Hardball Heaven

Well, it took a few hours for the so-called mainstream media to corroborate WEEI's breaking news on Tuesday that Pats legend Adam Vinatieri had signed a deal with the Indianapolis Colts. But eventually the unthinkable was true - the money kicker left for the money, and you certainly can't blame him for that. Good for him. But the Colts, Adam? With that goofball quarterback? This wasn't like Johnny gleefully joining the enemy, but it still stung. It turns out that Adam was very into the idea of kicking more often in a dome, which Indy had. And his price tag was $11 million ($7.5 million over 3 years/$3.5 million bonus), which Indy had. One similarity to the Damon departure is that the team obviously had set a (devalued) price valuation on the player, and were unwilling to budge from those numbers. In the case of Damon, the Sox offered $40 million over 4 years, and then never got involved again. As fans, we were wondering what the hell Ben and Jed were doing - but in hindsight, the Sox had set an internal value and there was very little wiggle room. They just didn't say this through the press, so the fans were kept in the dark. Same thing with Vinatieri, though I also think there was some displeasure on Adam's part toward Belichick. The 'In Bill We Trust' motto feels a little less stable lately. (AP photos)