Thomas Boswell wrote an excellent column in the Washington Post today regarding the waiting game on Jim Bowden. It has more insight, but there's no real new news there, so we'll move on to things that are occurring on the field.

Oh wait, this doesn't occur on the field either.

Odalis Perez decides not to show up for Spring Training. Does he call the team? No. E-mail? No. Communication through the agent? No, even the agent is MIA. After signing a $850K minor league contract, Perez is not communicating and not showing up. It reminds me a little of the late Redskins defensive back Sean Taylor. Except Taylor was good, under contract, happy with it, and was seen at the University of Miami. Perez seems to be gone.

From his stats, his best season appears to be 2002, when he had an ERA of 3.00. Not too shabby, but the rest of the time except for 2004, he hovered around 5.00 or higher. And he expects to get a bigger contract? Or maybe he wants a major league one.

I guess time will tell, as now that he's a free agent again, he can test the market. But remember, Manny Ramirez is still out there. Maybe he's got an advantage since he's a lefty pitcher, but they've all reported in the past couple of weeks. Some team will really need that southpaw to sign him. We'll see if he gets closer to a million or is he just getting $875K?