"After Conor Jackson was traded Tuesday morning, a handful of Diamondbacks players approached manager A.J. Hinch on the field hours before that night's game. They were wondering what Hinch might be able to share about what trades, if any, might be coming next. The Jackson deal signaled the beginning of trading season in baseball during what has become the era of the trade rumor. Coverage of the sport has intensified during the Internet age, and there seems to be no juicier piece of information for a baseball fan than the trade rumor. "There's a lot of rumors out there now and a lot of people covering it," Hinch said. "That wasn't as prevalent back then, even as recently as five or six years ago when I played. It wasn't as popular. It wasn't as much of a distraction or a topic as it is now." When Matt Williams was traded from San Francisco to Cleveland in 1996, he was fishing in the off-season and got a call from the general manager. There were no rumors. It was a complete surprise. Williams, the Diamondbacks' third-base coach, has trouble imaging that happening these days. "It's a different era, a different time," he said. Holding his phone in his hand this week, he spoke with a reporter while finishing a text message. Sitting across from him at a table was third baseman Mark Reynolds. "With the advent of what I'm doing right now," he said, "let's say Mark's name comes up (in a rumor) and one of his buddies sees it. They're going to text him. It's just different. At the touch of a button you've got all the information you could ever want." For players, it's the kind of information they can't help but hear, whether they seek it out themselves out of curiosity or have friends who clue them in. Most say they'd prefer not to know. For one, trades don't happen often. The Diamondbacks are one of the more-active teams on the trade market, and they make only a half-dozen deals a year at the most, a pittance compared with the dozens of rumors about them that pop up in July alone." http://www.azcentral.com/sports/dia...0100617arizona-diamondbacks-trade-rumors.html
