The Red Sox bizarre October continues as they placed Manny Ramirez on irrevocable waivers, meaning any team could take him with no compensation to the Sox. Presumably, the Red Sox were trying to get rid of the remaining $100 million left on Manny's contract over the next five years to give them some additional payroll flexibility. Unfortunately, there weren't any takers.

This was a gutsy move by Theo and the Sox. If it had worked and they found a taker, they would have freed up $20 million of cash for next year, plus $3 million for Todd Walker and $5 million for John Burkett. With that money the could have signed some premium free agents like Vladimir Guerrero, Bartolo Colon or Kevin Millwood, or resigned some of their own players like Jason Varitek, Trot Nixon, Derek Lowe, Pedro or Nomar.

Since no one took Manny, the team is now going to have to deal with the fallout. You really have to wonder what Manny's work ethic is going to be next year now that he knows the team really doesn't want him. It'll be interesting to see how the front office and the Sox as yet unnamed new manager deal with this in 2004.

Trick or treating was great tonight as the kids cleaned up with candy on our street. We have a great street for Halloween. The houses are close together and we live on a cul-de-sac, so we get lots of kids from all over town here. The kids wore Power Ranger costumes and had a great time visiting all the houses. J. collected a pretty respectable amount of cash for UNICEF, too.