December 9, 2008
Day 2 at the Winter Meetings
UPDATE #1: Absurd as it may sound, Jayson Stark of ESPN is reporting that the Rays are "still talking to the Twins about a deal that would bring outfielder Delmon Young back." That seems crazy to me and many people I've talked to agree, but Stark is connected enough and working the Bellagio lobby hard enough that it's tough to dismiss his reports. He notes that any Young-to-Tampa Bay deal would likely be a three-team trade, speculating that the Rockies (and Garrett Atkins) would be the other piece.
UPDATE #2: After speaking to "a Rays official," Marc Lancaster of the Tampa Tribune writes that they were "mystified about ESPN's report of a potential three-way deal among the Rays, Rockies and Twins that would bring Delmon Young back to Tampa Bay." Sadly, I'm finding out that such is life here at the winter meetings. Report, denial. Report, denial. Eat lunch. Repeat as necessary.
UPDATE #3: Torii Hunter can still get the media to swoon. Hunter and Andre Agassi held a joint press conference in the media room to announce a college scholarship program, and afterward there were no fewer than two dozen reporters lobbing questions his way. It sounds like a very worthy cause, so it's good to see it receive media attention, but it was interesting to see given the room's general disinterest in similar, non-news press conferences (like the MLB Network thing yesterday).
UPDATE #4: Mike Lamb re-signed with the Brewers and Livan Hernandez signed with the Reds.
UPDATE #5: Each manager has a scheduled time to meet with the media over the course of this week and Ron Gardenhire is slated to hold his mini-press conference today at six o'clock Minnesota time. I should have some interesting tidbits shortly after that.
UPDATE #6: I just had quite an experience. First I sat in on Gardenhire's press conference, along with LaVelle E. Neal III, Phil Miller, Kelly Thesier, and a handful of national writers. Then, thanks to Miller being kind enough to get in touch with the Twins' public relations department on my behalf, I was able to join them (and Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports) in the Twins' team suite for a chat with Bill Smith (plus Gardenhire, Terry Ryan, and Mike Radcliff, who were also there).
Ryan was leaving as we were coming in, and after introducing myself he said, "Nice to meet you. I know all about you." Naturally I replied, "Really?!" He then essentially went through my entire resume, from the blog to Rotoworld, and finished by saying that I did good work. Now, that's paraphrasing, but in an effort to make sure that I'm not insane witnesses have confirmed the basic events. Smith revealed nothing, side-stepping every question, but the trip up the suite was still a very memorable experience.
Lots more later, I'm sure, but for now I've got to work on Rotoworld/NBCSports.com stuff and then grab some dinner. In the meantime, please check out my winter meetings blogging over at Rotoworld:
