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jblair@globeandmail.com

Paul Beeston has essentially told Bud Selig to take his $5-million (U.S.) and shove it.

The baseball commissioner made a habit of cutting the Toronto Blue Jays a cheque for currency equalization in recent years, which was also a way of buying the Blue Jays' support for various initiatives. It was one of those quid pro quo kinds of things - along with the favour of an All-Star Game - that Selig is famous for utilizing in order to keep owners in line.

But the Blue Jays will not likely "apply" for the money this year, sources say. That's because one of the ways the Blue Jays "earned" their currency equalization in recent years was by being good lads during the amateur draft and not paying players over slot.

The commissioner's office sets guidelines for signing bonuses at each choice. Several teams, including all of the clubs in the American League East other than the Blue Jays, have routinely flouted the "slotting" system in order to draft harder to sign players who in most cases have higher ceilings.

Sources say that Beeston, the Blue Jays interim president and chief executive officer, told the commissioner's office the Blue Jays will not go over slot unless another team in front of them does. "If just one team goes over, we'll go over," Beeston reportedly told Selig.

With the Blue Jays drafting 20th, that's guaranteed to happen. In fact, it will happen when the Washington Nationals make Stephen Strasburg the first pick overall.

The draft, which will be held Tuesday, has become a higher priority for teams because older players are a less sought-after commodity on the free-agent market due to the concerns drug-testing raises any time a player's production decreases. The emphasis now is on getting young players into your own system where you can exercise some due diligence. And drafting in the middle of the pack or down at the end doesn't always limit the impact of new players. For all their financial clout, in recent years it has been the draft that has really laid the foundation for the success of the Boston Red Sox, and they haven't had many first choices overall in that time, have they?

Garbage Time

Is there anything sillier than demanding a team get rid of a player because he swore at a fan? Especially when anybody paying even the least little bit of attention would realize the Toronto Blue Jays have been tying unsuccessfully to move Alex Rios's contract? Just a thought here, but it might help if another team wanted to take your player. Besides, Rios isn't an issue. The folks at the Sports And The City blog have a Vernon Wells Hatred Advisory System running. That's the issue. ... Dwayne De Rosario has a point: If they're putting in a temporary grass field for Toronto FC's match against Real Madrid but insisting that MLS players play on the artificial crap at BMO Field, is that not a double standard? Honestly, if it isn't holding people's feet to the fire about the way the men's national team doesn't get its due, it's putting pressure on TFC owner Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment and City Hall to give the city and the country a first-class soccer venue. Somebody sit down and write out a bloody cheque and get this thing done, will you? Put another artificial pitch some place else for the weekend warriors. No other national team puts up with as much crap as De Rosario and the rest of our men's soccer team. ... While everybody's been worried about how the economic downturn will affect the ability of the Vancouver Olympic consortium to deliver on its sponsorships, word comes out that the IOC itself is two sponsors short of the 11 global sponsorships it pledged. That amounts to a gap in the neighbourhood of $35-million. ... My guess is if Tim Russert were still with us it would be him and not Chris Berman presenting Buffalo Bills owner Ralph Wilson for induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Berman's family members were Bills fans, but Wilson ought to have been able to come up with a better presenter than a man who is single-handedly responsible for spawning an entire generation of bad pun-dropping wannabes who have rendered the average sportscast unwatchable, no? ... So, if the Pittsburgh Penguins and Sidney Crosby spit out the bit in a second consecutive Stanley Cup final, can we say Our Sidney has done a halfway decent impersonation of Buffalo Bills quarterback Jim Kelly, who led his Bills to an 0-for-4 Super Bowl run?

*****

Monday 2 Monday

Maybe it is an American game after all. While the hockey experts north of the border fret about the sanctity of the Stanley Cup being damaged by Jim Balsillie's on-going attempts to bring another NHL team to Southern Ontario, television ratings in the U.S. have been better than expected.

What that likely means, of course, is that in the cozy little niche the NHL occupies on the American sports landscape, nobody really cares much about the fate of the Coyotes. And that's probably as it should be. Nobody in Phoenix cares about them. Why should anybody in, say, Detroit?

But once he slays the Balsillie dragon - and for all the juicy stuff that is coming out in all these legal filings, like having somebody say Wayne Gretzky is overpaid (!), Judge Redfield T. Baum doesn't strike me like a guy itching to overturn the entire structure of North American pro sports over a dumb-ass hockey team - NHL commissioner Gary Bettman might want to make some phone calls and find out why so many teams felt it was okay to make announcements during the playoffs. Bad enough an interloper like Balsillie screws up the playoffs, now Bettman has to guard his other flank, too?

Used to be teams didn't do anything to detract from their league's jewel events. Of course, if I'm Montreal Canadiens general manager Bob Gainey and I'm making an uninspired choice for head coach like Jacques Martin, I might also do it during the playoffs and hope I sneak it by people. I understand Gainey's tired of all the drama that's gone on around the Canadiens and wants some sanity, but I'm thinking hiring someone as vanilla as Martin is a little too 180 degrees. Gainey had the right guy in place in Guy Carbonneau. And he fired him.

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