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The Yankees and Andy Pettitte have been going round and round for the better part of this offseason. Seeing how much money the Yankees threw at CC Sabathia, Mark Teixeira, and A.J. Burnett, I'm sure Pettitte felt like he was owed more than the one-year, $10 million contract the Yanks offered him.

Of course, he also said -- early in the process -- that money wasn't an issue and he just wanted to play for the Yankees.

If that was true, he would have signed the contract.

All of a sudden, the Astros are said to be interested in bringing Pettitte back.

It seems as though Pettitte would accept the same offer he spurned from the Yankees to play in Houston. So what gives?

Peter Abraham speculates that it has everything to do with the pay day Burnett received to move to the Bronx.

A.J. Burnett is 32, had never won a thing and is 11 games over .500 for his career. Pettitte is 36, pitched in the World Series seven times and is 88 games over .500. In his mind, a $6.5 million gap between their salaries probably seems ridiculous.

Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! dropped a bombshell on the whole Darius Miles escapade: those six preseason games Miles played in for Boston counted toward the 10 which would "un-retire" Darius and stick his $9 million back on Portland's 2009-10 salary cap figure. The understanding, furthered by Woj, is that the cap addition would cripple Portland's summmertime spending spree. (Woj's assessment: "Darius Miles is on the brink of blowing up the Blazers' salary-cap space.")

But is that really the case? Are the Blazers screwed if Miles plays two more games this season? Dave Deckard of Blazers Edge doesn't think so. Let's look into the situation in detail.

It was a testy affair in Edmonton Wednesday night. The Vancouver Canucks showed off their new purchase, and while Mats Sundin was a non-factor in the scoring, his team did skate away with a 4-2 win.

I already mentioned Willie Mitchell's first-period hit on Tom Gilbert. That seemed to start the ball rolling in terms of the physicality and flaring tempers.

Another big hit, this one by Mattias Ohlund on Erik Cole in the second period, touched off a quick fight between Ohlund and Oilers defenseman Sheldon Souray.

As you can see in the video, courtesy of hockeyfights.com, it didn't take long for Souray to take Ohlund down.



I applaud Ohlund for being willing to take that fight. The hit on Cole was one of those that you can debate until you're blue in the face, but it's probably got to be considered a clean hit in the end. That said, Souray took up for his skill player, as he should, and Ohlund immediately faced the music.

It must really suck to be Oakland Athletics shortstop Bobby Crosby this morning. After having to deal with all the rumors that the Athletics were going to sign -- and thought they had signed -- free agent shortstop Rafael Furcal, the deal fell through and Furcal went back to the Atlanta Braves. Crosby probably felt relief knowing that he was going to be keeping his job, and just when he started to feel good about himself again, the A's kick him when he's down.

Since the team missed out on Furcal, they've decided to turn their attention elsewhere and now, according to Jon Heyman, elsewhere would be Orlando Cabrera. It's not hard to blame Oakland for wanting to find a replacement for Crosby, as Bobby does have a tendency to go on the disabled list every time the wind changes direction, and he did put up an unimpressive line of .237/.296/.349 last season in 145 games. He also had the second worst season of his career defensively, committing 17 errors and seeing his range factor drop to a career low of 4.17.

In Cabrera the Athletics would not only be getting a Gold Glove shortstop, but also an improved offensive player, even if he is getting up there in age, at 34 years old. Not to mention, thanks to the many years he spent with the Angels he has a good knowledge of the teams in the AL West.

What confuses me about all of this, though, is the direction the Athletics are taking. Remember the good old days when the Athletics would trade their soon-to-be rich players for a truck full of prospects? Now the team is doing nothing but bringing in high-priced veterans. Sure, the Furcal deal fell through, but the team still managed to get Matt Holliday from the Rockies, brought Jason Giambi back, and now they're going after Cabrera. What's next? Andy Pettite?

It's as if the bad economy is actually helping the A's compete on the open market.

For a while now, it's been rather apparent that Russian hockey players tend to open up a bit more with the Russian press than with their North American counterparts. Case in point, this interview that Ovechkin did with Russia Today, the English language satellite television channel. Granted, you need to keep in mind that Russia Today is owned by the state operated news agency, RIA-Novost, but for soft interviews like this one you could probably discount that.

