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We are entering the Seige Perilous of the offseasion, and when we emerge we will be forever changed. I've spent the last two days meticulously going over the rumors, data, and transactions of baseball's Winter Meetings and have gathered them here for you in succinct, online comic form. Every newsbit is here: How much money Francisco Rodriguez is getting to play for the Mets, where star reliver "K-Rod" will end up, and what's in store for former Angels pitcher Frank Rodriguez. It's all here!

Tonight's late night Dugout is after the jump. And if you're just joining us, don't forget to read Jon's take on the Greg Maddux retirement announcement, which is amazing.

As clearly spelled out by Matt Snyder earlier this morning, Greg Maddux may go in the books as the greatest pitcher of all time, as well as one of the very best all-around players. He's my favorite baseball player in part for these reasons and in part for his nonchalance. He looks and talks like my mailman. During interviews, he invented countless variations on the phrase, "whatever, I don't really care."

When his stuff was going, he was the most fascinating player to watch in baseball. He was Bill Murray's character in Groundhog Day: never looked boring, always looked bored. And while his (perhaps superficial) ambivalence may not have been genuine, it sure was infectious.

Look at him in this picture. He even finds a way to blend into the background at his own retirement press conference.

Today's Dugout is after the jump.

While the Phillies celebrate a well-deserved World Series victory, life (and business) goes on for Major League Baseball. 65 players filed for free agency on the first day of the filing period for eligible players, and it's a completely normal but somewhat sad thing to see so many building blocks from playoff teams packing up and hittin' the old dusty trail.

Tonight's Dugout is a two-parter to give Philly their mad, Hammer-like propers, to find out where the Dugout regulars who didn't reach the mountaintop might be headed, and to officially end our season with FanHouse. Tomorrow the season starts over again when we find out what the hell happened to the Twins.

Part 1 of 2 is after the jump.

It's been a roller coaster ride this season for the Los Angeles Dodgers, and their real-life equivalents in the Dugout Chatroom have felt it. They were accused of being yokels from the past, they acquired and perverted one of the most popular players in the game, and they discussed at length Andre Ethier's "tINCFoUTaCU".

Tonight is the last Dugout of the Dodgers' 2008 campaign. It's like those episodes of Buffy that didn't really involve a monster and were just there to move along the season-long arc. Not dorky enough for you? It's like the Cowboy Bebop episodes without Vicious.

I guess it was dorky enough before. Tonight's Dugout is after the jump.

When I was a kid, I had a poster stapled to my bedroom wall. Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, Tom Glavine, and Steve Avery, all stone-faced and holding baseballs.

In retrospect, Avery sort of served as abstract representation of the obligatory placeholder. First it was him, then it was Denny Neagle, then Kevin Millwood. They were not individuals; they were the nameless rabble of exploding drummers from Spinal Tap.

If Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz end up retiring this year, and hit the Hall of Fame ballot simultaneously, what becomes of Avery? Bizarre gardening accident?

This evening's Dugout is after the jump.

Jamie Moyer and Greg Maddux know each other very well. The Cubs drafted them both in 1984, 31st and 135th respectively. They were rookies together, played together in Chicago, and have been pitching with or against or amongst each other, win or lose, for the last 24 years.

Last night, the Phillies beat the Padres 1-0. Maddux and Moyer were as they'd been in their primes again, shutting down batters one after another, with only Pat Burrell's late game homerun to spoil the fun. It was a lot like the movie "Space Cowboys," where you realize that the best cowboys are the oldest and Greg Maddux ends up sitting mournfully on the moon.

We've been doing The Dugout since the early 80s so we know these men. We know what they can accomplish. We know the fire that burned in their hearts then and still flickers aflame today. We even know how they managed to have AOL Instant Messenger™ in 1986.

Today's Dugout, about the prices we pay in our youth for the cost of tomorrow's twilight, is after the jump.

MLB.com is reporting that the world of baseball free-agentry is taking a breather for the holiday. Apparently Scott Boras and his motley band of clients aren't so different from us after all. Like me they put everything aside, if only for a day, to commemorate the pilgrims who set the table for our nation nearly 400 years ago.. Never mind that my forefathers haven't been here for half that long. Never mind that the majority of Boras' clients haven't been here for a tenth that long. I am hungry, and so are they.

I chose this picture of Boras because it seems like the sort of image they'd hack up and paste on the promotional poster of a movie about a workaholic father who discovers the true meaning of Thanksgiving after his son's dog runs away, only to return with a magical pilgrim's hat in his teeth that can make everyone's dreams come true.

Your Very Special Thanksgiving Dugout, after the jump, is probably not as inspirational, but I'm sure that by now you're either eating or lying half-asleep on the living room carpet as Ford Field's fluorescent glow emanates from the television. Enjoy it. You're running check lane 3 at Target in four hours.