Just a hunch, but the guess here is you can pretty much hand the Phoenix Coyotes over to Jerry Reinsdorf right now and be done with it.
Multiple sources in baseball - where Reinsdorf is both the Chicago White Sox owner and one of commissioner Bud Selig's consigliore's in matters of franchise health - have maintained for months that Reinsdorf will eventually end up with the Coyotes once Jim Balsillie's public crusade met its predictable end.
Those same sources made it clear months ago that Reinsdorf would bail if the Coyotes issue became entangled in court. They were right. But now that the way is cleared, by hook or by crook, there is a sense that Reinsdorf will end up with the team and either work out a deal with the City of Glendale or help move the team.
Anyhow, it's nice of Judge Redfield T. Baum to end our pain before the start of the NHL season. Thanks, Baumer. We knew you didn't have it in you to overturn decades of sports law for the sake of a hockey franchise in the middle of the desert. It's worth setting a legal precedent for some things. An NHL team is not one of them. In fact, my guess is 95 per cent of U.S. sports fans have no clue about the case.
This just in from the "if a tree falls in the forest," dept.: there is little mention of Roy Halladay hitting David Ortiz in the Boston papers or online, most likely because the Red Sox are getting ready for the playoffs. It doesn't matter, likely, but I'm just wondering at the end of the day whether Halladay plunking David Ortiz (who never seems to care about these things) in what is likely his last start with the Blue Jays amounts to squat. The Blue Jays' batters have been dusted frequently this year. Retribution should have been exacted long before Wednesday. Jesse Carlson standing up to Jorge Posada mattered more, frankly, than Halladay pitching against a team that was still … how to put it nicely … likely hung over from clinching a playoff spot. It's nice Halladay hit Ortiz after Jonathan Papelbon wasted Adam Lind on Tuesday, I guess, but the fact Halladay has as much chance of being Ortiz's teammate next year as Lind's kind of mitigates stuff. Is it really retribution if the other team doesn't seem to give a crap? Still, if it makes Blue Jays fans feel better - hey, who am I, you know? Especially considering the way this season has gone.