I was just going to ignore the questions of collusion because I thought it was ludicrous. I will defend myself against those charge though because it appears this is happening in other leagues and I don't want to be accused of it. !st Sean has made trades with 2 other people in the league besides myself so if there were collusion why would he want to help others too. Secondly 1 trade that is being questioned is the Varitek for Hinch trade. This trade was made on 6/9/99. You can check out the box scores as I did and see the fact that Hinch was starting back on that date and lost his job a full 2 weeks later. Noone could for see Hinch losing his job and furthermore I felt I was the one taking the risk because the Red Sox still have Hatteburg who went down with an injury. If Varitek did not perform all he was worth was 1 year. Sean wanted defense I wanted offense so the trade was made. Also it was part of a 3 way swap with the Leapards as well. Secondly the Glavine trade Sean got an offer from me he liked so he took it. Some people think I gave up too much. I have a chance to win the Series this year and Sean was out of the playoffs. I also don't think too many people would give rookie 1 2 and 3s plus fa's 1 and 2s for 7 and 8s and a talented youngster in Jimenez who is admittedly having a rocky 99. He does have good stuff though and has a bright future. As far as the Reed and Christenson basically I did not want to give up some pop versus lefties in David Howard and also did not want to give up Sparks who was a good pitcher last year is only 31 and throws a knuckler which means he could pitch for another 7 years. In order to give Howard and Stynes who I did not use I wanted a lefty reliever and a comparable starter to Sparks and if you look at the grade clutch ratings Reed is. The only lefty reliever he had was Chrsitenson so he was the player I asked for. Sean's reason for this deal was he was getting killed versus lefties and I had the bats to help out. Incidentally his numbers did improve versus lefties after the trade so it did exactly what it was supposed to do. These deals were all fair and all others have the opportunity to get Lankford who is a top OF. I haven't made an offer because I don't want or need him. Plus don't have the playes to give for him. To simply state fact there was has and never been collusion between Sean and myself now lets just go and play some baseball. Also if people have any questions on what I do take a look at my team in c2 I took that team over and gutted it's young talent and draft picks to win now. That team is the Philadelphia Firebirds. The team is now in 1st place and hopefully will stay there. Joey