It's good to know that when you're thinking paranoid, you're not alone.
MattB noted that the same I did when I heard about it last night, and his notes agree with my assessment. (both Baseball Prospectus and Rob Neyer make the point) Let's face facts about suppositions. We can't prove that anything wrong happened, but here you see a long series of suspicious actions. Actions that can't be completely explained by rational explanations, so you are left with two options, either assume incompetence on the part of those involved, or assume that the series of trades were done as some form of payment for past (or future) actions. And if that's how it happens, then I was right, you have four parts in this upcoming negotiation, the players, the Steinbrenner faction, the small market owners, and the Selig faction.

Meanwhile, the mob now controls ice dancing. This is comforting to me, it's good to see them diversifying in this troubled economy.

Also meanwhile, Phil came up with an interesting proposal. I don't like it because it attacks the problem (too many events relative to the number of competitors) at the wrong end (limiting the events, rather than creating more competitors.) It's the same reason I don't like having yahoo as our only form of communication, it serves both as a barrier to having people learn about quiz bowl, and serves to insulate people into an unhealthy complacency that saying anything in one forum is sufficient to reach everyone. For college, that's not true as a lot of people have tuned out, sick of debates, and people who can't stop arguing, or debasing other viewpoints. (Or in my case, because I just didn't trust the media, still don't. That's why I don't post to yahoo, and I only view the page, and don't subscribe.) For high school, it never was true. Matt's page was the closest thing to a good debate, but it's fallen into the same trap, two sides of argument devoted to splitting one hair, while the rest of the world can't even see what their fighting about. So how are we going to change the world, if the world doesn't even know it needs changed, because we're too busy fencing ourselves off?