Never mind Young deal: Other thoughts

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On April 30 of this year, I wrote the following: If the Minnesota Twins offered me Delmon Young right now for Tampa Bay pitcher Matt Garza and shortstop Jason Bartlett, I'd think about it for 0.2 seconds and then say, "Okay."And now I say: Whoops. And furthermore: Doh! Okay, I finally admit it. I was wrong.This isn't to say it's time to give up on Young as a player. He has had a decent season and should end up hitting around .290 with 10 or so homers and, maybe, 70 RBIs. Not bad. The guess is it will be seen like a down year, and I still believe he will be a high-impact player in the majors. He turned only 23 last week. He still has the potential to be a .300-25-100 guy in this league to go along with that cannon arm.But it's clear that the trade has worked out beautifully for the Rays. Bartlett is arguably the team's most valuable player, solidifying the defense and hitting a more-than-respectable-for-a-shortstop .288 with 35 RBIs, all of them seemingly important. Garza has been a tad up-and-down, but his stuff is electric, probably the best on the staff. He has won 11 games and you have to think his inconsistencies will be ironed out. He's only 24.So, time to give up the fight. If the Twins offered me Delmon Young right now for Matt Garza and Jason Bartlett, I'd think about it for 0.2 seconds and then say, "No thanks.''NUMBER OF THE WEEK-- 11,603: Kansas City is itching to get a hockey team. So much so that it built a swanky $276-million arena to lure a team looking to relocate. In fact, the Penguins flirted with the idea a while back.On Monday, the city hosted an NHL preseason game and, though there were no glitches and all the townsfolk painted a positive picture, it was not a home run, so to speak. The Sprint Center holds 17,297 for hockey, but only 11,603 showed up to watch the inaugural hockey game there.On the one hand, it was a Monday night and the game wasn't exactly star-studded with the St. Louis Blues playing a Los Angeles Kings squad that didn't bring its full team. Still, 11,603? Tim Leiweke, president of the company that owns the Kings, told the Kansas City Star, "I can't think of any reason this doesn't work here. Kansas City has the best arena without a hockey team in the world. I didn't look at this as an audition game (for the NHL). I'll bet we have as many in here tonight as we have in L.A. Preseason hockey the first couple of weeks in any market is a bit of a trick."Maybe Kansas City will get a team, but for now, it likely will be used as a threat for other NHL teams to get new arenas or better deals in their current markets.APOLOGY OF THE WEEKFox baseball pre-game host Jeanne Zelasko took plenty of heat for often referring to the local baseball team as the "Tampa Rays.'' Besides being criticized in this space over recent weeks, she received e-mails from angry fans. That's why she responded with an apology in an open e-mail to Rays fans in Tuesday's St. Petersburg Times.Just a little more background on the story. I spoke with Zelasko for about 10 minutes Monday night, and her apology seemed sincere. She made the analogy to Los Angeles and Anaheim. The two cities are in the same market, but they are not one and the same. Zelasko's explanation was that she simply didn't realize she was offending anyone by calling the Rays "Tampa,'' but regretted making the mistake and thanked fans for clarifying it.All in all, Zelasko didn't have to write an e-mail to Rays fans apologizing for her words. But she did anyway, and that should be admired as a class act on her part.Now, all we have to do is figure out a way for practically every other announcer out there to stop calling the team the "Tampa Rays.''BAD CEREMONY OF THE WEEKThe New York Times' Richard Sandomir blasted -- and rightly so -- the Yankees for their corny closing ceremony of Yankee Stadium. At one point, the Yankees paraded out actors wearing uniforms who were supposed to be late Yankee legends, such as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Casey Stengel.Sandomir wrote, "A security guard played Babe Ruth. A former batting-practice catcher played Casey Stengel. A tour guide played Allie Reynolds. What's next, Ronan Tynan played by me? ... On ESPN and on the YES Network, which each broadcast the ceremony, the directors never chose close-ups, as if long shots with camera flashes bestowed majesty. The reaction shots of some current Yankees, save for an entranced Mariano Rivera, seemed to say, 'When I'm dead, which concession worker or usher will play me?'''Also, there were two strange omissions: Joe Torre and Roger Clemens were never mentioned. You could understand Clemens. But Torre? Shame on the Yankees. (If Torre felt slighted, he kept it to himself: "I didn't know what their game plan was" in saluting ex-players and coaches.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service www.scrippsnews.com)