Ryne Sandberg was my favorite baseball player growing up. I played my entire high school career with a his mini-baseball card stuck in my hat. This year he is Hall of Fame eligible and I think he deserves to be voted in. He was the premier second baseman of his time, setting fielding records and generating incredible run production at time when second base wasn’t a place power hitters were often found.

From Rob Neyer:

Ryne Sandberg is also one of the eight or 10 greatest players at his position — which makes him a Hall of Famer, too

Aaron also gives Sandberg his endorsement.

Pete Rose has been in the news again lately. He and Comissioner Bud Selig have been in negotiations to reinstate Rose in baseball. The apparent condition of this reinstatement is Rose admitting that he did bet on baseball. This makes absolutely no sense to me. If Rose admits to betting on baseball, he should DEFINITELY be banned from the game for life, not reinstated. How does admitting/apologizing change this at all? Selig is once again making me sick – this was the one place I thought he was standing up and doing the right thing…

Turning to fantasy basketball… I’ve been in the top group of the standings most of the season, but a couple of key injuries (Alvin Williams) to the Old Dirty Asians have brought his team back to the pack a little, just as my team is getting healthy (Ray Allen, Michael Olowokandi). I just sacraficed Dajuan Wagner and Carlos Boozer to get an injured Lamar Odom in hopes that when (if might be more accurate) he returns he’s something like the player he was 2 seasons ago. In 2000-2001 he was good enough for me to draft him in the second round, but he only played a handful of games due to drug suspensions and injury. You’d have thought I’d have learned my lesson. I took a chance on Pedro this year in baseball and it payed off, guess time will tell on this one.