Reliever Zumaya to miss first half of '08  —  Righty has surgery after sustaining injury during evacuation  —  DETROIT — Thankfully, Joel Zumaya did not lose his home or his family in the San Diego wildfires.  Whether he lost his fastball should be trivial by comparison, but after a freak accident …

Torre is new Dodgers manager  —  The former Yankees manager signs a three-year deal to replace Grady Little, who resigned Tuesday.  News conference is scheduled for Monday.  —  It's official: Joe Torre is the new manager of the Dodgers.  —  Torre and the Dodgers finalized a three-year deal today …

Bonds would boycott Hall of Fame over asterisk  —  If Hall displays HR ball with asterisk, slugger won't step inside Cooperstown  —  NEW YORK - Barry Bonds would boycott Cooperstown if the Hall of Fame displays his record-breaking home run ball with an asterisk.  —  That includes skipping his potential induction ceremony.

Melvin willing to talk to Schilling  —  Doug Melvin has no idea what the odds are of Curt Schilling coming to Milwaukee.  —  But he's willing to find out.  —  Melvin told me last night that he'll place a call to Schilling's agent, Ed Hayes, to see what they have on their mind for 2008.

Yanks Dragging Feet With Posada, Discussing Crede  —  Mark Feinsand has really been on top of the Yankee rumors in this young offseason.  Bill Madden helps him on this one.  The Yankees still haven't made an offer to Jorge Posada, and baseball insiders can't figure out why.

Historic matchup  —  2004 vs. 2007 … So this is what it has come to: After years of longing for a championship, the Red Sox [team stats] and their followers now get to compare titles instead.  —  "There's no comparison - different battles, different things to go through," …

NL East Hot Stove Preview  —  2007 Attendance: 3.1 million, sixth in the NL  —  Key Free Agents (2007)  —  INF-S Abraham Nunez (club option declined)  —  Key Free Agents (2008)  —  Key Long-Term Commitments  —  2B-L Chase Utley, $13.1M/year through 2013  —  RHP Brett Myers, $10.25M/year through 2009

Talks begin and 38 Studios plugs along...  So the first day of Free Agency begins.  I cannot divulge names because the teams involved asked that I not do so at this point, but the first day resulted in initial contact with 3 teams.  Kind of weird to be doing this with no agent but at the same time pretty cool.

Cashman addresses some issues  —  Just returned from the Stadium.  The televised part of the press conference was pretty standard.  —  Joe Girardi and Brian Cashman met with the print writers later on and that's where we got some information.  —  The coaching staff will be as was reported here.

The 2007 Internet Baseball Awards  —  Results and Wrap-Up  —  It's time to announce the winners of the 16th annual Internet Baseball Awards.  More than 1,400 baseball fans from cyberspace participated in this effort to honor those players and managers whose performance in 2007 were most deserving.