Under The Radar Baseball Stories From This Spring

I figured that I would comment on baseball stories that didn't get play on the blog during this Spring.  A couple have been pretty funny.

1. The New York Yankees are the "Evil Empire" of baseball. A panel of trademark judges denied a request from an entrepreneur from trademarking "Baseball's Evil Empire" when the Yankees objected. Here is the judges explaination of their denial:

“In short, the record shows that there is only one Evil Empire in baseball and it is the New York Yankees,” wrote the judges. “Accordingly, we find that [the Yankees] have a protectable trademark right in the term . . . as used in connection with baseball.”

Thank You Larry Lucchino for that phrase.

2. The "Evil Empire" is suing StubHub for having a store within 1500 ft. of Yankee Stadium and allowing customers to print the tickets that they buy from StubHub at that location. The Yankees are saying that it violates the scalping laws in New York. Never mind that the Yankees sell 3.5 Million tickets per year, it wants to sell more. If I see Brian Cashman dressed in a Darth Vader suit, then the "Evil Empire" moniker is complete.

3. An international draft is coming either this year or next year for baseball. Watch for less investment and development by major league baseball teams off American shores and possibly more talent staying off shore in Latin America.

4. The Cubs are still showing that they aren't getting to the World Series anytime soon. Last year, Jeff Samarzija pitched for the first time as a starter for the entire year. The Cubs offered him an offer of 5 years, and over $30 Million and the former Notre Dame TE declined saying that he wanted more. The Cubs are still negotiating. How is it that you are willing to pay for a year of production at a price range of $7 Million. Theo Epstein might not have been the genius that all of us thought he was in Boston.

5. Strange Injury: Michael Taylor of the Oakland A's has missed 10 days of training camp because of an injury he sustained by trying to throw away his chewing gum. Here is part of the report from Yahoo! Sports:

"Taylor already has missed a week of A’s camp because he cut the pinkie finger on his right hand in two spots trying to throw away a wad of gum. One of the gashes has healed, the other has not"

Anybody remember the old saying about walking and chewing bubble gum at the same time?

6. Finally, the best trade of all times: The Phillies trade P Mike Cisco for the grand sum of nada.  That is right, the Phillies sent Cisco to the Angels for no compensation. We have had a player traded for himself before, and players trading their families, and players being traded for something, even if it was for a bag of balls and a couple of donuts.

That says something about how badly the Phillies wanted to get rid of the kid.