Late last night, the Brewers and Yankees resumed their earlier trade talks for Mike Cameron. If you’ll recall, the Brewers were reportedly hesitant to trade Cameron because he was a FOCC (Friend of CC). Now that CC is gone, Milwaukee is again looking for a deal.

In November, word was that the Brewers were looking at Melky Cabrera and Ian Kennedy. In this round of talks, it appeared all but certain that a Cabrera-for-Cameron deal would happen, conveniently sending CC’s buddy to NY along with the ace. But then another report surfaced that the Yanks wanted Bill Hall, too — another FOCC — and and the Brewers again suggested they receive some pitching, with the quality of said pitching influencing whether the Brewers would pay any of Cameron’s salary.

So then what happened? Well, according to Ken Rosenthal, the deal ground to a standstill when New York and Milwaukee couldn’t agree how much of Cameron’s salary Milwaukee would pay. Now, if you’re the Brewers and you’re trading Cameron and Hall in large part to dump payroll, isn’t it irksome to be asked to keep paying their salaries, even in part? And if your trading partner is the Yankees — who, if you’ll recall, just snagged the Brewers’ most coveted offseason target by offering him about $60MM more than the Brewers could afford — isn’t it a little bit insulting, too? “You really need to defray the cost of Cameron’s 10 mil salary, guys, because we just gave 161 mil to CC. Oh, and we’re trying to sign Burnett, Lowe, and Teixeira, too. I mean, our hands are really tied here. This recession is just killing us.”

But here’s the real punchline: the pitcher New York suggested? Kei Igawa.

Yowza.

Now that CC Sabathia has signed, the competition for AJ Burnett is heating up. Burnett has said previously that he wants to be within driving distance of his house near Baltimore. This week we’ve learned that the Red Sox had extensive talks with the hurler and his agent, that the Braves remain in hot pursuit (and have reportedly offered in the neighborhood of 5 years, $80MM), and that the Yankees are making a concerted push as well (Thursday update: reportedly offering $85MM, five years). Ken Rosenthal has named the Cardinals as another interested team, and the Phillies are rumored to be in the mix too (Thursday update: via MLBTR, the AJC says Larry “Chipper” Jones talked to Burnett and the only NL team he would be interested in is Atlanta). The Jays have not been officially eliminated, but they are not expected to meet AJ’s asking price. (Um, ultimate update: Burnett signed with New York. He is condemned to one of the worst commutes ever!)

Our question for this afternoon: how far would AJ’s commute be from these six teams? Let’s look in the order of his likelihood of signing with each team, as we know it today:

Atlanta: 11 hours, 4 minutes

Atlanta is rumored to be pushing extremely hard for Burnett. But at first blush, that 11-hour drive is a doozy. Fortunately, this drive is (or can be) reasonably scenic. Though Google Maps wants to route AJ through Richmond on The Dread 95, it’s not that much longer just to take scenic state highway 29 through Virginia (through Danville and Charlottesville, skirting the Shenandoah Valley and the Monongahela National Forest). G-Maps puts that route just 19 minutes longer at 11 hours, 23 minutes. In fact, the scenic route may even be the quicker route if there’s nasty traffic on 95. And if AJ’s really got some extra time, there’s always the gorgeous Blue Ridge Parkway.

Score: 6 out of 10. What this route lacks in brevity, it makes up for in beauty. And if you take 29, you don’t have to worry about traffic. Plus, there almost no tolls at all — maybe one when you get to DC.

New York: 3 hours, 18 minutes

New York’s goal heading into the offseason was to score two of the these three free agent starting pitchers: Sabathia (check), Burnett, and Derek Lowe. They’re also supposedly kicking the tires on Manny Ramirez. (Clearly, there are no financial restrictions after an embarrassing season in which they failed to make the playoffs.) Anyway, in terms of commuting distance, NY-to-Baltimore is one of AJ’s shorter options. However, I’m hard-pressed to think of a more depressing drive than this. First, this drive takes you through the rusty heart of New Jersey — a dreary drive even on the cheeriest of days. Driving through New Jersey not only presents you with a bleak landscape to look at, you’re not even allowed to pump your own gas at the rest stops on the turnpike. And traffic? The whole state is a giant traffic jam. Throw in the getting-out-of-New York traffic, the getting-past-Philadelphia-traffic, and another nice little jam outside of Baltimore, and you’re looking at soul-sucking gridlock almost the entire way. Oh, and tolls. Lots and lots of tolls. Especially in Delaware. Ugh.

And I’m not even going to mention New Jersey State Troopers.

Score: 3 out of 10. This drive may look short as the crow flies, but what you save in miles you will pay dearly in soul.

Boston: 7 hours, 0 minutes

This is essentially the same drive as above, only with all the mind-numbing hours of Connecticut thrown in. Again, G-Maps wants AJ to take 95, but again, it makes more sense not to. If AJ sticks to the parkways (Route 15, essentially), he can skip a lot of traffic and construction, avoid having to deal with any trucks and buses, and enjoy some leafy scenery and beautiful 1930s bridges to boot. But he’ll have to deal with even more tolls in MA and CT.

Score: 2 of 7. A seven-hour drive in the best of circs, and AJ still has to tackle the soul-sucking NY-to-Baltimore leg of the journey.

Philadelphia: 1 hour, 53 minutes

Jackpot! This isn’t even a two-hour drive. Though the Phillies are rumored to be more interested in Derek Lowe, if they do make a run at Burnett, they can use this quick cruise as a selling point. Though G-Maps again wants Burnett to put up with the Delaware tolls, he can easily circumvent them by taking Route 1 through bucolic suburban Pennsylvania instead. Yes, it will increase his drive time by about half an hour (assuming he doesn’t run into traffic on The Dread 95, which is not an assumption I would ever make), but when you’re only talking about a 2 hour 20 minute drive, max, what difference does it make?

