SOME STUFF TO CHEW ON...

(Note to readers: Yours truly is out of town to tend to a personal matter today, so you likely won't get an update till after midnight (we have the usual NHL rundown and Neil was at the Raptors game last night and shared his thoughts, plus if you want to hearken back to the wild and crazy time that was spring/summer '06, here's some Girlfriend-Friendly Sports Movies, an explanation of how Keith Hernandez' pathos is everyone's pathos and an essay about Varsity Blues. Seriously, an essay about freaking Varsity Blues.)

Some quick-hit sports thoughts for the day:

• The Cleveland Indians have traded for the pennant by acquiring Josh Barfield (pictured) from the San Diego Padres. Well, not really, but bet on someone trying to make the argument over the off-season as they try to figure out who will be 2007's version of the '06 Tigers or '05 White Sox. Might as well be Cleveland. In the 23-year-old Barfield, they're getting a second baseman who could easily hit 25 homers after hitting 13 in pitcher-friendly Petco Park as a rookie. Cleveland got almost nothing from the second-base spot last year, and as everyone not named J.P. Ricciardi knows, you can't win in baseball without a solid middle infield.
• Randy Moss, washed up at 29? I know the feeling.
• Forget moving players, how about moving franchises? The real stunner, to a non-Northern Californian, is that the San Francisco 49ers say they intend to move... meantime, across the bay, the Oakland A's are going to build a new stadium in Freemont... and still in NoCal, Sacramento voters turned down the proposal to raise taxes in order to pay for a new arena for the NBA's Kings and their billionaire-brat owners, Joe and Gavin Maloof.
• From the sounds of it, former Canadian Olympic gold medalist Daniel Igali is lucky to be alive.
• CIS football playoffs: We'll have something special on that for tomorrow.

Happy Thursday. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.