Like I am sure many of you do, each and every day I take a moment to think about the Rally Unicorn. You can imagine my surprise when I learned this morning that the Rally Unicorn is still alive.

I can't even begin to imagine how he ended up in Montana (why would someone leave San Diego for Montana?), but that's apparently where he is.

You can catch up with the Rally Unicorn here.

I hope some Pad Squadders are already on their way to Montana to talk the Rally Unicorn into coming back to help the Padres.

First of all, I'm not advocating this. I'm just sharing what I found buried in the current issues of Sports Weekly: Bob Nightengale said this in a feature story about the winter meetings:

We'll soon find out whether the White Sox can trump everyone by pulling off a trade with the Yankees for Alex Rodriguez by dangling third baseman Joe Crede and any of their six starting pitchers.

Is this for real or is Nightengale just filling space?

Dr. F insightfully pointed out that Pokey Reese has been missing from Marlins camp for the past two days. Even the Marlins don't know where he is.

EDIT: In a very similar story, posted just minutes after the original one, SI.com notes that Reese has informed his agent (who has in turn told the Marlins) that Reese is safe. No word, as far as I can tell, about when Reese is expected back or what the issue is.

Reese has had a tough year, as he's dealt with surgery and rehab; he didn't play at all last year. As most folks know, Reese has also overcome a lot in life - both as a youngster and now as an adult.

It's been an unusual week in spring camps. Zach Greinke left Royals camp, for unknown reasons (but he did tell the team he was leaving). More recently, Eric Gagne left Dodgers camp for "personal reasons". Now Pokey Reese, who was/is expected to play a significant role for the Marlins as a middle infielder this season, is flat out missing. He didn't tell the club where he was going and apparently no one knows where he is.

Hopefully whatever is happening now isn't serious. Here's hoping that Reese is ok and returns to Marlins camp shortly.

Saturday Update: Per the Herald, don't expect Pokey back in camp anytime soon. His career with the Marlins may be over just as soon as it started.

The Marlins agreed to terms with Miguel Cabrera today, or at least that's what I'm telling myself. In all likelihood, the Marlins (as is their right) unilaterally imposed a new contract on Cabrera. He will be paid $472,000 this season.

Yes, for us regular folks, that's a lot of money. But keep in mind that the major league minimum this season is $327,000. Last year, an average major leaguer earned nearly $2.5 million. Unfortunately for Mr. Cabrera, he is below average in service time, despite being well above average in playing ability. In major league baseball, you'd rather have the reverse of those two things (at least if you like a fat wallet).

To add further insult to the situation:

I'm going to assume that's standard language for a contract. I also don't even want to think about what circumstances might cause the Marlins to put Cabrera in the minors; that's a terrifying thought.

Cabrera has been very quiet (at least publicly) on the salary issue. His agent has been very decent too. Per the Herald this morning, they were only "looking" for $450,000 for this season. Granted, that's surely not what Cabrera or his agent think he's worth, but it's what they thought they could get.

Still, I can't help but think that today's contract puts Cabrera one step closer to finding a home elsewhere just as soon as he's eligible for free agency in a few years. For a frame of reference (and it's tough to find a good one, given Cabrera's excellence in the field and mid-year callup in 2003), Albert Pujols was rewarded wtih a $900,000 contract for the 2003 season, after stellar campaigns in 2001 and 2002. Without accounting for inflation, it seems that the Marlins (after two and a half years of Cabrera's services) value Cabrera about half as much as the Cardinals did way back when. Yes, I know that's not a "fair" comparison. But there really isn't a fair comparison to make. My point here is that the Marlins are abusing this system which allows them to decide the salaries of their less experienced players.

Miguel's day will come. Just don't expect to see him in a Marlins uniform when he's enjoying his first big money contract.

Here's Carlos Delgado in Mets camp yesterday. Note how he's laughing at Carlos Beltran's funny helmet:

Oh no - what's happened to Carlos? He's wearing the funny looking helmet now too:

Apparently the Mets acquired helmets from the future in addition to assembling the 2003 MLB All-Star team this offseason. If that's what the helmets of the future look like, I'm disappointed. Somewhere though, Jim Mandich (and Michigan alums everywhere) is happy. It looks like the Wolverine football helmet spent the offseason mating with baseball helmets.

Will the Marlins be subjecting us to a teal and black ensemble? Who's seen the helmets at Roger Dean this year?

Does anyone know of a fast, easy, painless, and inexpensive way to have a tattoo removed?

I'll try to explain the situation as well as I can (although I'll admit right now that most of the details are foggy)...

As some of you know, I was out of town this past weekend. Needless to say, things got a little crazy. I woke up yesterday (Sunday) morning on the floor of an apartment just a few miles south of Ocala. How I ended up near Ocala, I'm not sure. Actually, I'm not even sure who lived in the apartment I was in or how I got there. There wasn't anyone in the apartment when I woke up either. There clearly had been recently -- it looked like there'd been a party there the previous night (Saturday) and the Sunday paper was partially read on the kitchen table. They'd also left a note taped to the television that said something like, "Mike - We went out for some breakfast..." Then it was signed with an illegible name.

Had the name been legible, I might have stayed. Since it wasn't and I didn't know where I was, I thought I should get out of there. Fortunately my car was there, so I was able to get myself out of there.

Just as soon as I left though I noticed a tattoo on my left arm. It's a heart with an arrow through it. Above the arrow it says "Mandy" and below the arrow it says "Mike".

Now I've never known anyone named Mandy in my life. And I'm pretty sure that the name on the note was not Mandy.

Needless to say, I want the tattoo gone and I don't want to remember anything about this past weekend. Not that I remember much anyway.

See it here.

The roster isn't as sexy as you might have thought it could be.

I heard a rumor (can't remember where) today that ARod.com might play SS in the classic. Keep in mind that guys aren't likely to play full games. In a scenario where ARod.com plays SS, Michael Young would probably play some 2B.

Maybe Wiggins can ask ARod.com for some insight when they're on the phone later.

Ok - so who's got something good cooking for Valentine's Day? I'm sure that someone around here does.

Yes, Fishfan, I'm looking at you. If you go out and get engaged tonight we expect to hear about it.

Then we'll try to talk you out of it. And then we'll try to get invited to the bachelor party.

I'm sure that I could Google this, but I'm also sure that some of our more enterprising music types might know the best solution. Here's my situation...

My new car can play MP3s in the CD changer. I know I'm the last person on Earth to learn this, but that means that I can get more songs onto each CD by making them MP3s... so I tried to take advantage of that by burning MP3 CDs in iTunes. But there were only about three songs in my whole iTunes library (mostly made up of CDs that I have owned for a long time) that could be burned as MP3s.

How can I make MP3 CDs? If possible, I'd prefer a free/freeware solution?

(Is there still such a thing as freeware or did I just date myself?)

In case you haven't heard about this yet, Nike is doing some sort of a promotional thing where an athlete will call you with a pre-recorded message at a time you specify. So it's like a wake-up call, but from someone cool, or decidely uncool -- depending on your perspective.

This little promotion is nice, but there are holes in it. For instance, it would be easy to ask Nike to have ARod.com call your friend, or your enemy at, say, 4:30 in the morning. You could even have ARod.com make that call for ten consecutive days. I, of course, would never do anything like that -- but I just wanted to point out the possibility to you before you think of signing up for this service (it's free!).

If you're hesitant to sign up without a testimonial from someone who has used the service, I would recommend that you ask Wiggins. I believe he is familiar with the program.