It wasn’t enough that we all had to be dragged through the Miguel Tejada ordeal by ESPN (yes, fine, big deal; but why make a spectacle out of it?), the Mother Ship from Bristol has decided to criss-cross the Caribbean from the sunny beaches of the Dominican Republic to the northern coast of Colombia to bring us the apparent bad blood between its two most prominent baseball players, Orlando Cabrera and Edgar Rentería.

According to an upcoming report in ESPN The Magazine (and published today at espn.com), there is rising animosity between the two shortstops originating in a business deal gone bad related to Colombian professional baseball, Cabrera and Rentería’s family.

To make a long story short, Cabrera bought the Cartagena franchise “Los Indios” last year from Rentería’s family business, Team Renteria (who runs the professional league down there) only to sell it right back after the short one-month season. Cabrera claims he’s owed money in from his cut of ticket sales, advertising and TV deals. Rentería alleges Cabrera bought the franchise only to run it into the ground out of what Rentería considers spite and jealousy; what’s more, he is saying:

“I won’t accept dealing with him. I think he’s disrespected so many baseball people in Colombia who have been working to improve the sport. And that’s not something I can accept, even with an apology from him.”

And…

“He wanted to buy one team so he could wreck everything that’s been done with the league,” Edgar says. “I think he did it out of malice. You should ask him what he has against the Renterías. For several years, people have told me that he’s jealous of me. People have always known me more in Colombia than him, and I think that bothers him.”

There are a couple of things that surprise me about this story; one of which isn’t ESPN’s gullibility in believing there is a story here. Just like in the Tejada case, they found a fissure and wedged their press pass deep enough to create a gaping void. Again, there may have been journalistic recency to the Tejada story, but ESPN was marketing the thing like it was a heavyweight title fight. And in this case, just as the White Sox are playing the Yankees in prime-time, and as Orlando Cabrera is at the plate, the TV anchors point to the story as it’s being published on ESPN’s website. What? Does ESPN get the final say in what’s news?

But again, that doesn’t surprise me.

What does surprise me is Rentería’s handling of this situation. In Colombia, baseball is an afterthought; it’s like Lacrosse, you know it’s there, but you think only college kids are playing it every now and then. The exception to the rule is Rentería’s name. Just like ESPN correctly points out, he became a celebrity after his game-winning hit in the ‘97 World Series. Hell, I was watching the game on public access TV in Colombia – There were three public channels back then. Unlike Rentería, Cabrera is lesser known, and that I dare say is a direct result of Rentería’s fame (and quite literally, Rentería was scouted by Cabrera’s father, who also gave the Expo’s Orlando’s older brother, Jolbert, before Cabrera himself made it to the big leagues).

Colombia’s major and most important daily, El Tiempo, relishes in Rentería’s success. Their coverage of Rentería’s career seems to imply that he is Colombian baseball. Check that, Rentería is Colombian baseball. If Rentería has a bad night, it’s news, if he hits a home run, it’s news. Ironically, just tonight as ESPN published their story, Rentería’s line at the plate sat under the “Grandes Ligas” headline (Major Leagues) on El Tiempo’s website (ironic also that El Tiempo was caught with their pants down, and in haste, after the embarrassment of being scooped, they decided to buy the story from ESPN and run a word-for-word translation).

Cabrera does gets some coverage, as he’s made a name of himself, mainly due to his leadership and gamer attitude. And he’s always mentioned every year when the Colombian media select the sportsman’ of the year. But make no mistake, ask any Colombian to name a ball player, and Rentería will be the overwhelming response.

So what does all this have to do with this squabble over the $25,000 Cabrera invested (keep in mind these two players make millions)? Nothing! And that’s why there’s no story here. ESPN makes it seem like because there just happens to be two Colombian ball players in the league, it’s news that there is some tension where one would assume would exist cordiality and friendship. What? Do all players from Hawaii have to get along? Canadians?

I don’t blame ESPN; the New York Times had a similar piece during the 2004 World Series (theirs was of the positive spin kind) that still commodified the difference these two ball players represent. And it’s a natural thing for the MSM to take a “cultural” angle to any story and run with it; but ESPN took it to the gutter.

Even after reading ESPN’s masturbatory story “Behind the story”, it’s still not clear to me how the reporter “discovered” it, or why it’s relevant to us. In fact, Team Rentería’s communication director, Fabio Poveda Ruiz, published an open letter on its website, criticizing the writer behind the story, Jorge Arangure, for various factual inaccuracies, and for relying on stereotypical descriptions of life in Colombia.