Score: 9 of 10. Hop, skip, and a jump.

St. Louis: 13 hours, 14 minutes

Deadly. While the St. Louis-to-Indianapolis stretch is hardly the decaying sprawl that is the New Jersey turnpike, it’s not even close to the rural beauty of Virginia. Plainly put, this is a boring drive. And because of the length involved — this is, by a couple of hours, AJ’s longest commute — you don’t really want to start taking scenic detours here or there. Now, once he gets into Pennsylvania he can choose between reasonably scenic I-68/Route 40 or not unpleasant I-70/I-76. But of course, by then, he’ll be totally fried. In my experience, once you hit that 12-hour mark, the drive stops being a fun adventure and just becomes a slog. This is basically your old-fashioned put-the-pedal-down-and-make-some-time ass-haul. Also, Columbus is ugly.

Score: 1 out of 10.

Toronto: 8 hours, 19 minutes

The Jays are not expected to be able to re-sign Burnett, but let’s consider the commute AJ has now, just for the sake of completeness. Though facing this drive is likely one of the reasons that AJ has stated his preference for a team closer to home, this is actually one of the pleasanter options on the table right now. Shorter than the commutes from Atlanta and St. Louis according to G-Maps, this is likely even shorter than the drive from Boston, for the simple reason that you don’t have to find a way around New York City. Indeed, after Buffalo, the only major city you pass through is Harrisburg. Certainly, Harrisburg is a depressing husk of post-industrial American urbana, but no one would hold a gun to AJ’s head and make him pull off the highway there. And the rest of the trip really isn’t too shabby — in fact, I would imagine this is a pretty interesting drive. (I’ve been through NY and PA pretty extensively, but I’ve never gone the North-South route, come to think of it….maybe I’ll try this drive!)

Score: 5 of 10. Not great, but not terrible either.

Now, assuming he’s going to get a pile of money no matter where he signs…

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The deal is done. CC is a Yankee.

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Yep, we’re pretty much all sat around today checking on the latest CC Sabathia rumors. Here are all the rumors that mlbtraderumors.com missed (as always, the latest rumors are higher up):

10:40 pm: Ned Colletti has just been found in the MGM Grand, wearing clown shoes. There’s no sign of the gun or of Brian Sabean.

10:37 pm: Bud Selig has opened an investigation into the fruit basket issue and is expected to make a public statement shortly.

10:31 pm: Joel Sherman confirms it: a trace on the phone line shows that the order for the fruit basket was placed from New York’s 212 area code.

10:26 pm: Graziano contacted the woman at the fruit basket delivery service and she said the voice on the phone had a heavy New York accent.

10:21 pm: A second fruit basket has just been delivered to CC’s room, again from the Brewers, according to Abraham.

9:13 pm: According to the AP, Ned Colletti has just been seen running through the hotel’s lobby laughing uncontrollably, waving a pistol, and chasing Brian Sabean.

8:03 pm: George King reports that the Yankees have reportedly replaced The Wynn’s 100% Egyptian cotton 310 thread count sheets with a pinstriped, 600 thread count set.

7:45 pm: Bill Shaikin says the Giants are still in the running. To sweeten their offer, they’ve proposed an opt-out after three years and unlimited use of a personal assistant, Barrie Zeeto (sp?).

6:22 pm: Peter Abraham learned from unnamed Wynn staff that CC “hated the fruit basket [the Brewers sent] and thought it was a hint about his weight problem.”

5:05 pm: Could the Dodgers be involved? Ned Colletti has told reporters that he and CC go “way back” and that the lefty “has always revered Jeff Kent.” He wants to set up a meeting with Sabathia and Genske and said he plans to bring Andruw Jones.

4:17 pm: According to Peter Gammons, Whitey Ford was not happy to be included on the field trip to CC’s suite at The Wynn. The meeting almost came to an abrupt halt when Ford snapped and tried to spew tobacco juice into CC’s bath bubbles. An anonymous GM not known to be in the chase for Sabathia estimated it could cost owner George Steinbrenner as much as another $10MM.

2:28 pm: The Brewers aren’t going quietly. According to Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Doug Melvin has sent CC an elaborate fruit basket. But will it be enough?

11:42 am: Quoting “rival agents,” Ken Rosenthal reports speculation that Genske is being tailed by street toughs hired by the Players Association, which wants CC to take New York’s record $140MM $161MM offer.

10:07 am: Buster Olney warns to take this for what it’s worth, but his source said that as the meeting wound down, Girardi drew a bath for Sabathia while Berra massaged the ace’s feet. Sabathia also allegedly prefers bubbles to bath salts.

8:12 am: Breakfast for nine just delivered to CC’s suite, says Joel Sherman. According to his source, it will be Sabathia, his lead agent Greg Genske, Cashman, Joe Girardi, Reggie Jackson, Derek Jeter, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, and Madonna. Privately, the source says, CC would prefer Sharon Stone.

4:57 am: Dan Graziano says it’s not two people embracing. It’s just CC standing by the window alone. (He’s kind of a big guy.) I think we can infer from his sleeplessness that a decision isn’t coming soon.

4:55 am: George King of the New York Post writes that he can see CC Sabathia’s light on through the drapery at The Wynn. He sees a huge shadow moving inside — it looks like at least two people embracing. Could one of them be Brian Cashman?