Boys basketball preview: Mitty hopes to go all the way this time

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(12-04) 22:08 Pacific Time --
Drew Gordon is finally a senior, Archbishop Mitty is loaded and the new transportation regulation likely volition not impede a Southern Golden State Division Iodine human dynamo from repeating as champions.

With six football game games still to be played, we take a peep inside the gymnasium where vacation tourneys and show window games have some of the best matchups of the season.

Can Northern Golden State happen salvation after losing four of five state-title games at Arco Sphere in March? Here's an early look:
Top Five Teams

1. Mitty (29-6 last season, 1-0 through Monday): The Monarchs lost to Ma Dei 69-64 inch overtime in the Division two state concluding and are the favourites to win the statute title this season. Gordon, a 6-foot-9 forward headed to UCLA, is one of four Division I scholarship participants in the lineup. Collin Chiverton (6-6, St. Mary's), Enoch Andoh (6-8 , Bucknell) and Toilet Sam Adams (6-6, Lehigh) are all seniors. The point guard is senior Chris Weber. Mitty, which already beat out Bishop O'Dowd 75-41, volition play Newark Memorial on Dec. Fifteen and Oak Grove-San Jose on Dec. Twenty-Two before playing in the Les Schwab Invitational in Portland, Ore., after Christmas.

2. McClymonds (28-4, 2-0): A 53-29 loss to Fairfax in the Division Iodine state-title game didn't reflect the Warriors' mulct season, which included a win over Mitty. With rebounding machine Frank Elisha Graves Otis returning, McClymonds could do another tally at a state crown, though Fairfax now have Renardo Sidney, a transportation from Artesia and the nation's No. One prospect in the social class of 2009. Elisha Graves Otis is joined by junior point guard William Cherry (10 points per game) and Damon Powell. Powell, a 6-5 junior who transferred back to McClymonds after a twelvemonth at San Lorenzo, poured in 23 points in a 66-61 win over Encina-Sacramento.

3. Branson (32-2, 4-0): The two-time defending state champs graduated four starters, including defensive plug Alexanders McNally (now playing at Denver), guard Isaiah Honick and centre Lewis Henry Morgan Livermore. Guard Joseph Oliveer McNally takes a solid returning cast of characters that includes Ryan McGuigan, William F. Cody John, Kalome Akhile and William Curtis Elijah.

Branson, which have got beaten Modesto Christian in each of the last two Division Volt NorCal statute title games, will not have to postulate with the Crusaders. Modesto Christian moved up to Division IV.

4. Delaware Lanthanum Salle (28-3, 0-0): After being eliminated by McClymonds in the 2nd unit of ammunition of the NorCal playoffs, Delaware Lanthanum Salle once again will be on the radar. Guard Ryan Silva is now playing at UC Davis, but returning participants include Brandon Ian Smith (all-league), Max Pitts (a 6-4 wing), guard Jose Rivera, Toilet McArthur (a 6-8, 230-pound sophomore) and Greg St. Jean (son of Garry St. Jean).

De Lanthanum Salle, which will play McClymonds Jan. Twenty-One at Cal's Haas Pavilion, also will play in the Les Schwab Invitational.

5. St. Mary's (29-5, 3-0): There might not be a more than draining squad to watch in the region. With blood brothers Will and Chris Brew leading the way, St. Mary's pressure levels full-court and military units oppositions to play at a helter-skelter pace. The Panthers lost to Cardinal Newman-Santa Genus Rosa 58-54 in the Division four NorCal statute title game last season. Not an complete outside shot team, St. Mary's volition see its share of zone defense. Top Five Players

1. John Drew Gordon (Mitty, 6-9 F): Few participants can change a game more on the defensive end, and Gordon makes it by combining great timing and strenuosity with ceaseless effort. With an evolving offense game, Gordon likely volition better on his norm of 14 points per game as a junior. He'll travel to UCLA adjacent year.

2. Joseph Oliveer McNally (Branson, 6-3 G): McNally scored 24 points as Branson beat out Position Park Homework 57-48 in the Division Volt state-title game. A jazz band guard who can beat out guardians off the drip and hit the mid-range jumper, McNally's best trait might be his competitiveness. He doesn't set up immense Numbers in manager Jonas Honick's system, but he have the ability to mark in lumps. McNally turned down a figure of scholarships from Occident Seashore Conference schools and programs to go to Harvard.