Thanks to Puck Daddy for the pointer, and for extracting one particularly hilarious screen capture.

In a good piece at SI.com about Oklahoma's offensive line, Sooners right guard Brandon Walker says this about left guard Duke Robinson:

"Big Duke is just talented. He's probably one of the quickest guys I've ever seen to be 330 pounds."

I'd have to say that's an understatement on a couple of levels. For one thing, Robinson isn't 330 pounds. He's listed at 335, and I feel comfortable saying that's low-balling him a little bit, too. He's a mountain of a man, closer to 350 than to 330.

But the even bigger understatement is to say he's "probably one of the quickest." Watch Robinson tonight against Florida, and you'll see that he's without a doubt the quickest big man on the field. It's just not fair that a guy that big is able to get to the second level or pull to the outside that quickly.

That's why Robinson is going to be the first guard drafted in April, and it's why he's going to make a very big impact tonight. When Oklahoma has the ball, take your eyes off Sam Bradford from time to time and take a look at Robinson. If you like line play, you'll like what you see.

I know what many of you are going to say.

Hockey is a contact sport. You can't stop the physicality, because it's such a huge part of the game.

I want no part of stopping the clean hitting that goes on in hockey. I have no problem with fighting, as long as we don't start dropping gloves just for the fun of it.

What I have a problem with are blatant, unnecessary hits from behind. As an example, here's Willie Mitchell of Vancouver blasting Edmonton's Tom Gilbert Wednesday night.



Discussion after the jump.

I almost feel just as guilty as the mainstream media at times like this. Brett Favre speaks, and I immediately start writing about it.

The only difference is my disdain for Favre. The guy is basically the 3-D version of the saying, "from the penthouse to the outhouse" and things don't seem to be getting any better.

After Thomas Jones ripped Favre for all those turnovers and Bill Cowher was reportedly worried about working with Favre as his quarterback, the Uncertain One has finally decided to talk, this time to the Biloxi Sun Herald.

''As for as Thomas, I have not seen the comments,'' Favre said. "To be honest, I am not worried about the comments, either. Was Thomas backed into a corner or in a bad mood when he said those things? I don't know, but ripping Thomas is not my nature.

"The bottom line is I didn't play well in the final five games. It starts with me and it should. I am not ripping Thomas because that is not my nature. My expectations of myself are high and the only one that I let down was myself.''

The only one you let down was yourself? Not your teammates or the millions of Jets fans or even that guy that sits on that other guy's shoulders and screams the letters to your team while the stadium joins in? I mean, we all know Favre is more selfish than a two-year-old with his toys, but come on, you let a lot of other people down too.

After 16 years and 902 appearances with the San Diego Padres, Trevor Hoffman is changing addresses. The man with the most saves in major league history is going to finish games for the Milwaukee Brewers this season.

The Brewers are expected to announce the signing of Hoffman at noon EST.

Hoffman has notched all but two of his 554 career saves for the Padres. He went to the postseason four times with them, including a World Series trip in 1998. He now takes his devastating changeup to Milwaukee in what is reportedly a one-year deal with a club option for 2010. The dollar figures of the deal are not yet known, but all reports are stating it is complete.

While this does help sort out the back-end of the Brewers' bullpen, which was an issue last season, it hardly completely solves it. Hoffman is going to be 41 years old, and he's lost significant velocity. His 3.77 ERA last year was his worst since 1995.

If you're a Steelers fan, you're probably wishing that the Steelers would run the ball more. If you're a Steelers fan who is happy with Pittsburgh's run-pass mix, I want to meet you, because you're part of a rare breed.

It's part of the Steelers identity: Pittsburgh wins by running the ball and playing tough defense, and any other approach is left to less physical and less worthy teams. We want Jerome Bettis bowling over Brian Urlacher in the snow for the game-winning touchdown, with an occasional trick play thrown in there just to keep defense's honest.

But there have (obviously) been no Bettis bowling games, and very few long Willie Parker runs this year. The Steelers have even gotten rid of the trick plays. So it's not surprise that offensive coordinator Bruce Arians is considered the axis of evil in Pittsburgh. This year's Steelers have thrown the ball more than they've run, they've struggled to run the ball at all. Oh and Ben Roethlisberger has gotten sacked way too often.