Holiday slowdown

The biggest news this weekend?

That Blaine Neal, a former star player in South Jersey, will be a non-roster invitee at the Phillies camp in February. He hopes to be assigned to the AAA team. In 2005, he pitched eight innings for the Red Sox.

So it's official: The holidays are here, and unless Mark Teixeira does something interesting, I doubt we'll be hearing any news from either team until January.

Yesterday, I finally went through the stack of newspapers that Greg collected for me after the World Series. Fun to look back on, but it seems so long ago already. Basically, I'm ready to get 2009 started. Less than two months until spring training ...