3. Frank Elisha Graves Elisha Graves Otis (McClymonds, 6-6 F): Otis, who averaged 14 points per game as a junior, endured a awful offense public presentation in McClymonds' loss to Fairfax in the state-title game. Nevertheless, Elisha Graves Otis always presents on defence and is one of the best rebounders in the area. A physical player, Elisha Graves Otis will play for former North Carolina manager Flatness Doherty at Southern Methodist adjacent year.

4. Collin Chiverton (Mitty, 6-6 G): Playing in the shadow of Gordon for his full career, Chiverton had his discovery last season, averaging 14 points per game and shot 52 percentage from the field. With a soft touching from the outside and a speedy first step, Chiverton will remain close to place next season and drama at St. Mary's.

5. Chris Mother Jones (Newark Memorial, 6-3 G): The Mission Valley Athletic League Player of the Year scored 20 points in his team's season-opening 67-62 win over Sacred Heart Cathedral. Jones, known for his ability to mark and close down opposing participants on defense, decided on Fresno State after a successful summertime on the AAU circuit.

Defending Champions

STATE: Division Iodine - Fairfax; Division two - Ma Dei ; Division three - Artesia; Division four - Joseph Campbell Hall; Division Volt - Branson.

NORCAL: Division Iodine - McClymonds; Division two - Mitty; Division three -Bishop O'Dowd; Division four - Cardinal Newman; Division Volt - Branson.

NCS: Division Iodine - Monte Vista; Division two - Richmond; Division three - Acalanes; Division four - St. Mary's-Berkeley; Division Volt - Branson.

CCS: Division Iodine - Oak Grove; Division two - Mitty; Division three - St. Ignatius; Division four - Palma; Division Volt - Bridgemont-S.F.

OAKLAND: McClymonds

SAN FRANCISCO: Lowell

E-mail Volition McCulloch at .

Baseball stars would be likely witnesses in a Bonds perjury trial

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Baseball stars Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield are likely to be called as prosecution witnessers if the bearing false witness lawsuit against place tally male monarch Barry Bonds return to trial, respective lawyers familiar with the lawsuit say.

Former Giants catcher Benito Santiago De Los Caballeros and other retired participants with admitted neckties to the BALCO steroids dirt also could be sought as authorities witnessers unless Bonds' federal bill of indictment is settled with a supplication deal before trial, said the lawyers. Most asked not to be quoted by name concerning a pending case.

In 2003, Giambi, the New House Of York Yankees slugger, and Sheffield, now a designated batter for the Motor City Tigers, told a expansive jury that was investigating the Bay Area Lab Co-Operative that they had obtained "the cream" and "the clear" - undetectable interior designer steroids, according to the authorities - from Greg Anderson, Bonds' personal trainer, The History have reported.

Santiago, Bonds' teammate when the Giants played in the 2002 World Series, told the BALCO expansive jury that he had received human growing internal secretion and the injectable steroid Winstrol from Anderson, the newspaper have reported.

To turn out to a jury that Bonds lied under curse when he denied using banned drugs, federal public prosecutors are likely to turn to baseball game participants who have got admitted their ain engagement in BALCO to attest about the former Giants star, his trainer and steroids, lawyers said.

The participants could be asked to discourse doping calendars, payment listings and a treasure trove of other records seized by the authorities in forays on BALCO and on the place of Bonds' trainer in 2003, lawyers said. The authorities believes that the written documents were written by Sherwood Sherwood Anderson to track Bonds' drug usage and that Anderson kept similar charts for other steroid clients.

"I anticipate everybody will acquire subpoena ad testificandums to demo up and be asked inquiries about the calendars," one lawyer said.

Bonds, indicted last calendar month on four counts of bearing false witness and one count of obstructor of justice, have his first tribunal visual aspect Friday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

Peter Keane, a Golden Gate University law professor who have been following the BALCO case, said the players' testimony might go important.

"They very well could be authorities witnesses," he said. "One thing the prosecution would desire to demo by circumstantial or direct grounds is that with BALCO and Anderson, their regular wont with baseball game participants was to give them steroids and human growing hormone."

The defence might struggle to barricade the players' testimony, but their grounds "would be highly relevant," Keane said.

Paula Canny, lawyer for Sheffield, said via e-mail that she could not theorize about what witnessers the authorities might name at trial.

David Cornwell, Santiago's lawyer, said he didn't expect his client would be subpoenaed. "My belief is his engagement in the BALCO substance ended a long clip ago," Cornwell said. Giambi's agent, Arn Tellem, didn't react to a petition for comment.

