Paul Newman died Friday nite of cancer.  Newman, in my opinion, is one of the greatest American actors to live and will be sorely missed.  When I think about his films, he always played great characters, or at least, made the characters he played seem larger than life.  Newman seemed to excel as the Anti-Hero, the character you liked for his faults.  He was a giant in the movie business who, later in life, showed actors they can do more than just become old actors, as he created a whole foods company that donates all its earnings to charity.

Top 3 Paul Newman Movies:

3) The Color of Money - won him and academy award

2) Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - played well off redford

1) Cool Hand Luke - powerful performance despite lack of dialogue

RIP

So it looks like the Indians are sending Casey Blake and "cash" to the Dodgers for Jon Meloan and A League catching prospect Carlos Santana.

Santana is hitting .323, with 14 homers, for Inland Empire, in the Class A California League. The hard-throwing Meloan is 5-10, with a 4.97 ERA, at Triple-A Las Vegas -- but has piled up 335 strikeouts in only 262 innings in his minor league career.

  The Dodgers were listed as one of the potential suitors for Hank Blalock, so thats one less destination, which isn't great, but I think the return of Meloan and an above average position prospect is pretty good return for Blake who is a free agent at the end of the year.  The Indians will be paying a chunk of his salary, which I'm sure is a big part of it.  I guess the questions are: Would we have taken Meloan and B level prospect for Hank?  What does this equate to from Minnesota, the supposed big suitors of Hank? Is Hank more, or less, valuable thank Casey Blake for the rest of the season?

LINKAGE

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http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/8100596?MSNHPHMA

Looks like the Cubans not waiting long, set to announce the hiring of Rick Carlisle as the new head coach of the Mavs... 

I think until there is some major work done to the roster, there is very little that Carlisle can do that Avery couldn't.  Besides Dirk and JET, no one on this team can shoot.  I'd keep Dirk, JET, and Brandon Bass and see what I could get for the rest of the spare over priced parts we got, take a year to clear cap space and let Cubes open up his check book...

well, if it couldn't get any worse for the falcons it just got a bit easier... this is a franchise in desperate need of rebuilding and having to pay to get rid of Petrino would have only made it more difficult... as well as if he had stayed and picked brohm with their 1st round pick... which, i think, would have been a mistake... either way Petrino is now the head coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks and the Falcons are probably just as glad to not have to pay to fire him...

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3150783

I know all the talk is about Tex right now, and rightly so.  But another comment caught my eye and wanted some general feedback.

Stark says one of the 10 possible movers in this years market is Michael Bourn.  Bourn is a solid OF with major wheels and could really help solidify our ridiculous OF situation.

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