A Day Better than Christmas!

For us baseball fans, today is unlike any other-- baseball's trading deadline looms, ending at 4 p.m. EST.

It doesn't look like the Red Sox's Manny Ramirez is going anywhere, Alfonso Soriano has a 50/50 chance to go to the Minnesota Twins and a bevy of pitchers have their bags packed to go on to their next destination. And where are the A's and Yankees putting their chips?

As Mark Starr of Newsweek puts it, "[t]his is the week in baseball that the rich get richer and the poor get…well, maybe they get a glimmer of hope for the future. And this is the week that separates the fanatics from the fans. The fanatics wallow in the baseball fantasy. They dissect every rumor and dream of that one perfect player—or, if they are greedy, several—that can propel their favorite team to new heights. Virtually every player out there is fair game for our fevered imaginations."

That would describe me to a "t". For the majority of the day, I'll be reloading the ESPN newswire and RotoWorld incessantly, while tuned into ESPNews. I'm stocked up on cigarettes, food and Minute Maid. It will take a great deal to make me move from the couch (yes, I am wearing pants).

As Starr puts it, "we should really enjoy all those big trades now— before any are actually made. And before reality intrudes, as it so often does both in baseball and in life, to spoil all our fun."

[Update]: As Harold Reynolds just said on ESPNews, today was "very disappointing." No big trades at all, all that were traded was B-level players like Matt Lawton, Kyle Farnsworth, Geoff Blum, Buddy Groom and Ron Villone. Fanatics everywhere got COAL!