Bonds, who broke baseball's calling place tally record in August, was indicted Nov. 15. He is accused of lying under curse when he told the BALCO expansive jury in 2003 that he had not knowingly used steroids and human growing internal secretion obtained from Anderson.

His lawyer, Michael Rains, have said Bonds is guiltless of the complaints and anticipates to be exonerated at a jury trial. Rains wasn't available to notice for this story.

Bonds was one of more than than 30 elite jocks subpoenaed to attest in the federal investigation of BALCO, a Burlingame nutritionary research lab that the authorities states distributed interior designer steroids to stars of baseball, the NFL and Olympic path and field.

After Anderson, BALCO laminitis Victor Conte and three other work force pleaded guilty in the drug lawsuit in 2005, the authorities focused on jocks whom it suspected of lying to hinder the BALCO probe.

In October, Olympic dash title-holder Marion Mother Jones pleaded guilty to lying to federal research workers when she told them she had never used BALCO drugs. She hasn't yet been sentenced. Besides Bonds, two other jocks are awaiting trial in San Francisco on similar charges: Trevor Graham, Jones' former coach, accused of lying to a federal agent; and Tammy Thomas, Olympic bike racer, accused of bearing false witness before the BALCO expansive jury.

Some legal experts foretell Bonds' lawsuit will stop like Jones', with a supplication bargain. They observe that if convicted of all the complaints at a trial, Bonds could confront a sentence of perhaps 30 calendar months in prison, according to federal sentencing guidelines, while a supplication deal could transport a far lighter penalty. Conte, the BALCO mastermind, served four calendar months in prison, they note.

But lawyers familiar with the lawsuit state they believe that Bonds, a free agent who have said he trusts to subscribe with another squad for 2008, is adamantine about fighting the complaints and that his lawyer, Rains, is optimistic about winning an acquittal at trial.

Perjury lawsuits are considered hard to prosecute: The lucidity of a prosecutor's inquiries and the precise diction of responses can go polar issues. Rains also trusts the defence will acquire grip by elaborating on his claim that the authorities unfairly targeted Bonds and engaged in misconduct during the BALCO probe. Rains states he outlined those allegations in letters to Acting U.S. Lawyer George C. Scott Schools earlier this year.

Thus, so far at least, the phase is put for a trial, probably adjacent year. Meanwhile, Bonds trusts to add veteran soldier criminal defence specializer Toilet Keker to his legal team, a beginning said. It was ill-defined how that mightiness alteration the dynamic. Besides Bonds, six baseball game participants were subpoenaed before the BALCO expansive jury - Giambi, Sheffield and Santiago, along with former Giants Armando Rios and Bobby Estalella and Giambi's blood brother Jeremy, a former Oakland Athletic.

All but Sheffield and Jason Giambi are retired from the game.

The participants said they met Sherwood Anderson through Bonds and obtained banned drugs from the trainer. They said Sherwood Anderson kept doping calendars for them - written documents thought to be like the suspected Bonds calendars seized in the BALCO raid.

Although their testimony might assist the prosecution, the participants also present jobs as authorities witnesses, lawyers said. Because the focusing of the expansive jury investigation was the suspected steroid dealers, the participants were not questioned closely about Bonds. The participants said that even though they were getting drugs from Bonds' trainer, they didn't cognize for certain that Sherwood Anderson was supplying them to Bonds as well, The History have reported.

Jason Giambi told the expansive jury that Sherwood Anderson gave him "the cream," "the clear," injectable testosterone and Clomid, a female birthrate drug sometimes used to mask steroid use.

"I assumed because he's Barry's trainer" that Bonds was using the same items, Giambi said. "But (Anderson) never said one time, 'This is what Barry's taking, this is what Barry's doing.' "

Sheffield, then a free agent who had just signed with the Yankees, said that he got "the cream" and "the clear" from Sherwood Anderson and that Bonds used it too. But Sheffield also said he wasn't aware until later that the matters were steroids - an business relationship similar to the testimony of Bonds, who said he thought Sherwood Anderson was giving him flaxseed oil and arthritis balm.

As a result, "the authorities is going to be nervous" about using the participants as witnesses, one lawyer said. "The authorities is going to desire 'We cognize Barry was using steroids.' But they don't specifically cognize what they'll say."

In 2006, authorities agents sought to interview Giambi and Sheffield about Bonds, according to a beginning familiar with the case. Sheffield referred the question to his lawyer, while Giambi said he knew small more than than what he had said at the expansive jury, the beginning said.

