"The Winter Meetings are the baseball industry’s opportunity not simply to meet and make a few changes, it’s also the place where a lot of the game’s affiliated institutions make moves of their own. That took a different form this morning, as representatives of Baseball Prospectus were informed that the organization’s application to the Baseball Writers’ Association of America had been approved, making the two columnists that BP applied for, Will Carroll and Christina Kahrl, members of the BBWAA." CONGRATULATIONS!!!

"That’s because labor costs, for all the attention they have been receiving, make up only about 10 percent of the cost of making a vehicle. An extra $800 per vehicle would certainly help Detroit, but the Big Three already often sell their cars for about $2,500 less than equivalent cars from Japanese companies, analysts at the International Motor Vehicle Program say. Even so, many Americans no longer want to own the cars being made by General Motors, Ford and Chrysler." So quit blaming the UAW for this. They're partly to blame, but far dwarfed by Detroit's incompetence.