Today's treat, in the spirit of the holidays, is that, upon returning home from Los Angeles, not only did the Seahawks win to stave off elimination one more day, but Clint Nageotte is still a Mariner (And Brian Jordan isn't).

For the sake of humor, I'll copy and paste this email I just got:

0031-623-735-054
HARLEM,NETHERLANDS

Hello,

With warm hearts I offer my friendship, and my greetings, and I hope
This letter meets you in good time. It will be surprising to you to
Receive this proposal from me since you do not know me personally.

However, I am sincerely seeking your confidence in this transaction,
which I propose with my free mind and as a person of integrity.

My name is John komalo, the son of stephen komalo,One of the
most popular farmers from Zimbabwe, who was murdered in the
Land dispute in my country.

As led by my instinct, I decided to contact you through email, after
searching for Contacts via the internet, as it is the only means I can
contact anybody since I am cutting off ties with Zimbabwe for now. I
apologize if this is not acceptable to you.

The purpose of this letter is to seek your most needed assistance in a
Business venture. Due to the land and political problems in Zimbabwe,
and President Robert Mugabe's introduction of new Land Act Reform
wholly affecting the rich white farmers and the few rich black farmers,
all white farmers were asked to surrender their farms to the Government
for re-distribution and infact to his political party members and my
Father
though black was the treasury of the farmers association and a strong
Member of an opposition party that did not support the president's
idea.

He then ordered his party members and the police under his pay row to
invade my father's farm and burn down everything in the farm. They
killed my father and took away a lot of items from his farm.

After the death of my father, our local pastor and a close friend of my
father handed us over will documents with instructions from my father
That we should leave Zimbabwe incase anything happen to him.

The will documents have a certificate of deposit, Airway bill
confirming

cash Deposit totalling Twelve million five hundred thousand united
state
dollars. [$12.5m] kept in custody for us in a security company
deposited
as personal belongings.

This money was deposited with this Private Security Company for Safety
and security reasons, and was to be used for the purchase Of land, new
machines and chemicals establishment of new farms in Botswana.

This violent and barbaric act by Mugabe has since led to the death of
my beloved mother and kid sister and other innocent lives.

I was continually threatened to abandon my inheritance from my father
after he was murdered. I resisted for a while, but when the danger
became unbearable, and I survived two murder attempts, I fled Zimbabwe
with the help of my father's close friend Mr. John Casannas from
Australia also a farmer who was leaving in Zimbabwe with us but left
with his family following this ugly development I have tried to reach
him but all to no avail.

I am currently staying in the Netherlands where I am seeking political
asylum. In fact my decision to come here to seek asylum, is because
the security company from South Africa, has a branch here, I have
contacted them to move the safe deposit from their office in
Johannesburg to The affiliate office here in Amsterdam The Netherlands
which they are waiting further directives from me before they effect
the movement.

I need to transfer this money to an account and invest part of the
Money. Since the law of Netherlands prohibits a refugee (Asylum
Seeker) to open any bank account or to be involved in any financial
Transaction, this is why I am seeking a genuine and reliable Partner,
whose account this money can be transferred after the consignment
must have been duely transferred from South Africa, hence your
involvement in this venture.

You have to understand that this decision taken by me is a very big
And brave one, and it entrusts my future in your hands, as a result of
the safe keeping of this money.

If you accept to assist me, all I want you to do for me, is to assist
with arrangements to claim the deposit from the security company from
their office here in The Netherlands, as it has now been transferred
from Johannesburg, South Africa to their branch here. The company will
be legally informed of you representing me.

For your assistance, I have two options for you. Firstly you can choose
to have 20% of the money for your assistance, and helping me open an
account for the money to be deposited here, or you can go into
partnership
with me for the proper profitable investment of the money in your
country.

Whichever the option you want, please to notify me in your reply.
I have also set aside 1 % of the total sum $12.5M for all kinds of
Expenses that come our way in the process of this transaction, and 4%
For Charity donation. If you prefer to accept the 20% for your moral
and financial assistance then the balance will be left in the account
here for me.

Please note that this 1% is not with me at the moment but shall be
deducted from the total sum as soon as the money finally hits your
nominated account.

Finally I want you to maintain absolute secrecy for the purpose of
this transaction.

I look forward to your reply and c-operation, and I thank you in
Advance
as I anticipate your co-operation.

Sincerely,
John komalo
REPLY to johnkomalo28@netscape.net

Note to readers: as of midday tomorrow, I will be in LA for a few days, and thus won't be updating the site. I think we could all use about a week away from this team, though, so the holidays couldn't come at a better time.

The Alex Rodriguez/Manny Ramirez deal is finally off (for now).

So, yeah, we might have the worst GM in the division now.

Todd Walker is a Cub. $1.75m for one year.

Yes, Walker has said (on numerous occasions) that he'd be willing to shift to third base. But at least we have Scott Spiezio...

By the way, Rich Aurilia's reported asking price is in the neighborhood of $3.5m per year (the offer Colorado has on the table).

This keeps getting better and better.

Ben Grieve is a Brewer.

But who needs that .360+ OBP, when you have Raul Ibanez?

Good article on Selig's involvement with the Rodriguez trade.

Better Off With These Guys Instead of Spiezio #712:

Jared Sandberg and Russ Branyan Platoon.

Branyan has a .264/.333/.604 line against lefties in the last three years, and while Sandberg's OPS against righties over the same span is only .721, it shot up to .803 last year. If he sucks, no big deal; Branyan isn't a disaster against right-handers by any means.

No, neither of them walk a lot (low OBP alert!), but they're powerful, cheap, and don't require multiyear deals to stay happy. We wouldn't get All Star production out of third base, but we'd get the improvement we're looking for for about $6m less.

And hey, their names at least came up in an article. But then, so did Frank Menechino's.

Rich Aurilia the Mariner?

I don't like it. Operation Get Rid of Guillen is still in full swing, I guess.

The Orioles are on the verge of signing Javy Lopez to a 3 year, $23m contract. This deal is almost sure to become a future albatross; Javy's batting average, OBP, SLG, and OPS all declined each year between 1999-2002 before jumping to astronomical levels last year. You're all smart enough to know it's never a good idea to hand out an expensive multiyear deal to a 33 year old catcher coming off his best career performance, so I needn't elaborate further.

Update: It's official.