In improver to the players, lawyers said the witnesser listing for Bonds' bearing false witness trial would likely include U.S. Internal Revenue Service agent Jeff Novitzky, the Pb BALCO investigator, and experts on the scientific discipline and sensing of banned drugs.

The authorities states that in the BALCO raid, it seized laboratory studies showing that Bonds had tested positive for steroids. Experts will be needed to construe the written documents for the jury.

"Positive diagnostic tests - they necessitate person to state what they mean," said a lawyer.

Conte, Sherwood Anderson and the other BALCO suspects might also be subpoenaed, some lawyers said.

"It is quite possible that any or all of them could be witnesses" at Bonds' trial, said Virgin Mary McNamara, Conte's lawyer.

Conte have never testified about BALCO. In telecasting interviews, he have admitted giving banned drugs to Mother Jones and other Olympic stars while denying providing drugs to Bonds.

Anderson refused to attest for the authorities in the Bonds investigation, disbursement more than a twelvemonth in prison house on a disdain commendation instead. Still, the authorities could seek to coerce him to attest in a Bonds trial and mention him for disdain again if he refused. His lawyer, Mark Geragos, said he couldn't theorize about the issue.

"It is difficult for me to believe that one side or the other won't name Victor or Greg," a lawyer said.

The function of another prospective witnesser - Kimberly Bell, Bonds' former girlfriend - is uncertain. Bell told the expansive jury that in 2000 Bonds had confided to her that he was using steroids. She also said Bonds had given her $80,000 hard cash in unreported income - money she said he got from merchandising autographed baseball games - to purchase a house in Arizona.

But the authorities didn't prosecute a taxation lawsuit against Bonds, and Bell's cognition of Bonds and drugs come ups from a single conversation. For his part, Rains have accused Bell of trying to extort money from Bonds and vowed to "demolish" her if she took the base at trial. Her visual aspect in a photograph spreading in November's Playboy magazine might also be a subject on cross-examination, lawyers said.

"They necessitate more than than the girlfriend," said a beginning familiar with the government's case. Gary Sheffield

"I asked Barry, you know, about this cat (personal trainer) Greg Anderson. And he goes, you know, 'Don't inquire any questions. Just trust me.'... Nothing was between me and Greg. Barry pretty much controlled everything."

COLLEGE BASKETBALL / Cardinal win by 3rd largest margin ever

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It took Leland Stanford exactly one game to set up a criterion it may pass the remainder of the season chasing.

In their season opener on Friday, the No. Twenty-Three Cardinal rolled up their peak point sum in 17 old age and their third-largest margin of triumph ever while demolishing Harvard University 111-56 in the Basketball Travelers Classic at Maples Pavilion.

The victim was recent Wolverine State manager and former Duke participant Tommy Amaker, who, in his first game as the Crimson's head coach, watched Leland Stanford set his squad away in the game's first six minutes.

"This team, in footing of attack to games in practice, is the best since I've been here," Leland Stanford manager Trent Samuel Johnson said.

It was a successful but uncomfortable season introduction for Leland Stanford junior Antony Goods, who vomited on the bench in the first half.

"I believe it was some spicy chicken," Commodity said.

Nonetheless, Commodity made five of six efforts from three-point range, including 3-for-3 in the 2nd half, to complete with 17 points in 16 proceedings of playing time. No starter motor played more than than 17 proceedings as the Cardinal took a 21-3 Pb 5 1/2 proceedings into the game and coasted.

"Obviously, we were a batch larger and stronger," Samuel Johnson said after watching his squad outrebound Harvard University 50-19.

Stanford surpassed the 100-point mark with 6:29 left, putting the Cardinal in ternary figures for the first clip since December 2003, when they beat out Harvard University 100-59. The Cardinal seemed within range of the school record they put in a 129-108 triumph over Yale University in December 1985, but Leland Stanford had to settle down for its sixth-highest point sum and the most since it beat out UC Irvine 117-87 in December 1990.

The Cardinal could not quite fit the school-record 65-point winning border they established in a 92-27 win over Duquesne in 1937, but that and the 59-point win over New Hampshire in 1999 were the lone wider winning borders than the 55-point triumph Friday.

Not only did the Cardinal whip the Red in every manner imaginable, but Leland Stanford did it with its best two participants virtually absent. Brook Lopez is academically ineligible until Dec. 19, and Lawrence Hill, the team's lone All-Pac-10 participant last season, played only two proceedings before being forced to sit down out the remainder of the first one-half with two fouls. By the clip he returned in the 2nd half, Leland Stanford was already into refuse time.