What is really sad, however, is Rentería’s handling of the situation. This is a personal matter between his family and his family’s business and Cabrera. It’s no secret that Rentería has had issues with being in the spotlight (main reason he got shipped out from Boston), but he didn’t have a choice in becoming the face of Colombian baseball, he simply was ordained by the nature of Colombian sports and sports journalism where idolatry supplants true, good-hearted sport fanaticism. In fact, it was because of his prominence amongst Colombians that I was able to land an interview with him for a magazine I work for here in Atlanta that caters to the Colombian community – instead of being open to the opportunity to engage, he asked me to get it over with quick after he took batting practice.

At the time I figured, hey, we’re a small magazine, I should appreciate any second I get. But it’s clear now; like many prominent Colombian sports figures, fame and fortune get to their head to a point where they forget what their role is. In this case, Rentería fell for the oldest trick in a reporter’s notebook. By speaking publicly about his problems with Cabrera, he dragged his fellow country man through the mud; Rentería says Cabrera is giving Colombian baseball a bad name, but what’s clear to me is that not even Yamid Haad, the next best Colombian prospect, who was suspended for using steroids, did as much damage as this “story” will.

For those of you familiar with twitter, you know of its addictive properties, and for those of you who don’t know what the hell it is, imagine being able to tell the world that you’re about to sit on the can and… ok, bad example.

The best thing I can compare it to is to Facebook’s “status” option, or AIM’s and gchat’s “away” message option. The difference being that instead of using a chat client or a social networking site, you’re actually “publishing” your status to a network dedicated solely to that end. Oh, and it’s convenient, you can send updates to your status from your mobile phone or IM service.

The point is not only to share your “status” with friends and other people, but to “follow” others as they update their accounts. And did I mention it’s convenient? If you want, you can simply subscribe to the RSS feed, or actually get a text message on your cell every time there’s an update. Fun, eh? Hey, I didn’t invent the Internet, so don’t ask me to explain.

Furthermore, before you go all judgmental on me, know this: Twitter can actually be a helpful tool. A number of mainstream media sites (NYTimes, NPR, CNN) are using it to push “breaking news” tidbits or links to interesting news stories and articles to the network.

Anyhoo, as you probably guessed by now, we created a profile for UmpBump on twitter, and every time we post a new blog entry, we’ll send out alerts to those of you following us there (it’s all thanks to Mr. Alex King and his twitter tools plugin for Wordpress - if you self publish on WP, his plugins are essential, check them out).

So that’s that, we’re following a number of people who came up in the search results when we entered “baseball” but hit us up on twitter if you’re using the thing so we can follow you as well. Let us know what you think what other things we can use it for in the comments.

As some of you may know, I tend to cover most of the technological news that come out of the MLB offices, and some of you may remember our coverage of the failed DirecTV-Extra Innings exclusive deal.

Many saw the deal as a greedy money-grab since it would shut-out a good chunk of baseball fans that had paid a hefty price to subscribe to the Extra Innings package via their Cable and Dish services. Back then, the argument put forth by MLB Advance Media was in the form of MLB.TV, an online-relative to the Extra Innings package, which was supposed to serve as a substitute.

What MLB didn’t realize was that, though the service worked, at $89, it was an expensive indulgence that delivered sub par quality that still managed to shun fans that didn’t want to watch baseball on their laptops, or couldn’t due to the need for broadband internet access.

Enter 2008. With more people going online at faster speeds, TV on the web has exploded, and with a few years under its belt, MLB’s online experience is finally coming around to becoming the alternative Bud Selig and his new media henchmen wanted to ram down our throats last year. And they’ve got the numbers to prove it, 1.7 million live streams on Opening Day, to be exact.

The biggest difference this year is the software the system uses to stream the games. Microsoft’s Silverlight is a newcomer to the web, but it proves as a credible competitor to Adobe’s Flash system. The user interface behaves much like Apple’s newest incarnation of OS X or Windows Vista in the sense that there are fancy screens that shrink in size as you navigate from one panel to the next, without having to refresh the page or interrupt the broadcast. And it works well on both Macs and PCs.

