Trade-Rumor Amusement

So ... I heard that the Yankees are trading A-Rod for the Chicago White Sox.

Each July, baseball trade chatter becomes the hobby of nearly every sports writer and fan. The trend probably results from all other fronts being quiet — hockey, basketball and football are all off-season, and baseball's pennant races are too embryonic to be exciting. Tennis and golf make some cameos in the headlines, but only for short stretches. That leaves baseball trade rumors as the sole daily fodder for news. Unfortunately, it's also fodder for fools.

(Don't be offended — I, too, feed on that fodder. So does my father feed on that fodder.)

Starting in June and escalating in July, gossip of impending deals dominates sports reports. But have you noticed that when the trades finally transpire, they rarely involve the same names and teams mentioned in the rumor-mill? The real deals usually involve players and/or teams that no one was talking about, proving that all the trade-rumor "news" comes not from reporters garnering information from general managers, but from other reporters sharing their own speculation.

Still, every year we listen to the gossipmongers as if they have some sort of bona fide inside information.

Today's water-coolers and watering holes are beseiged by talk of:

• Alfonso Soriano to the Tigers, Angels, Dodgers, Yankees, Twins and White Sox. (Bad move — that's only six home runs for each team.)

• Miguel Tejada moving to the Angels, and then to third base.
• Carlos Lee to the Tigers. (Stagger Lee, on the other hand, is staying with the Colts.)
• Jon Lieber and Pat Burrell to the Red Sox for a package including Trot Nixon.
• Wilson Betemit from the Braves to the Yankees in exchange for Scott Proctor. (Dumb idea for the Yanks — they need more outs, not more runs.)
• Todd Walker to Seattle.
• Greg Maddux for someone valuable. (Unlikely.)

Let's check back next week and see if any of these trades have actually happened.