{"id":1068,"date":"2009-03-06T12:43:51","date_gmt":"2009-03-06T17:43:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/?p=1068"},"modified":"2017-06-20T09:46:08","modified_gmt":"2017-06-20T14:46:08","slug":"mlbs-forgotten-headlines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/tartan-news\/2009\/03\/06\/mlbs-forgotten-headlines\/","title":{"rendered":"MLB&#8217;s forgotten headlines"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mceTemp\">\n<figure id=\"attachment_1077\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1077\" style=\"width: 233px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/280_mannydodger.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"1077\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/tartan-news\/2009\/03\/06\/mlbs-forgotten-headlines\/attachment\/280_mannydodger\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/280_mannydodger.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"280,360\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"280_mannydodger\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Manny Ramirez FINALLY agreed to a $45 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers on Wednesday, March 4.&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/280_mannydodger-233x300.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/280_mannydodger.jpg\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1077\" title=\"280_mannydodger\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/280_mannydodger-233x300.jpg\" alt=\"Manny Ramirez FINALLY agreed to a $45 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers on Wednesday, March 4.\" width=\"233\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/280_mannydodger-233x300.jpg 233w, https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/280_mannydodger.jpg 280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 233px) 100vw, 233px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1077\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Manny Ramirez FINALLY agreed to a $45 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers on Wednesday, March 4.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Unfortunately, Alex Rodriguez and the steroid saga have dominated headlines in the baseball world for more than a month. The story rightfully deserves the spotlight, but let&#8217;s not forget what else happened over the winter.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><strong>Manny&#8217;s Money<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Apparantly, the Boston Red Sox knew what they were doing when they traded Manny Ramirez to the Los Angeles Dodgers last July.<\/p>\n<p>The awkward-yet lovable-slugger finally signed a two-year deal worth $45 million with the Dodgers. It took Ramirez more than four months to agree to this deal.\u00a0 Maybe this is Ramirez&#8217;s way of skipping half of spring training.<!--more-->I can&#8217;t seem to figure out who wanted to hold out for more: Ramirez or super-agent Scott Boras.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Kid&#8217;s encore<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>After a disappointing nine years in Cincinnati and a brief stint with the Chicago White Sox, Ken Griffey Jr. returned to the northwest to play for his first team, the Seattle Mariners.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m glad Junior is heading back to Seattle. His body began breaking down years ago, but I still enjoyed watching him play through the pain in Cincinnati. Hopefully, Junior stays healthy and gives Mariners fans some thing to care about. I still haven&#8217;t figured out what, though.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Say again?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>San Francisco pitcher Tim Lincecum won the National League&#8217;s Cy Young award in &#8217;09 for the hapless and hopeless Giants. Lincecum finished with 18 wins, a 2.65 ERA and 265 stikeouts. His reward for dominance: a one-year deal worth $650,000.<\/p>\n<p>The reason behind the blue-light special is Lincecum has yet to gather enough service time in the Majors to qualify for arbitration. I find this absurd.<\/p>\n<p>While fellow Giants pitcher Barry Zito strums his life away after signing a seven-year deal worth $126 million in 2006, Lincecum baffles hitters for the puny price of $650,000. Oh, the irony.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The return of the WBC<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The 2009 World Baseball Classic kicked off on March 5 and the Dominican Republic has to be the favorite going in.<\/p>\n<p>The Dominican&#8217;s stacked roster includes Hanley Ramirez, Jose Reyes, Alex Rodriguez, David Ortiz, Edinson Volquez, Johnny Cueto and Pedro Martinez.<\/p>\n<p>Two years ago, Japan surprised by dominating the WBC and taking the title. The United States is loaded as well with a lineup nobody would want to stare down: Derek Jeter, David Wright, Dustin Pedroia, Chipper Jones and Ryan Braun.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll root for the U.S., but my money is on the Dominican&#8217;s.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Let&#8217;s not forget<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Cincinnati Reds added outfielder Laynce Nix and relief pitcher Arthur Rhodes. I&#8217;m reserving my World Series tickets tomorrow!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unfortunately, Alex Rodriguez and the steroid saga have dominated headlines in the baseball world for more than a month. The story rightfully deserves the spotlight, but let&#8217;s not forget what else happened over the winter. Manny&#8217;s Money Apparantly, the Boston Red Sox knew what they were doing when they traded Manny Ramirez to the Los [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[55,1272,245,244,167,168],"class_list":["post-1068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tartan-news","tag-baseball","tag-joseph-stueve","tag-league","tag-major","tag-stueve","tag-wonders"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-he","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1068"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15352,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1068\/revisions\/15352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}