Don't pencil Leland Stanford into the Concluding Four yet, though. Harvard University was 12-16 last season and is picked to complete 6th in the eight-team Ivy League this season.

Leland Stanford fresher Josh Jesse Owens showed his explosive potentiality by getting 12 points and eight recoils in 19 minutes, and newcomer John Drew Shiller, a transportation from USF, demonstrated he might go a valuable outside menace by making four of five from three-point range.

In the first game of Friday's doubleheader, UC Santa Barbara beat out Northwestern State 92-71. Leland Stanford will play Northwestern State tonight and UC Santa Barbara on Sunday.

Perhaps Harvard University sophomore Jeremy Maya Lin will have got better success tonight. He was The Chronicle's Bay Area Player of the Year in 2005-2006, when he led Palo Alto High School to a triumph over Ma Dei in the Division two state title game. He is a starter motor for the Red but failed to score, going 0-for-6 from the floor. 50-point wins

The greatest wins in Leland Stanford history:

Pts

Score

Opponent

Year

65

92-27

Duquesne

37-38

59

119-60

N. Hampshire

99-00

55

111-56

Harvard

07-08

53

95-42

Lehigh

97-98

51

71-20

UOP

35-36

51

105-54

Seattle

85-86

51

101-50

Cal

99-00

51

100-49

SF State

00-01

50

55-5

Davis Farm

18-19

50

89-39

San Jose St.

88-89

50

92-42

Puget Sound

92-93

Source: Leland Stanford mass media usher

E-mail Jake William Curtis at .

So who's in line to pay A-Rod, baseball's prima donna?

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(10-30) 19:46 PDT --
Mix a weak-minded narcist with a conniving, slime-covered agent and you acquire Lord'S Day nighttime at the World Series: a shameful spot of upstaging that not only exposed the true colours of Alex Rodriguez and George C. Scott Boras, but actually damaged their cause.

There wasn't a individual in baseball game who wasn't fed up by Boras' determination to direct e-mails, to certain reporters, announcing A-Rod's purpose to choose out of his contract with the Yankees. The news spreading fast, all the manner to Fox's Cognizance Rosenthal, who informed a national television audience during the 8th frame of Boston's title-clinching victory.

The news was titillating, no statement there. Given the Yankees' adamantly declared determination to immediately cut neckties with A-Rod, the treatment began in earnest: Who's going to subscribe this guy? He's the logical inheritor to Barry Bonds' place tally record and his 54-homer, 156-RBI season stirred Northerner memories of Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Mantle. Sounds like a hot-stove subject for the ages.

Except it wasn't about baseball game at all. In placing themselves above the game, and a twenty-four hours that should have got belonged strictly to the Red Sox, Rodriguez and Boras had everyone wondering why the Hell any squad would pass $30 million a twelvemonth on a phony, a Prima donna and a adult male likely to put his ain inherent aptitudes behind Boras' desire to happen the most money. (Great remark from an incensed Simon Peter Gammons on ESPN: "He's never played in a World Series. Maybe there's a reason.")

People blamed A-Rod for the shameless timing; after all, he could have got told Boras to endorse off. The job is, Rodriguez doesn't have got a head of his ain - not when it really counts. He allow Boras talking him into sign language with the Lone-Star State Rangers, and a life in baseball's cellar, because proprietor Uncle Tom Hicks was insane adequate to pitchfork out $252 million. As talented as he is - without question, he's among the top five or six most talented jocks ever to play the game - Rodriguez doesn't trust himself when the visible lights reflect brightest. He acquires all sensitive and introspective, filled with self-doubt.

That mightiness sound harsh, but there's no other manner to explicate A-Rod's postseason performances. You probably cognize about his 4-for-47 slack and his run of 15 games without an RBI, but this is the most revealing stat: Since Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS - the nighttime Hub Of The Universe began its epic poem rejoinder from three games down against the Yankees - Rodriguez have come up to the plate with 38 smugglers on base, over the span of 59 at-bats. He left every single 1 on base, going 0-for-27, right through the Yanks' Division Series loss to Cleveland this month.

Yo, Boras: Put that in your thousand-page booklet explaining A-Rod's value to a team. That's some damning, overpowering evidence. Even Bonds, before his world-domination circuit for the 2002 Giants, had a few minutes in an otherwise black postseason resume.

