What's in the bag?

The andPhils half of the blog trudged home with a large black bag full of ... of ... of ... I'll tell you on Dec. 26. But Christine didn't bring home any good baseball stories from her shopping expedition, so you're stuck with me still stuck on Christmas.

The season's shopping would have been so much easier if we were aware of this auction of Ted Williams' hunting memorabilia. What sparks the yule better than the head of a buffalo blasted decades ago by the Splendid Splinter? Could you imagine the joy on Christine's face, sitting beside the tree, opening up a rifle once held by the greatest hitter who ever lived? And I'm sure she could have found something for me.

Meanwhile, the Red Sox played Santa Claus today, offering a $6 million contract to Japanese pitcher Junichi Tazawa. They might have given a one-year offer to Jason Varitek, which I think is a fair balance of last year's awful offensive season and his history with the club, but Scott Boras played Scrooge and said no offer was made.

Boras argues Tek's value is that he's a catcher capable of winning 60 percent of a team's games. That's true, but that can be flipped to say the Red Sox are capable of winning 60 percent of their games despite a catcher with a .672 OPS.

Phillies: A Q&A on MLB.com attempts to explain why Chase Utley waited nearly a month into the offseason to take care of his nagging hip injury. It doesn't clarify anything for me.