HBT Weekend Wrapup

I love Thanksgiving week. It brings back so many memories. Grandma’s turkey. Weird uncle Pete’s turducken. That time I learned about the Braves signing Andres Galarraga while I was sitting in the Charlotte, North Carolina airport waiting for a connecting flight . . .

• The Mets hired Terry Collins as their new manager. Wally Backman fans have to be pretty upset that the Mets went with an intense, potentially polarizing candidate and it still wasn’t even their guy.

• It strikes me that the Derek Jeter saga is putting lie to that notion that baseball is truly cracking down on teams and agents using the press to negotiate this winter.

• The Pirates designated Zach Duke, Delwyn Young and Andy LaRoche for assignment. If you write about baseball for a living you may as well start your “the Indians sign Zach Duke, Delwyn Young and Andy LaRoche to minor league contracts” story now to beat the rush.

• A team is interested in Kaz Matsui. I don’t care if it’s a Japanese team. That’s still pretty nuts.

• The Red Sox apparently offered Victor Martinez a two-year, $21 million contract. He rejected it, obviously, as he certainly can expect better than that on the market. I don’t think I’m being a hater, however, in observing that he’s not necessarily worth much more than that.

• Joel Zumaya is going to be ready for spring training. That means the pool is open, fellas. I got my money on “arm flies clean off; injures fan in second row.”

• Jim Leyritz is acquitted of manslaughter charges. No joke here. Just don’t mess up the second chance you’ve been given, Jim.

• Domonic Brown is learning that just because you’re sent to play winter ball doesn’t mean you actually get to play winter ball.

• Oliver Perez is stinking up the Mexican League. This is probably a good thing. If he was pitching well down there the Mets would be tempted to start fresh with him next spring to see if he could snag a job. Now it’s way easier to simply release the guy.

• The Marlins and Nats are both courting Javier Vazquez. It’d be nice if he stayed on the east coast this year, because if he gets to pitch in Citi Field it will allow some Yankees fans additional chances to boo him.

• 90 Things to Love about Stan Musial. ” . . . Jezebel went forty days drinking nothing but Perrier. Dinah drove her Chevrolet into the San Francisco bay . . .”

• The bidding for Cliff Lee is expected to start at $120 million. I got this image of that “Saturday Night Live” sketch from the mid 80s when Christopher Guest was the auctioneer and he threatened to suffocate hamsters and shoot himself if the bidding didn’t go higher. I may be one of six people who remember that sketch.

• Speaking of bidding, the Oakland Athletics are apparently like those people who go to an auction only to watch or to put $5 bids on things that they know will go for $500, just so they can say that they were there.

• Omar Minaya has multiple offers. Remember this when a player you like is desperate to catch on with a team — any team — in late January.

Short week, kids. You can do this. Just pretend that today is Wednesday.