Unfortunately, Tuesday's owners' meeting did not provide any substantive answers to the multitude of issues about which the public has been waiting to hear. The owners did not reveal the identities of the two teams targeted for contraction or make any new moves in that arena. No votes were announced regarding any of the rumored club sales. The only matter to be definitively resolved was a contract extension for Commissioner Bud Selig.

Prior to this latest Chicago summit, Selig was working under a 5-year contract that began in July of 1998. Owners unanimously rewarded his extremely questionable record over the last few years with a 3-year extension of that contract, extending his rule as Commissioner through 2006.

Selig's reasoning for not pressing the issue of which teams are to be eliminated by contraction revolved around the restraining order put in place by a Hennepin County, Minnesota judge and the problems that the two sides are having negotiating a new CBA. These are just two of the biggest obstacles facing the owners in their quest to implement contraction.

In related news, the House Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing regarding MLB's anti-trust agreement on December 6th. The committee will look into whether or not it is time to revoke the anti-trust agreement. The final list of witnesses has yet to be completed.

Selig announced Tuesday that baseball would try to release earnings' details by the same date scheduled for the hearing. This statement was tacked on after another that alleged that 25 of the 30 major league clubs lost money last season, with Major League Baseball losing $500 million even with an announced revenue of $3.5 billion.

Who do these people really think that they're fooling? Many owners are able to hide club profits in numerous ways just by adjusting their books. In addition to the widespread method of attaching franchise value to player values that decrease significantly over time, if an entity owns an organization, a ballpark, and a television station, they can easily hide organizational income by maximizing the amounts that they charge themselves for ballpark rental and by selling their local broadcast rights to themselves for discount prices. However, these tricks are becoming transparent with age, and I should hope that at the very least our congressional representatives would be able to see through them.

Ultimately, we are again left waiting to see what happens next. With luck, there will be more answers at the next juncture in the process.

Player News

Luckily the players were able to provide a bit more entertainment yesterday than the owners. Scott Brosius, who has been the third baseman for the New York Yankees since 1998, has announced that given the Yankees lack of interest in offering him even a one-year deal, he will retire rather than even review bids from other teams. He just turned 35 in August.

In his time with New York, Brosius has acquired 3 World Series rings. Overall he has never been much above average as a third baseman, but he has made a name for himself in the Big Apple in the last few years.

The Yankees will be looking to install rookie Drew Henson at third base in the near future, so they don't want to commit to anyone who might block his progress. They were extremely impressed by his Arizona Fall League performance.

Brosius' desire to retire a Yankee and distaste at the thought of uprooting his wife and 10-year-old daughter were the main factors in his decision.

American Leaguers covering the left corner of the infield appear to have generated most of the day's interesting news. The Chicago White Sox traded third baseman Herbert Perry to the Texas Rangers for a player to be named later. We spent some time looking at the White Sox last week when he was DFA'd. It seemed probable then that Perry would not be with the team for long given the club's desire to start the young Joe Crede.

Texas also has a young third baseman coming up from their minors. Hank Blalock should arrive at the major league level by September 2002. Most observers expected that the Rangers would need to hold onto Mike Lamb until then to fill the position at third base. Lamb, who turned 26 in August, started for the Rangers during his rookie year in 2000, but despite following up promising minor league performance with good major league numbers, he was replaced with Ken Caminiti for the first half of the 2001 season.

With the arrival of Perry, Texas should now be able to trade Lamb, as soon as they can negotiate a favorable deal for the young veteran. If Lamb can land on a team that will give him a starting job, he could develop into a quality third baseman with a decent amount of power. However, it certainly appears that the young man will not have an opportunity to mature along side A-Rod in Texas.

Though a trade of Perry seemed a logical follow up when he was DFA'd, Kenny Williams showed admirable initiative in putting in the work to make it happen. Several clubs, most notably Baltimore with regard to Brady Anderson, lately have appeared to simply release players without making the effort to pursue possible compensation through trade. At this time I have seen no information regarding the prospective player to be named later for whom Perry was traded; nevertheless something is almost always better than nothing.

Injuries
Baltimore Oriole Chris Richard will be out at least until the all-star break following rotator cuff surgery. Richard displeased the Orioles when he announced in late September that he would be having the surgery during the off-season. It appeared that they would have preferred he keep the information to himself. Now that it is certain Richard will be incapacitated for an extended portion of the 2002 season, Baltimore may be even more likely to pursue adding another OF to the team.

Elsewhere, expensive Colorado ace pitcher Mike Hampton underwent a minor procedure on his groin. The lefty should be fully recovered by spring training. Hampton experienced one or two problems with the groin last season but no serious developments were reported. Overall, his first season with the Rockies went much better than most pitchers' first years in Coors. However, due to the sheer size of Hampton's contract there have been suspicions that Colorado could be interested in including him in a trade for a cleanup hitter. Minor as it is, this surgery will most likely halt extensive trade rumors.