The San Diego Padres traded for oft-injured game…I mean player Milton Bradley. After Oakland designated Bradley for assignment, the Kansas City Royals were close to trading for him, before realizing that he really was allergic to a baseball field.

San Diego gave up a minor league pitcher in the deal and surely must think that Bradley can help them down the stretch. Either way, Bradley will be an upgrade in left field where manager Bud Black wants Bradley to play.

One isn’t sure how Bradley’s body will react to actually being on the field after his love-fest with the disabled list, but in any event he could give them a little pop if healthy….IF healthy.

Let’s have a competition and the question is:

Who will have more trips to the DL this year- Mike Sweeney or Milton Bradley?

The winner will get either a Milton Bradley bat, or a Mike Sweeney uniform…it’s not like either of them uses it much anyway.

(I’m kidding about the contest)

Craig Biggio got his 3000th hit against the Colorado Rockies tonight…interesting day for accomplishments: 500 homers and 3000 hits. When a player achieves this, he’s a Hall of Fame lock. Either would be great and Hall Of Fame criteria, but achieving both feats means your critics can’t say anything about your career.

Biggio achieved the feat against Aaron Cook in the 7th inning in the Astros home game.  He started the game needing 3 hits and got the final hit on an RBI-single.

Of course I’m going to write about Mark Buehrle again…does anybody expect anything else? It’s really something to marvel at with the reports saying Buehrle signed the extension for 4-years and $50 million.

Didn’t Gil Meche get 5-years and $55 million from the Royals…THE Royals? Really…what is holding the White Sox back? A lot of banter is going around that says Chicago’s GM, good ol’ Kenny Williams already agreed to a trade and that by extending Buehrle, is the equivalent of granting a window to another team to negotiate an extension. A bit far-fetched, but not entirely crazy.

Today Frank Thomas became the 21st player in Major League Baseball history to hit 500 Home Runs. The shot,  a 3-run blast in the top of the first, came while Carlos Silva was on the mound for the Minnesota Twins.

UPDATE: I like putting my titles like that…it’s easy to change when the rumor is false…all I did was add a question mark… Turns out this hasn’t happened yet. This whole fiasco with Buehrle is like a bad date…you don’t want to do it…but at the same time you just want to get it over with.

So…officially there is not contract extension for Mark Buehrle. As you were…

Reports coming out of Chi-town say that Mark Buehrle signed a contract extension earlier for 4 years and $50 million.

Is Mark Buehrle insane? He could have gotten a lot more money on the open market, particularly from an NL team.

Congratulations to the White Sox on a masterful deal. A bargain for them. Buehrle obviously wants to play for the White Sox and one must admire his loyalty if these reports are indeed true.

Whatever happened to the Mets and Braves being the frontrunners. That’s the rumor world folks…you love it and hate it at the same time.

Kristi Dosh over at MVN.com has a great article about Scott Boras…yes…that guy. It is a must read for all baseball fans. To get the article click here .

Even the comments are noteworthy. I agree with a lot of what was said and for a while I was even thinking about a minimum salary cap for teams. It’ll make baseball a lot more interesting.

UPDATE: This “trade” is dead. The Cubs were trying to rip the Marlins off big-time. It fell through on Bud’s desk basically, since more than $1 million was involved.

We will have to wait and see but there is an unconfirmed rumor saying that the Florida Marlins traded for the displaced Cub Jacque Jones.

More news soon

On Wednesday, there will be interesting pitching match-ups throughout the Major Leagues. Not necessarily in terms of head-to-head matchups, but because seven 40-year-olds will be on the mound.

From oldest to youngest (no joke intended), they are:

(age in brackets, not wins)

• New York Yankees-Roger Clemens  (44)
• Philadephia Phillies- Jamie Moyer (44)
• Detroit Tigers- Kenny Rogers (42)
• San Diego Padres- Greg Maddux (41)
• New York Mets- Tom Glavine (41)
• Houston Astros- Woody Williams (40)
• Atlanta Braves- John Smoltz (40)

 Each of the pitchers in the list is considered “good” for at least one thing. On the low end, Moyer is very consistent and was the only Seattle pitcher to win 20 games twice, after Randy Johnson, and we all know how super-human Randy Johnson became.  Woody Williams got a late start to his career when he made his debut at 27 years old.

Moving up, Kenny Rogers has pitched a perfect game. Smoltz has won a Cy Young award and he also has the best record in  the postseason for a starting pitcher. Glavine has won two Cy Youngs and he has also won 20 games five times with the Braves.

On the top-tier in terms of accomplishments, and also, career wins, we have Greg Maddux and Roger Clemens. Maddux has won 4 Cy Young awards and the most games of any starting pitcher in the 1990’s. Clemens…well let’s just say he is a MULTIPLE Cy Young award winner and the current active leader with 349 career wins.

It would be interesting to see the results of their match-ups on Wednesday against…younger pitching opponents

Interesting inquiries on the part of the Phillies. After a wretched start to the season, they have rebounded quite well and are now in second-place in the National League East.

The Phillies believed that Buehrle’s asking price was too high and with regards to Dontrelle, he is simply not available. The Marlins must be thinking that it wouldn’t be smart to trade Dontrelle to a division rival.

One must think that Chicago’s GM is trying to ensure that Buehrle doesn’t stay with the team that he’s traded to by not wanting to grant a negotiating window for an extension. It would be a smart move: trade Buehrle for MLB players/prospects and then Buehrle signs with the Cardinals for 2008 and beyond. The new ‘cool’ in fleecing other GM’s. Rentals are the new pink.

In a surprise move, the Pittsburgh Pirates inquired about Jarrod Saltalamacchia’s availability.  The Braves’ general policy in trading with other teams is that they must get pitching in return. That may have changed a bit over the last few years but one could only imagine what it would take for the Pirates to get Salty.

Rumblings around baseball were that it would take Buehrle and a throw-in for Saltalamacchia only if a window to extend Buerhle were granted.  Buehrle has won 100 games in the AL no less, so one could imagine how highly regarded Salty is in the Braves system.