So why the concernBrett may hmm and haw

Normally I don’t have a problem with a signing like Cora. Most teams in baseball have a player like Cora on their team.However, paying a player like Cora $2 million is ludicrous.Look at it from this perspective: The Chicago White Sox just signed Andruw Jones and Omar Vizquel for a combined $1.7 million.Vizquel, despite being 43 years old, can still play defense with anyone. Jones still has the ability to hit a home run off the bench.Cora has the ability to do neither.Cora’s OPS dipped from .719 in 2008 to .630, he can’t hit for power off the bench, and at 34 years old (Cora will be 35 at the end of next season) he is a mediocre fielder.Why Mets GM Omar Minya felt the need to sign Cora for $2 million at the beginning of the free agency period is beyond me. There were no other teams in on Cora.Minaya could have waited until February to sign Cora and probably could have signed him to a deal anywhere between $500 thousand and $1 million.Essentially, what Minaya did was bid against himself.A move like this shouldn’t be surprising to Mets fans because this is the same GM who gave a 48-year-old Julio Franco a two-year contract in 2006 when no other team was even willing to give him a one-year deal.The more moves the Mets make, the more I am convinced they have no clue how to do business. Signing a “Veteran Presence” to a $2 million contract is just another example of that.You can follow "The Ghost of Moonlight Graham" on Twitter theghostofmlg This article is also featured on The Ghost of Moonlight Graham.

SYDNEY, Jan 7 (Reuters) - Australian-listed Aditya BirlaMinerals Ltd (ABY.AX) has placed its Mt Gordon copper mine inthe northeastern state of Queensland on care and maintenancebecause of low copper prices, the company said on Wednesday. Aditya said the project's mill would continue to processstockpiles of ore and was likely to produce 1,800 tonnes ofcopper-in-concentrate per month for about 12 months For the year ended Sept. 30, Mt Gordon produced 11,010tonnes of copper-in-concentrate.Aditya said it has also suspended crushing and stacking ofore at its Nifty oxide operations in Western Australia butwould continue to leach copper until the leaching operationbecame uneconomic. The oxide operation produced 3,605 tonnes of copper cathodein the year to Sept 30, the last period for which data wasavailable. Aditya Birla Minerals is 51 percent owned by India'sHindalco Industries Ltd (HALC.BO). Shares in Aditya Birla Minerals gained 2.6 percent toA$0.195 on Wednesday, but have slumped about 95 percent sincelisting in 2006 (Editing by James Thornhill).

Brett Favre is putting together a monstrous year. I still think Manning will edge him out in final MVP voting, but one more weekend like this and I have to re-think that notion. He has taken a massive strain off the team by making it omni-dimensional. Yet with all the accolades, and the great things it seems to spell for this season, I can’t help but wonder if his role will backfire long-term for Minnesota.As a forty year old retiree, he was brought in to be a game managing savvy vet, think a slightly better version of Baltimore’s Trent Dilfer. Put in 200 yard games, make one or two throws like his 49ers hail mary, and let Adrian Peterson steamroll defenses that now have to put eight instead of nine in the box.What has come to pass, instead, is a season that could easily go into the books as Brett’s finest. He is routinely using the artillery on his shoulder to fire up three hundred yard, multi-touchdown games. He has done so while making next to none of the mistakes usually attributed to his ‘gunslinger’ mentality. The more he tears apart defenses, the better the Vikings playoff outlook is. So why the concernBrett may hmm and haw. He may even play next year. But sometime soon he will retire and stay that way. The Vikings would be a much better team when that time comes if they were relying on him to do the basics and little more. Their young stud Peterson will be around for a long time. His style may make him highly susceptible to the running back age-30 wall, but he will have plenty of years before that time.It seems the stronger Favre’s performances, the more Peterson is fading into the background. If you take away the long run/fumble by AP in the game against the Lion’s, he has not had a 100 yard game since week 6 against the Ravens. More telling is that four of the last five weeks he has averaged below four yards a carry. This paired with his tendency to fumble showing itself strongly the last few weeks, makes me wonder how much of the difference is a focal attention on stopping the run, and how much is a growing commitment to the pass With a subpar passing attack last year he averaged over 4.5 yards per carry in nine of his seventeen games. To date, with team needing to focus some extra defensive attention on the passing game, he has averaged above that in four of eleven games. 53 percent of the time compared to 36 percent. A fairly significant drop.With a game-managing Favre, the team would be in a much better position to go replacement shopping. Many teams can find quarterbacks that are good, but not necessarily pro bowlers. In asking Favre to be the hall of famer he is, are the Vikings inviting a letdown when he is gone I know this is not a big deal this year, and whatever is putting up points and wins should be considered the ‘right’ way. But I wonder if Brett Favre of the first six weeks (224.5 ypg) is better for Minnesota in the long haul than the Brett Favre of the last five (305.4 ypg).Bottom line: Does Minnesota really want Favre to make himself irreplaceable. I'm not on the fence on this one, but I am the fence because I think people on both sides are going to be ticked off at something I write in the next few inches.We all know emotion runs high, especially when it comes to college football. Most West Virginia fans will want to deny that they care about Rich Rodriguez at this point. Being a former WVU student myself, they'll criticize me for bringing it up. Michigan fans (and other school's fans, too) will break into the "stupid hillbilly," "dumb redneck," Deliverance stereotyping, or maybe "crazy ex-girlfriend," and then follow it up with, "Get over it, Michigan is the pinnacle of college football excellence, and we know it!"At least it was before Rich Rodriguez arrived. The bottom line is that this situation really has very little to do with Michigan It has everything to do with Rodriguez.

I've always respected Michigan and never had a beef with them. The winningest coach in WVU history, Dandy Don Nehlen, was an assistant under Bo Schembechler before coming to Morgantown in 1979. Nehlen helped make WVU relevant again after Frank Cignetti piled up four straight losing seasons to end the 1970s. There are several reasons why Mountaineer fans still follow Rich Rod now that he has left Morgantown. He said he would be at West Virginia as long as the fans and administration would have him (I'm paraphrasing here, not direct quoting, but he said it, trust me) Then, he turned and fled north Literally It happened that fast.