Sorry, Rick. It doesn't look like the Mariners or the Red Sox will have a shot at Joe Mauer. I guess the only consolation is that the Yankees won't either!

   In a move totally uncharacteristic for Minnesota sports in general, the Twins signed uber-catcher Joe Mauer to an 8-year $184 million dollar contract extention, effectively keeping him in Minnesota for the rest of his career. It had been widely speculated that the Red Sox and Yankees would be getting into a bidding war for Mauer after his current contract expired at the end of this year, but it looks like that won't happen now.

    As much as I would have liked to see Mauer in a Sox uniform, I say good for the Twins for ponying up the dough to keep one of baseball's most elite players. The Twins usualy stance is to help players like this build up a career and then let them go, so it is nice to see a small market team hold on to a player of Mauer's caliber. Keeping him turns a team that is perennially a contender in the division into a possible contender for the Series, and also makes MN a bit more attractive to other fee agents that might have otherwise signed somewhere else.

  Hopefully Victor Martinez will come on strong for the So this year and be the long term replacement for Varitek and hopefully the Yankess will continue to  struggle with one Molina or another at the position! In any case, nice job by the Twins and nice job for keeping small market teams as a viable part of baseball.

   Why would anybody watch the Olympics? I have no F*$%*%&5 clue! So you can see Bode Miller making an ass of himself? So you can watch Johnny Weir skate around in some kind of  ridiculous outfit? Maybe you think the "flyint tomato" is some kind legit athelete?

   In any case, if you are watching this crap you need to get something on your satellite dish other than the Lifetime network, because the winter Olympics sucks! There is no sport involved, maybe art at times, but c'mon, I saw curling on ESPN yesterday!!! Nevermind why I happened to see ESPN during the day, it still should not be televised as a sport anymore than poker or a spelling bee.

   The Olympics, espcially the winter ones have become so watered-down and stupid that you have to be a fan of Hee-Haw to even consider watching them. Shame on NBC for trying to put out a product like this in the era we live in.  Is "Bridezillas" on????