Rumors and links and things

More rumors and such, nothing particularly new, but since we're sitting on July 18th, 'tis the season:

Bern in the comments points us towards the McCovey Chronicles' take on the purported Pirates/Giants talks involving Sean Casey, humorous Littlefield/Sabean conversation included. The basic sentiment here is that the Pirates would be almost retarded not to deal. Umm, guys...

Meanwhile the Pirates/Yankees talks appear to be heating up involving a certain over 40 relief pitcher. The Staten Island Advance (via HW) has a story and I was going to link to a Jersey paper that Rotoworld used as a source, but it turned out to be the same column.

Burnitz, meanwhile, acknowledges that while common sense dictates that he be traded, he really hasn't played well enough to merit much of a move.

The New York Islanders fired their GM after only two months, in which no games were played. Meanwhile, we are still stuck with DL, five years later.

And finally, Peter Gammons is out of the hospital and things are looking pretty good.