The transition from broadcast to commercials is still choppy (the service blocks out ads by placing a generic graphic) and during one game, they forgot to flip the switch as the graphic was stuck for a good 15-20 minutes, or about one and a half innings.

Another significant difference is the fact that you can now watch FOX Saturday baseball games that are not scheduled for your area. As some of you know, FOX has the right to broadcast the “Game of the week” except that FOX sliced the broadcast by region, showing “games” of the week instead.

I’m not an expert on TV deals, but I’m guessing something in the language of the contract prevented MLB.TV from broadcasting any FOX Saturday games, forcing me to watch the Braves or Marlins (National League, and I live in Atlanta) when I wanted to watch White Sox - Cubs.

Now, however, it seems the language changed in favor of allowing out-of-market FOX “Game of the Week” games on MLB.TV (the language on the press release simply reads, “All 2,430 out-of-market games in the regular season will be available live on both MLB.TV and MLB.TV Premium.”) And what’s more, because of the source of the TV streams, we don’t get to listen to or watch the broadcast signal coming from the studios. Yes, that’s right, no Jeanne Zealsko!

–

Edit: As Nick points out in the comments, this is not entirely true. Saturday games will be available on mlb.tv up until May 17th, which is when FOX’s exclusivity clause kicks in, and thus, the games are blacked out.

From mlb.tv’s homepage: • National Live Blackout (Regular Season): Due to Major League Baseball national exclusivities, each Saturday until 7:00 PM EST (beginning May 17, 2008 and continuing for remaining Saturdays during the regular season) and each Sunday night (for games that begin after 5:00 PM EST), all scheduled webcasts of games played within such time period will be blacked out.  –

And what’s so premium about this already posh luxury? Well, like last year, there are two tiers of service, regular and premium. For $89.95 a year you get access to a 400k stream, which is typical good quality web video. But this year, if you pony up $119,95, you get a choice of 800k streams, or 1.2 Mb “NextDef,” “TV quality” streams (either way, you get access to MLB Game Day audio for all games).

Don’t get too excited, though, even though the stream is bigger, and the quality is greater, it isn’t really the same as watching the game on a TV.

Of course, all this could be moot if the cable industry gets away with killing net neutrality (and screwing us all over), but for now, it works, and it gets a nod from me.

Update below

Some time last year, during the first few weeks of the season, I marveled at the White Sox rotation and their strong start. At first, I figured it was the natural course of things, this very rotation had been the cornerstone for the White Sox World Championship in 2005. But then I realized a common trend with the starters, something that helped me piece the puzzle of the natural mystique of UFH.

Fast-forward one year and with four games, and a 2-2 record, the White Sox pitching staff have once again defied the boundaries of what is UFH. On this occasion however, it isn’t the starters, it’s the relievers.

The UmpBump staffers jumped at the sight of one Boone Logan and quickly inquired as to why I hadn’t exposed this culprit of UFHness; but as I told them, Logan was always on a sea-saw between the minors and the big leagues, so though I knew he was an arm in the ChiSox pen, I rarely saw him pitch.

But then, I saw it.

At first, Logan’s chin-fro comes across as some kind of weird rite of passage he’s imposed on himself now that he’s a full-time major leaguer (this is how he looks in his official MLB headshot), and I shrugged it off as a typical violation of UFH section (3) code (2): Chin hair cannot, under any circumstance, exceed 1 (one) inch in length.

But then, as I saw Bobby Jenks notch his first two saves of the season, I became convinced there is a UFH conspiracy in the White Sox relief corps.

It’s obvious there’s some kind of hierarchy at work here. Jenks being the closer, he gets to sport the golden chin-fro, and Logan being the noob only gets the traditional job. So far, I haven’t been witness to any other White Sox relievers committing this UFH crime, but rest assured, I’ll hunt them down if they do.

Update: Trusty loyal reader melissa pointed out int he comments that one Nick Swisher has also been spotted sporting golden chin hairs, and now we have the evidence. It appears Swisher first committed a minor UFH offense by simply gilding his soul patch, but evidently, he couldn’t keep himself from indulging in complete UFH debauchery.

Behold:

We must put a stop to these hideous UFH crimes!

During yesterday’s broadcast of the Indian’s home-opener, the two announcers went back and forth as to how much work the ground’s crew had in their hands a few days ago due to a snow storm that had blanketed the city (and the Prog’s field), and what great work it had done to get the field ready for the game (a situation very similar to last year’s opening day).

