Rangers win Darvish rights with record bid  —  The Texas Rangers won the rights to negotiate with star Japanese right-hander Yu Darvish by placing a record $51.7 million bid in a posting auction, sources told Yahoo! Sports.  —  Darvish's team in Japan, the Nippon Ham Fighters, will accept the bid …

Nats working hard to land Gonzalez  —  The Nationals, continuing their quest to add a left-handed starting pitcher, are pushing hard to land the Athletics' Gio Gonzalez, according to major-league sources.  —  Gonzalez, 26, is perhaps the hottest pitcher available on the trade market …

Padres announce dates for 2012 FanFest & Annual Awards Dinner  —  The San Diego Padres today announced Padres FanFest presented by Bloomberg will return to Petco Park on Saturday, February 11, 2012.  The daylong event is free and open to the public.  Details surrounding FanFest …

Four say Philly Daily News writer Bill Conlin sexually abused them as children  —  Three women and a man say they were molested as children by Bill Conlin, a Hall of Fame baseball writer and Philadelphia Daily News columnist.  —  In vivid accounts, the four say Conlin groped and fondled them …

Rockies To Sign Casey Blake  —  The Rockies have agreed to sign Casey Blake to a one-year deal, pending a physical, Rockies GM Dan O'Dowd announced (Twitter link).  The sides agreed to a non-guaranteed contract worth $2MM plus $1MM in performance bonuses, according to MLB.com's Thomas Harding (on Twitter).

Luhnow chats with season ticket holders  —  New general manager fields questions online  —  During a live web chat with Season Ticket Holders, Astros new General Manager Jeff Luhnow fielded questions about his goals for the 2012 season and beyond.  —  Jeff Luhnow: Hello everyone.

PA. COURT TOSSES SEX-FOR-TICKETS CONVICTION  —  PHILADELPHIA (AP) - An appeals court has overturned the attempted prostitution conviction of a Philadelphia woman who was accused of offering sexual favors for World Series tickets.  —  Authorities had alleged that Susan Finkelstein posted a racy online ad …

A Free Market Solution (from Europe) to the Labor Problems in North American Sports  —  The following is a guest post by David Berri, a Professor of Economics at Southern Utah University.  He is also the lead author of Stumbling on Wins, the general manager of the sports-economics blog Wages of Wins …

Today is David Wright's birthday  —  Today is David Wright's 29th birthday.  —  I am very much looking forward to watching Wright in 2012.  It's a big season for him in a lot of ways, and he has numerous incentives to have a strong year for both himself and the team.

Oswalt Seeks One-Year Deal; Interest Picks Up  —  Roy Oswalt was looking for a three-year deal earlier in the offseason, but he has since told teams he only wants a one-year contract, according to ESPN.com's Jerry Crasnick (all Twitter links).  The right-hander wants to prove that his back is healthy …