Major League baseball’s free agent-signing season began today, with
the Yankees making a monster offer to the Milwaukee Brewers’ pitcher C.
C. Sabathia. They’re apparently also planning big offers to free-agent
pitchers Derek Lowe and A.J. Burnett. The Mets are going to be more
conservative with their money this off-season, but they’re still hoping
to be able to find some free-agent help for the bullpen and the
outfield.

This year, however, I’ll also be watching as another
team takes shape: the Presidential Team. How nice — and how strange —
to be following the rumors about Cabinet posts with the same intensity
that I follow the rumors about baseball signings and trades. Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State? Bill Richardson? They both seem like good choices to me, but I think that if Clinton would agree to do it, we’d have the strongest sign yet that it isn’t going to be politics as usual in Washington starting January 20. (And I always thought that the triumph of liberal politics in The West Wing was such wishful thinking, particularly the last season with a young minority candidate winning the presidency and then choosing his rival to be Secretary of State.)

And what
a change to be looking forward to Inauguration Day! It feels like the
beginning of a new millennium. Too bad about the eight-year delay.