The Yankees have got made it abundantly clear that they're done with Rodriguez, so we'll take them at their word. Boras doesn't run without a parachute, so we can presume he's lined up at least one franchise willing to pay A-Rod money. It's hard to conceive of which one, though. The candidates:

Giants: A figure of beginnings topographic point Simon Peter Magowan and Larry Baer right at the top of the list. Frightening, isn't it? Not that A-Rod wouldn't be a fantastic regular-season show, or a manner to prolong the type of attending required to do those stadium-debt payments. He's everything Magowan and Baer ever wanted, in their marketing-obsessed philosophy, and they apparently have got the means.

Still, the Giants have got got been buffaloed once by Boras - just last year, with the obscene Barry Zito contract - and they have to give at least some idea to winning. A-Rod makes nil to acquire the Giants out of last place, largely because in that bad lineup, he could interrupt Bonds' records for deliberate walks. The Giants demand respective players, not merely one. They necessitate to reconstruct a logical wage construction and do certain they have got enough money to maintain Tim Lincecum, Flatness Cain and other hereafter prospects (if they exist) in a Giants uniform. More than anything, why would A-Rod mark with a second-rate club in a pitchers' ballpark?

Angels: It do a batch of sense from a baseball game standpoint. The Angels demand a powerfulness hitter, the third-base job is broad open, A-Rod would do them a lock to win the aluminum Occident (perhaps for respective old age running), and he could go on agonizing the American League hurlers he cognizes so well. Boras is based in Newport Beach, and there was an uncorroborated study this hebdomad that Rodriguez have purchased a place in Orange County.

The whole idea, though, travels against the doctrine of proprietor Arte Moreno. He's not wild about paying person twice as much as the epic Vladimir Guerrero. Moreno doesn't desire to upset Commissioner Bud Selig, ferocious over the prospect of Boras once again destroying the game's wage construction (and, as a result, raising ticket terms for the paying customers). Moreno should take a speedy opinion poll of director Microphone Scioscia and his players. If they're game, A-Rod is deserving the gamble.

Dodgers: In a bowl full of short-order cooks who claim to be screenwriters, the not-quite-real Rodriguez would be perfect in L.A. The Dodgers could utilize a hammer in their promotion competitions with the Angels. But it's hard to conceive of cost-conscious owner Frank McCourt wall hanging out too long in the bidding, and if Joe Torre goes the manager, as rumored, he'd just as soon iron out out a serious clubhouse rift without A-Rod's presence. As the Yankees' manager, Torre knew enough of Rodriguez to chiropteran him 8th (against Detroit) in a postseason game.

Mets: They were a aggregation of A-Rods down feather the stretch this year, choking their manner right out of the playoffs. Surely, he's a alluring presence, and direction have the finances, but the Mets demand an extract of young person and character, not a possible headache. It also would be brainsick to travel either Saint David Willard Huntington Wright or Jose Reyes - bases of the franchise - off the left side of the infield.

White Sox: Cipher musca volitans a bogus more than than quickly, or with more venom, than director Ozzie Guillen. General director Kenny William Carlos Williams also went on record as saying the White Person Sox can't afford A-Rod.

Cubs: Picture this: Mark Cuban lives out a dreaming by buying the Cubs - a desire he made quite public in recent months. He draws the gun trigger on A-Rod, World Health Organization plays shortstop for his favourite manager, Lou Piniella, with pillar Aramis Ramirez retention down third. It's a nice fantasy, but it won't happen. The Cubs are for sale, new ownership might not be in topographic point until spring, and as a friend and intimate of White Person Sox proprietor Kraut Reinsdorf, Selig doesn't desire some ace billionaire running the crosstown Cubs. Pathetic, but true.

Tigers: They have got dealt with controversial Boras clients before - Pudge Rodriguez, Magglio Ordoñez, Kenny Will Rogers - and made it work. On the field, director Jim Leyland can do just about anything work. With Edgar Renteria pickings the shortstop job, A-Rod would replace Brandon William Ralph Inge at third. Sounds feasible, but A-Rod might be turned off by broad Comerica Park - and the Tigers aren't wild about such as a drastic turbulence in their wage structure.

Red Sox: They wanted him badly in December 2003, when the players' labor union rejected an agreed-upon deal with the Rangers, but they don't necessitate him now. They necessitate to re-sign 3rd baseman Microphone Lowell, most valuable player of the World Series and a possible free agent, and lodge with a roll that expressions to be a human dynamo for old age to come. The Hub Of The Universe fans don't desire A-Rod, nor make many of the players, who have got fought, feuded with or criticized him in the past.

Look at it this way: The season after their A-Rod trade drop through, the Red Sox won it all. Now they have got two statute titles in four years. The message couldn't be more than clear.

E-mail David Bruce Jenkins at .