Covering Major League Baseball's trade deadline is a little bit like dickering with a saleman when trying to purchase a new car.
You're never quite sure when you're getting the straight goods.
There's so much misinformation out there concerning who is or is not going where and for what reasons it makes your head spin.
After the 4 p.m. deadline for making deals passed yesterday there was a report out of Arlington that a trade for Roy Halladay between the Blue Jays and the Texas Rangers was nixed when the pitcher said he would not waive his no-trade contract to come to Texas.
While Halladay did not want to make himself available to reporters to talk before tonight's game against the A's, the Blue Jays moved quickly to quash that rumor, denying it outright as just not true.
The Blue Jays said talks with the Rangers never got to the stage where the team had to go to Halladay to seek his opinion.
We don't know the motives behind why Scott Rolen asked the Blue Jays to trade him, the reason why he was eventually dealt to the Cincinnati Reds.
"I was aware that there were talks [between Rolen and the Jays]" Toronto's Vernon Wells said. "I think that everything outside of that is between us and the organization."
Rolen is a native of Indianapolis and still lives in that state during the off-season where he and his wife operate a foundation dedicated to improving the lives of needy children.
His desire to play in a city closer to home and the foundation could have played a role in his decision to ask the Jays to trade him.
"We're going to miss Rolen but Rolen's probably pretty happy that he gets to go back close to home," said Toronto manager Cito Gaston. "That's somewhere where he wanted to go."
Jeremy Accardo did not look like a happy camper when he was spotted leaving the Blue Jays clubhouse after being informed he was being sent back down to Triple-A in order to make room on the roster for newcomer Josh Roenicke, who should join the Jays on Saturday.
There was a discarded Jays cap in a waste bin in the Toronto locker that reporters were joking got junked by Accardo.
"I know he's hurting inside," Gaston said.