Being April fool’s day, and in what continues to be a trend of lazy journalists having to readjust their careers*, the Cleveland Plain Dealer decided to have some fun with the inclement weather, posting a flash-based video game on their website.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but this is the first second iteration known to UmpBump (see comments) of a video game designed and created by for a newspaper, and it sure signals what could become a new source of revenue as the newspaper industry struggles down its path into oblivion.

The graphics are pretty rudimentary, the skill needed to play is on par with your ability to click through pictures of lolcats, and the fun factor isn’t that much more than having to wait out a rain delay watching America’s Funniest Videos reruns from the mid 90s, but you have to give the Plain Dealer some points for scoring the front page of reddit.com (albeit, for the crappyness of the game – the headline is “Quite possibly, the worst flash game ever”).

So there you have it folks, the role of your local newspaper isn’t that to inform but to entertain. Whodda thunk it.

*This, of course, isn’t corroborated, but it’d be pretty funny and ironic if the flash designer for the game were a converted journo.

Edit: So it’s not the first, see comments.

I’m not one to pick a fight. Whenever the editor of a newspaper for which I don’t work for comes over to my cubicle screaming obscenities as to why the Internet is jacked up, I look down, blush red in anger, and bite my lip.

Loyal UmpBump readers know that I rarely have a bone to pick with anyone (well, except Jay Mariotti, but who doesn’t?!)

But this morning, as I unfolded the sports section of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution I came across a column by one Furman Bisher, a pundit I’d never heard of in my life. And his column, “Sayonara, baseball tradition” though eloquent, rich in historical facts, embellished with romantic longing for yesteryear, came across as outstandingly ignorant and scandalous.

Now, as I said, I’d never heard of Bisher, so I brushed up on his bio just to know who I was dealing with, and it’s more than evident that he’s an eminence and he’s earned his place among accomplished sports journalists.

But passages like this have finally broken my impression of printed dates preceded by the number 19 as current or modern; and clearly, like Bisher, those dates belong in the 20th century, and not in the opinion pages of any publication:

Well, not any longer. Money can change any habit. Eight springs ago the Mets and Cubs opened the season, not in Cincinnati. Guess where? Tokyo. That Tokyo, the guys who gave us Pearl Harbor. Some people don’t like you to bring that up, trade with Japan is so hot. But I’ve got a long memory. I saw what a few bombs can do to our property.

Oh, well, ‘scuse me. It’s just tough to get away from it when you turn on your TV in the morning there are the Boston Red Sox playing the Oakland A’s in the Tokyo Dome. Not only that, but the Red Sox pitcher is Daisuke Matsuzaka, who didn’t grow up in Wampole.

I have no problem with Furman waxing nostalgic about Red Stockings and how every season was opened in Cincinnati; yes, tradition is something we all long for and have a hard time breaking off. But when you go from Cubs-Mets in Tokyo, to the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor, to Daisuke and Opening Day ‘08, it’s time to ignore the senile old man and let him sit in his chair, drinking his sweet tea.

Except, of course, he’s not sitting idly reminiscing on his better days. He’s in the opinion pages of both a major daily and its website!

Bah, who am I kidding. This is the AJC, and this is Georgia, where it’s still illegal to buy beer on Sunday. Too bad old man Bisher doesn’t realize that, much like him, some traditions, for better or worse, will simply not go away.

Baseball is here. Yes, I know it’s March, and most of you are thinking brackets and basketball, but that didn’t stop Selig and his henchmen from orchestrating a third consecutive opening day in Japan. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, mind you; but it is kinda odd to wake up, turn on the TV, and see Keith Foulke striking out Manny Ramirez to end the 8th. Keith Foulke?! Wha? Ricoh? Am I still awake? Moss who?

So anyway, now that the new major league baseball season is underway, I think it appropriate to compile all the bonus material we have been working in preparation for 2008 here at UmpBump.

Obviously, it wouldn’t be 2008 without some hot off season action. So make your way to our easy-to-digest breakdown of every single major-league club’s offseason strategy.

But don’t forget to check out our “what they still need” features; who knows, some of those teams might still need some of that hocus pocus (yes, Royals fans, keep drinking that Kool-Aid).

For those of you scoring at home, 2008 can be the year of many a milestone. Will Griffey, Jr. reach 600 homers? Will Randy Johnson notch his 300th win? Will Johnny Damon leg-out his 100th triple?

