They traded him for a bag of pucks.  How many times have you heard that one?  It comes up anytime an unknown player gets dealt for anything higher than a fourth round pick. 

Hear it for the first time and you might chuckle.

But more and more it is less and less of a joke.

Trades used to get worked out that way.  If a team had a player you needed and you had something that wasn’t a player that they needed, why not make it happen.

Ever heard of Cliff Dapper?  Probably not.  Ever heard of Ernie Harwell?  Uh huh.

Branch Rickey wanted Ernie Harwell to come up from Atlanta and broadcast games for the Brooklyn Dodgers.  To do that, Harwell had to break his contract in Atlanta.  The Atlanta Crackers – the AA team that preceded the Braves – wanted something, likely for the pain that it would ...

Someone needs to put on a bullet-proof vest and maybe a pair of safety goggles and walk into the offices of Mike Rizzo and Davey Johnson.  You know them.  The Manager and General Manager of the Washington Nationals.

If you are willing to, stand in the middle of the room.  Make sure they are facing you.  Put on your best cat-that-just-ate-the-canary face and ask the following question:

So, you guys still glad you shut down Steven Strasburg for the playoffs last season?

The question won’t make them very happy.

The truth is, they probably had very little choice.  The call probably came from above.  Likely from owner Ted Lerner who wanted to protect his investment in his valuable pitching commodity.

But now, as the Nationals stare up at the Atlanta Braves, who lead them by 6.5 games in the National League East standings, and find themselves 6.5 games out in ...

The Canadian Hockey League is the greatest development league in the world.  It helps to prepare more players for the National Hockey League than any other league on the planet.

The CHL takes pride in that position and it should.  Its teams do a sensational job.  Its league produces an incredible product.

However, the CHL has just dropped a stone into a pond and a ripple has started.

In ruling that European goaltenders will no longer be drafted by CHL teams in 2014, a bold statement has been made.

On one hand, it is a good statement.  It ensures that North American-born goalies will get more opportunities and a better chance to develop.

One the other hand, that ripple comes to rest right against the very word, "develop".

National Hockey League teams appreciate what major junior hockey is all about.  The schedule and the style get players ready to one day ...

Quick.  Think of three things people find disgusting in pro sports.  How about spitting?  How about chewing tobacco?  How about the name New Orleans Pelicans?  Either that or excessive blood loss.

Where would you rank gum chewing? 

Probably somewhere right around a hug from a mascot right?  Maybe less disgusting.  Teams sometimes try to save money by dry cleaning those mascot suits as little as possible.

Well, out west and in and around a man named Jordan Baker, gum chewing is rising up the ranks of rankling’s best.

Baker is a Major League umpire with a major ability to chew gum.  We’re talking quintuple Dubble Bubble.  He’s a rookie, so he can get away with it.  Almost.

In the past couple of weeks, Baker has been booed in San Diego, jeered in St. Louis and ripped by Arizona announcers for doing what he has done for awhile between innings ...

Everything around minor hockey is feeling awfully intense.  The body contact debates and the new rules from Hockey Canada.  The spring hockey clinics and summer camps that kids need to be enrolled in to improve their skills.  The tryouts that have already taken place to select next year’s AA and AAA teams.

Intense.  It borders on insane.

There are parents who can’t help themselves from putting together scouting reports on teams they are facing on any given weekend – in tyke.

It happens.

Well, if you worry that you might suffer from NHL delusional disorder, there is a great question that you need to try to answer.

(By the way, if you might suffer from delusions that your son is going to be an NHL star someday because he scored three goals last night in 3 on 3, then you need to read Ken Campbell’s book, “Selling the Dream”, cover ...