Read All About It

The two big stories in all the papers are Nomar's health and Sammy's psyche. Greg Couch has the best summary of the Sosa situation. Couch is dead on when he says that you don't go out of your way to show Sosa to be a liar and a quitter, then welcome him back. It's clear that the Tribune, in trying to get the fans acceptance of a trade of Sosa, overplayed their hand. Smart fans would have bought into trading Sosa, regardless of what security cameras showed.

The better part of the article is the part on Dusty Baker. I'm sure a psychologist could tell me what to call this, but it's clearly some sort of defense mechanism:

If Sosa didn't take the initiative to call the Cubs, shouldn't they have been big enough to call him?

"What for?" Baker said.

To work out your problems.

"I didn't know we had a problem."

You didn't know you had a problem with Sosa?

"What did I just say? I'm not a liar. Didn't you ever ask your wife what was wrong, and she said, 'Nothing.' And then you find out weeks later that she was upset because you didn't give her a spoon or something?"

Later, Baker brought up my conversation with him to a group of reporters, saying he meant he didn't know there was a problem with Sosa the day he walked out.

On to Nomar. All you need to know from all the reports is that he says his wrist, achillies and groin are all healthy. I'll buy that when I see him play every game during the first two weeks in April. Oh, and he won't be at the Cubs Convention.

That makes two of us.

The Daily Herald reports that Jimmy Anderson will be a non-roster invitee to spring training. Uno's pizza stands at the ready.