Bud Selig, while attending the annual baseball Winter Meetings, is accidentally bitten by a radioactive spider… AND DIES!!!!!!!!! Yeah, like we would be so lucky… Instead, mild mannered Mr. Selig and gains mysterious super powers. Powers that as the Commissioner he can transfer to the very game of baseball itself. Powers like super strength for hitting more and longer homers, inhuman diplomatic skills to talk cities into building new stadiums and paying for them with taxpayer dollars, and super vision for seeing into the future and avoiding future work stoppages. So fear not baseball fans, sleep soundly knowing that Super Bud is on the job, battling the sports arch-enemies with his new array of super powers. Evil doers the likes of Pete Rose, Victor Conte and that amalgam of baddies, The Evil Empire!

But the greatest power of all the Super Bud gained when being bit by that spider? None other than the ability to market the game like it's never been marketed before. A French team in Puerto Rico? No un-enhanced human mind could've thought of that. The Wild Card? Yes, that was a post-spider bite inspired idea as well! And now, the best of them all; Spider Man 2 movie tie-ins with web-like graphics on the bases and pitching rubber! Talk about Green-gobbling up all the possible revenue! Man, are they serious? Are we really going to commercialize the game for the sake of a movie that's going to gross more than A-Rod's entire contract in it's first week in the theaters? And it's not even a baseball related movie at that! Unless of course, a few script changes are made before Spidey Part Deux is released. Dave Parker for Peter Parker? Mary Jane Watson as Bob Watson's daughter? Evil scientist Donovan Osbourne perhaps? Or better yet, every NL outfielder gets Doc Ock's tentacles so they can rob Barry Bonds of all his home runs?

All right, stop me before I rant! This is too stupid an idea to even warrant another paragraph. Sports are getting way too commercialized. What's next? Kentucky Derby jockeys wearing ads on their silks? Oh that did happen, didn't it? Well, segueing into a new topic before I get "horse" screaming about this last one, does anyone know if Ray Boyce had a winning Derby ticket? How many of you watched the race? I for one missed it, and when I heard later on ESPN that Smarty Jones had won, I just figured we had another New York City high-school kid declaring for the NBA Draft. Smarty Jones? Who names a horse Smarty? Exactly how smart can a horse be? I mean, after all, a horse is a horse, of course, of course. But no one can talk to a horse of course…

And there's no way a horse, even if he's named Smarty Jones, can write a computer virus! Hopefully not too many of you got caught with this newfangled virus that's been going around the Internet. If you find your computer constantly re-booting itself, you've got the Sasser virus. If, on the other hand, you suddenly discover that your PC can no longer through the ball back to the pitcher's mound without bouncing it, you've got the Mackey Sasser virus, named of course, after the ex-Mets catcher who got a taste of Steve Sax-Steve Blass disease many seasons back…

OK, so exactly how did the Yankees get back into 1st place? When did this happen? Was there large sums of money and some yellow envelopes and trench-coated people involved? Was Bud Selig's "spidey sense" tingling at all this week? Actually here's what happened (and see if all you Smarty Joneses can follow this!). Right after Boston swept New York for the first time since 1999, the Texas Rangers stowed-away in their Way Back Machine and proceeded to then sweep the Red Sox for the first time since, yep you guessed it Dr. Wells, 1999… The Sox bats then got more frigid than Mr. Roper on Three's Company and the Indians took the next series from Boston. Meanwhile, back at the Hall of Justice (wooo, wooo, WOOO), these very same Yankees are sweeping the Oakland A's, beating on consecutive nights, Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder, Barry Zito, Vida Blue and Blue Moon Odom! Next victims, the KC Royals, who also get the broom and before you can say "Jose Contreras" it's Yanks on a 7 game win streak and the Red Sox bandwagon has a flat tire. So with Ted Williams' head spinning over in its grave/lobster pot, and Pedro wondering how he might look in pinstripes, the Evil Empire Strikes Back! But don't despair, I'm sure if things follow suit there's yet another chapter to be told in this story. The Return of The Redi anyone…

Returning to the Full Monty for a weekly recap we've got our 4th different leader in 4 weeks, thus far as Brian Legere's Lost In Rotation takes a turn at the top. But don't get too comfortable Bro, as they say "objects in the rear view mirror are closer than they appear" and here comes Doug with his Quat Thrusts! doing a +23 and change this week to move within spitting distance of the top. And we all know how much those Southerners like to spit! Just a pinch between your cheek and gum…

Wondering what's more fragile, Jose Reyes' hamstring, George Steinbrenner's ego or Barry Bonds pancreas? Oh, and you better add The Commish's patience to that list as well. As you all are already well aware, the #1 overall pick in this year's draft has been traded. With their team going from 1st place to 8th place to 15th place and dropping faster than George Bush's approval rating, Roid Rage decided to trade A-Rod, sending Alex and a few other Yanks Boone-Doggle in exchange for a smorgasbord of players. No need to rehash the details of the trade here as we're running out of column space. Perhaps we'll check back in a few weeks to see how each of the involved players (even Marlon "Friggin" Byrd) are doing? But it was definitely worth a passing mention since I got to use the word "smorgasbord" in this column for the first time since the 1993 season when I wrote a paragraph comparing John Kruk to The Swedish Chef. Come to think of it, I don't think that paragraph ever made the final cut… Anyway, on that note I bid you all a hearty "Vergoofin der flicke stoobin mit der børk-børk yubetcha!" (as The Swedish Chef would say) and wish The Piano Man lots of luck with his newly acquired Yankees and hope that the trade works out to the benefit of both teams so we see more owners taking chances like this in the future! Gotta run, I think I hear Aunt May calling... 'til next week...