Dastardley deals

Anyone with an ounce of intelligence can work out that most baseball deals, especially during the Hot Stove season, are 100%, Jerry McGuire, "show me the money" deals - it's all business. But sometimes those deals bring about situations that the average fan - i.e. me - couldn't have imagined in his wildest dreams. After Boston lost that amazing ALCS Game 7 to the Yankees back in October, one suspected that there would be changes in the managerial team - and there have been - but I never imagined that, two months down the road, Curt Schilling would be wearing a Red Sox uniform, and that the Sox would be trying to pull off a deal to send Manny Ramirez to Texas, Nomar Garciaparra to California and bring the best all-round player in the game to Boston. Now that would be a hell of a deal (although I hate to think what the sight of A-Rod in a Boston uniform would do to Yankee owner George Steinbrenner...).

You want East Coast rivalry of the highest order? You got it...