barbershop gossip (no really): stl has been in contact with rehabbing relief pitcher octavio dotel. per same post, dotel is spending the off-season recording a merengue album . . .
newsday reports that torre called giles to talk about the yanks' hole in cf; he got brian's answering machine. ("hi, brian? we've never met; my name is joe torre, and i manage a baseball team called the new york yankees. i got your name from . . . ") yanks' said to be mulling an offer of 3 yrs / $33 mill, pending giles' willingness to play in a) the bronx, and b) center. they're also hard after damon . . . .