Can legendary stat maven and baseball historian Bill James finally end the curse of the Bambino? We shall see. It’s good they’re giving him a shot, anyway.

It doesn’t take much to read in between these lines.

“It went well,” Baker told the Chicago Tribune on Monday night. “It went very well. I know they’ve had their problems, but they’re committed to winning. I really believe that and I think they believe I can help them win.”

“I think since Dusty became available, he was going to be our choice,” Hendry said Monday night from Phoenix, Ariz., where the meeting took place.

“We had a nice chat with Dusty all afternoon,” Hendry said. “He’s a tremendous guy and it was a good day. Now we’ll just try to proceed.”

Now it’s just a matter of dollars and sense. Baker wants four years, which shows he doesn’t expect to succeed immediately. He has realistic expectations about what he can expect with a Cubs team next year.

As ESPN.com’s Ray Ratto points out, Barry took all the fun out of the NL MVP voting this year by being just too good.

As for the AL MVP race, there’s no question who the best player in the American League is — Alex Rodriguez by a long shot. The irony is that by signing for such a huge sum, A-Rod has taken away the Rangers’ ability to compete for free-agent talent except for guys nobody else wants to deal with, like John Rocker and Carl Everett.

So because his team stinks, A-Rod is denied the personal recognition he so richly deserves. Funny how things work out, huh?