lets go by (they may start telling him to just let the left-fielder get that) - talk about WAR. Yeah, it's gonna be a battle at the hot-corner.

Speaking of battles, the return of Andy Pettitte is making the fight for the #s four and five spots in the Yankee starting rotation a little rowdy. Freddy Garcia is clearly not pleased about the big lefty coming back to the fold and pretty much being guaranteed a place in the rotation. Garcia is the most likely to get traded, although the return won't be great despite him being a rather reliable starter.

Ivan Nova is also feeling more heat then he expected; it was a little bush for him to take it out on back-up to the back-up catcher Gustavo Molina (I don't think he's a member of the famed Molina Brothers catchers rampant around MLB like the Baldwin Brothers of Hollywood) for poor pitch calling. But credit Girardi in not letting Nova off the hook so easy: throw your pitch even if it means shaking the catcher off 17 times and throw it with conviction was pretty much the message from the skipper.

In other, non-baseball news, I started the "Wasteland" project as the lit-manager calls it; I still refer to it as the "Caving" project, but with these high 70s temps and my proximity to the lakes, the view walking past my windows all day long have made being frozen inside seem more fantasy than reality.

I'll be posting the Sunday piece on Bronx Baseball Daily starting this week. Not sure what my first piece will be just yet, but I imagine I'll be cross-posting it here; killing two birds with one blog as it were.

A few days later, the first installment of my piece, "Turtle Power," will be published in the magazine section of the Jerusalem Post Lite with brand new illustrations by my friend Meital. This will be the first of hopefully many pieces including stories from the short story collection, which...

Will be coming out next month. Maybe in time for my birthday and no- I don't want a copy as a present. Well, buy one for yourself and that can be it.

Keep 'em crossed for some news regarding "Crawlspace Charlie" and for "Blacktop" which is going out somewhere else this week.

Oh, and I will start updating my regular writing website: http://stuffoflegends.tripod.com/ as a clearing house for all the upcoming work and should also be setting up a website specific to the "Rose" publication.

Thanks for reading,
B.