Buscema: First Hall of Fame ballot no easy decision  —  NEW YORK — After seemingly endless analyzing, re-analyzing and agonizing that often threatened the sanity of everyone around me as well as my own, I finally had decided.  —  So I noted the time at 12:52 p.m. yesterday as I typed …

Lawyer for Clemens Explains Strategy  —  In a lengthy conversation Friday with Rusty Hardin, Roger Clemens's lawyer, I was particularly interested in his answers to two questions.  To Hardin's credit, he answered both candidly with no attempt to obfuscate the answers with typical lawyerly prattle.

Dodgers reload for playoff run  —  Colletti adds talent without trading away youngsters  —  LOS ANGELES — To rebound from their fourth-place disappointment, the Dodgers went for quality over quantity in the offseason, hiring Joe Torre as manager and signing free agents Andruw Jones and Hiroki Kuroda.

Buzz: Kazmir's Day may be Numbered  —  “Even though he is entering his first year of arbitration eligibility, there's already talk that Scott Kazmir's days as a Ray are numbered,” writes the St. Petersburg Times.  —  According to the report, the Rays approached Kazmir about a long-term extension last year, ‘but nothing developed.’

Santana Situation shows exactly what's Wrong with Baseball  —  Johan Santana is still a Twin - for now.  The Big Market Teams (BMT) are low-balling the Twins with offers that won't include another star player (like Jose Reyes or Robinson Cano) or two-top shelf prospects (like Jacoby Ellsbury and Jon Lester).

The Pirates Are Doing Nothing... And It's Working  —  We're just over three months into the Neal Huntington/Frank Coonelly administration in Pittsburgh, and they're taking a pretty gutsy approach to this offseason: they're doing nothing.  Barely a peep.  —  And it's hard to say that they're not on the right track.

Yankees After Darvish For 2009?  —  I'm surprised it took this long, but the Yu Darvish to MLB rumors may have just officially kicked off right along with the new year.  A Sports Hankook (Korea) report, relying on a Japanese source, says that the Yankees plan to nab Darvish following the 2008 season.

Buzz: The Mets and the Pitcher's Market  —  ...MLB Offices are closed through January 2...my sense is that the off-season may pick up steam again during the middle of this month, since pitchers and catchers will be only four weeks away from reporting at that point...

A look at Jennings  —  Another possibility if the Rangers decide to look outside for a fifth starter is Jason Jennings, who was born in Dallas and played at Baylor.  He's 29 years old and spent last season in Houston.  Jennings had surgery to repair a torn tendon in his right elbow …

Monday Morning Manager...Farewell 2007  —  Let's face it.  This was not the best year ever for baseball.  It never is when a former Senator's report on the state of steroids in the game creates far more interest than the playoffs.  —  So now it's time to move on to a new year and we are more than halfway through the off-season.

McGwire looking for more Hall support  —  Slugger garnered 23.5 percent of vote on first attempt  —  Mark McGwire's Hall of Fame candidacy looked drastically different in December of 2006, when he first appeared on the ballot, than it did when he retired following the 2001 season.

Steroids in Baseball: What's New York Got to Do with it?  —  As I've written before, I don't think there's any reason to think that the Mitchell report snared most of professional baseball's juicers.  Just on logical grounds, if a couple of accidental low-level distributors looking …

Reports: Canseco finalizes deal for ‘Juiced’ sequel  —  Jose Canseco has finalized a book deal for his sequel to “Juiced” and it is expected to hit bookstores by Opening Day of the 2008 season, two New York newspapers reported Sunday.  —  Robert Saunooke, Canseco's lawyer …