and she said.. "how you interpret the dream is probably more important than the dream itself"

I'm a little late in the game to be mentioning the recent winning bid of the Red Sox for the right to negotiate with a Japanese pitcher, but what the heck.. it has been making my head ring for a solid 24 hours:

The market price for pitching talent is soaring so high that it's come to this: The Boston Red Sox are ready to pay more than $50 million [51.1] just for the right to negotiate with Daisuke Matsuzaka, who's never thrown his "gyroball" -- or any pitch, for that matter -- in the major leagues.

No joke, I actually lost sleep last night over this. I won't try and claim it is because I am such a staunch fan of the BoSox and worry like a grandmother about their financial well being. It isn't because I'm concerned about the sustainability of baseball and think that perhaps this is going nowhere good. I am simply astounded that someone - anyone, even an organization of anyones - would pay over fifty million dollars for the right to talk to someone.

I lost sleep folks.

Now the Red Sox have 30 days to try and get a contract out of this Matsuzaka character.. which, itself, will likely come in close to $10 million a year for a three year dealio. Adding on my fingers tells me that could mean as much as $81 million total, or $27 million a year, for a single unproven (in the MLB) pitcher.

Here in britcoalville we spell that r i d i c u l o u s.

Luckily - and that is drippy sarcasm there - the Red Sox were savvy auction betters and they only put in a bid $10 million above (25% higher than) the next highest, from the Mets. That's great.