And last but not least, don’t forget to keep up with our Fantasy League. We’ll keep you up with most major transactions. And with all the knowledge we spew everyday and everything, it should be interesting.

(Psst, and don’t forget to be in the look out for these)

What’s that you say? Who are we to judge? Let ‘er rip in the comments!

As it stands, the White Sox starting outfield has Nick Swisher penciled in left, Jermaine Dye in right, and rookie Jerry Owens in center field. Two of those slots are locks, while one is the variable that has given Sox management headaches the past three offseasons.

Brian Anderson (above left) used to be the next center fielder for the ChiSox, but he lost the job after a full season of offensive inconsistencies in 2006. While GM Kenny Williams tried to fill the CF void with a veteran presence last year, and after being snubbed by the free agent market this year, Owens has been the leading candidate to take the starting center field job in 2008 mainly due to his qualities as a lead-off hitter. Plus he’s put on 10 pounds of muscle this offseason, and his attitude has reassured the Sox about having him patrol center.

But a slight tweak in his groin, as well as newcomer Carlos Quentin’s persistent soreness in his surgically repaired shoulder, has given Anderson a second chance at regaining what was once his.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Anderson has been on a tear:

Not only is Anderson batting .381 in the Cactus League, he leads the Sox in home runs (3) and on-base percentage (.480), and he also has played the best defense of any outfielder.

Based solely on performance, Anderson deserves a spot on the White Sox’ 25-man roster, maybe even as a starter.

Too bad this resurgence comes two years too late. Both manager Ozzie Guillen and Williams expect Owens to be the starting Center Fielder, but Anderson is making them think real hard about their expectations.

“The first spring we gave the job to him and he didn’t take advantage of it,” Guillen said in recounting the past. “I think this year he’s making big, big strides. He’s making a lot of people open their eyes.

“That’s what we expected from him the last three years.”

[…]

“Anyone can have a good week,” said White Sox hitting coach Greg Walker of Anderson. “We need someone to have a good year.

“During the past week, this is the best I’ve seen BA. But he has to maintain it. We are looking for consistency.”

UmpBump readers know that center field has been a weak spot for the Sox; more so due to the negative impact on the lineup while Williams has tried to find a suitable candidate. So it’s an intriguing dilemma that Anderson, a player highly touted for his defense, but that fell short with his bat when given the role, is making a push with his offensive numbers to get the job one more time.

It’d be interesting to see if Anderson makes the 25-man roster as a backup to Owens, or as a starter. The thing is, Owens fits with what Guillen wants to do this season and it would take more than Owens’ groin to make Ozzie change his mind about center field.

And yet, with a little less than two weeks before the regular season, it’s all in Anderson’s hands to make that happen. So far, he’s on pace to give the Sox a tough time finalizing the outfield.

This is one in a series of posts in which we denigrate each team for their flummoxing offseason gaffes, or flatter them for their perspicacious pre-season tactics.

Over the last 20 years, baseball has seen only two teams repeat as World Series champions. The 1992-1993 Toronto Blue Jays, and the mighty New York Yankees of the late 90s. Both of these franchises ensured their return to the promised land by assembling a powerful line-up complimented with pitching and defense. But although that’s the goal for every single team every offseason, so few World Series winners have been able to replicate their success the following year.

So what does it say when a team that missed going to the World Series by a single game, effectively decides to play it safe and field 99% of the same team it fielded the year before? That’s like earning a big fat bonus at the end of the year, only to pad your mattress with it, and that’s exactly what the 2008 Cleveland Indians have done.

Back in January, when we here at UmpBump were contemplating what each team still needed in order to make this offseason a productive one, I was at a loss. The Indiands had barely made any moves in the transaction list, signing Japanese reliever Masahide Kobayashi (no, not that Kobayashi, though you wonder what kind of impact it would have on the OPS), trading for infielder Jamey Carroll and signing Brendan Donnelly to a minor league deal.

And what has changed since? They’ve signed Jorge Julio to another minor league deal.

