Beltran Update

As of this hour, early Sunday morning, New York Newsday is reporting that the Mets are "only four or five million dollars away" from signing Carlos Beltran, after he let the Saturday deadline for re-signing with the Astros pass.

Much as I'd like the Cubs to have Beltran, the money mentioned in the Newsday article -- between $115 million and $119 million -- is too much, I think. Beltran's a good player, perhaps even a great one -- but a lot of this inflated value is due to his good playoff run, and not to the numbers he put up in the regular season.

The Mets have been desperate for a star to compete in the NY market with the Yankees, and Beltran fits their bill.

Whether a somewhat unassuming player like Beltran will be able to stand up to the pressure of being "the man" in New York remains to be seen. Personally, I think he'd be happier and more productive in Chicago, where though he might make somewhat less money, enough maybe to buy only half of the Dominican Republic instead of all of it, and not have to be the main man of the offense or the main media focus, as he will be with the Mets.

But that's up to him, and if the Newsday article is correct, we will find out later today. Articles like that aren't always right, so take what you read there with many grains of salt.

Finally, yesterday about 35 of us, including virtually our entire group from the right field bleachers, hied down in the snow to the Shubert Theater in downtown Chicago to see Monty Python's "Spamalot", the new musical VERY loosely based on the 1975 film "Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I'll post a review later today.