Little more baseball

• The Yankees just hired Tony Pena to be their first base coach, making Pena a member of my All-Begrudgingly Like Team (players and coaches I like despite being on teams I hate). Torre now has three former MLB managers on their coaching staff (Pena, Bowa, and Mazzilli), and I don't think they've hired a pitching coach yet (Joe Kerrigan would make four).
• Something stupid I always hear in the Manny trade talks: "the players they'd be getting are equal to the value of Manny." In other words, Erstad has about 10 home runs and Glaus has 37 home runs so that's equal to Manny's 47 home runs! That comparison only works if the Sox are forced to leave one position vacant as Manny plays left field. Manny puts up the same production numbers of Erstad and Glaus and there will be another player putting up about 20 home runs and 80 RBI. In other words, the Sox are better by not making the trade.
  
• Let's try the equal value logic in other scenarios. In the 90's the Bulls should have traded Michel Jordan to the Celtics for Todd Day, Rick Fox, and Greg Minor because combined those three averaged about the same amount of points as Jordan.
• One more for Bryan, the college student: If you go home with a 50 in one class and a 45 in another class, just tell your parents that you traded away an A in one class for those two grades because combined the values were equal.