But who can blame the Indians for not making any significant moves? They certainly didn’t need an upgrade in their rotation, anchored by Cy-Young winner C.C. Sabathia, and featuring the break-out pitcher of 2007, Fausto Carmona. They have one of the most exicting players to watch, Grady Sizemore, patrolling center field; their catcher, Victor Martinez, led all catchers in Home Runs and RBI, and was second in most other offensive categories to Jorge Posada; they have promising young players like Franklin Gutierrez, and prospects like Shin-Soo Choo; and their designated hitter, the fearful Travis “Pronk” Hafner is returning after missing a big chunk of last year’s campaign due to injury.

Here’s what I had to say about the Indians’ bullpen last May, in a “what they need” post:

The only problem has been the bullpen; out of the seven relievers that have pitched more than 11 innings, only two have an ERA under 2.00, while the rest have a 3.10 or higher earned run average.

The Indians have to keep it consistent all season long and they’ll be right there when it’s all said and done. Considering the fact that they still have to play those make up games with Seattle, they might even have a better record than they do now.

Turns out, the Tribe did keep it consistent, and their relievers posted a collective 3.73 ERA, good for fourth in the American League.

So far, the team to take the headlines in the AL Central has been the Tigers, and rightly so. But the Indians were successful last year for playing a solid brand of baseball: strong, productive lineup, excellent pitching, good enough relief, and good defense. The Tigers on the other hand, have not solidified their bullpen - something which may eventually haunt them down the stretch (and let’s not worry about the Twins or the White Sox just yet, they have to be close at the All Star break before we can even begin to consider them contenders).

So sure, if Mark Shapiro was inclined to make some moves before the season got going, he opted to solidify what at some point last year seemed like a weak spot, the bullpen. But glancing over what the Indians did last year, and what they could ostensibly do this year (with a healthy Travis Hafner, I can’t stress that enough), one has to wonder if Shapiro’s decision to stay put is really the opening salvo of a new powerhouse in the American League.

Offseason grade: B-

Additions: Jamey Carroll, Brendan Donnelly, Jorge Julio, Masahide Kobayashi

Losses: Kenny Lofton

Projected lineup, rotation and closer:

CF - Grady Sizemore .277 .390 .462
2B - Asdrubal Cabrera .283 .354 .421
DH- Travis Hafner .266 .385 .451
C - Victor Martinez .301 .374 .505
1B - Ryan Garko .289 .359 .483
SS - Jhonny Peralta .270 .341 .430
3B - Casey Blake .270 .339 .437
RF - Franklin Gutierrez .266 .318 .472
LF - Jason Michaels .270 .324 .397

LH - C.C. Sabathia 19-7, 3.21 ERA
RH - Fausto Carmona 19-8, 3.06 ERA
RH - Paul Byrd 15-8, 4.59 ERA
RH - Jake Westbrook 6-9, 4.32 ERA
LH - Aaron Laffey 4-2, 4.56 ERA

CL Joe Borowski 45 SV, 5.07 ERA

The Indians are like that quiet kid in your class that’s always getting good grades, not A’s but solid B’s, that gets along great with everyone, and that once you’re out of college, you realize he’ll make it to the top because he knew what he was doing all along. Though, their inability to sign C.C. Sabathia long-term does make me wonder. CC’s contract talks have been shelved which cannot be good news (and that translates to the minus in B-). But who knows, maybe when Sabathia is feeling the ticker tape fall on his face come November, he’ll resign then?

-Hot Offseason Action Index-

According to Impacto Deportivo, Colon reached the deal after Ozzie visited the veteran hurler in his native Dominican Republic:

El dirigente Ozzie Guillén viajó a Santiago de los Caballeros a ver lanzar a Bartolo Colón.

Más tarde que nunca, ahora se verán los frutos.

Según supo este martes Impactodeportivo.com.do, Colón ha llegado a un acuerdo preliminar con los Medias Blancas.

Aka (my translation)

The manager Ozzy Gullen traveled to Santiago de los Caballeros to watch Colón pitch.

Better late than never, now we’ll see results.

Impactodeportivo.com.do has learned this Tuesday that Colón has reached a preliminary deal with los Medias Blancas.

The deal is pending Colon pass a physical.

So those of you familiar with our coverage of the Octavio Dotel deal a few weeks ago, know that we were, uhm, skeptical about the whole thing. In fact, Dotel’s agent had originally denied the thing, only for Ken Rosenthal to reveal that a “source” confirmed the deal.

So now, Impacto Deportivo once again brings the scoop and we can only assume its true.

Congratulations.

[ h/t South Side Sox ]

Um….just kidding. Wrong color Sox.