Weekend news

There's been a few pieces of Aussie baseball news about the place this weekend. There's been a few interesting performances in the ABL - with Canberra getting up over the Heat, and Sydney and Adelaide playing out a close series so far. Elswhere:

• Travis Blackley has reportedly been released from his minor league contract with the Oakland A's to play in the Korean League
• The Sydney Morning Herald has a good feature on Chris Oxspring, who talks about his major league debut back in 2005, in which he gave up a grand slam, recovering from his injury, and what it will be like to return to the US as an older player. It is nice to see a decent sized, informed and well written piece by the mainstream media!
• Still no word on where Grant Balfour will end up in 2011. Many other right handed relievers are getting three year deals on good money (Jesse Crain: White Sox, $12 million, Scott Downs: Angels, $15 million, Matt Guerrier: Dodgers, $12 million). There is some talk around that the Rockies could be interested in him. Jeff Passan from Yahoo Sports has penned quite a scathing article criticising GMs for offering up such generous deals to relief pitchers. It's worth a read. As for Balfour, it's hard to know what is likely to happen. It definitely seems to be a seller's market at the moment, and there is a bit of cash flying around, so at this point it seems Balfour's decision to decline arbitration with the Rays could pay dividends.