While there’s still Chris Heisey’s Breakout Player of the Year award still to talk about, today, I’m looking outside the sphere of Reds-ness and checking out the happenings in the parallel universe of all the other teams.

I know it’s old news by now, but dammit, the Cubs are interviewing Pete Mackanin for their general manager position, and wouldn’t it just be fitting for them to hire him. Then the Reds would be sporting an old Cubs manager and the Cubs would be sporting an old Reds (interim) manager. I don’t know whether Mackanin would be a winning coach in Chicago–there’s an awful lot of suckinertia to overcome there–but wouldn’t that just be typical.

In news that puts that last news into stark perspective, the Washington Nationals have had a player kidnapped in his home country of Venezuela:

Wilson Ramos, one of the Washington Nationals’ most promising young baseball players, was kidnapped at gunpoint Wednesday night from his family’s home in Venezuela, leaving the team in a state of shock and raising questions about the safety of playing in a country ravaged in recent years by kidnappings and street crime.

Last night word came out that Ramos was returned safely. Happy! Hopefully this will be a warning to other players to be on their guard and prevent anything worse from happening in the future.

And finally, back to more typical news of baseball, Albert Pujols is in Florida this weekend talking with the Marlins and touring their baseball facilities. I suppose that shouldn’t be a surprise–seeing as this is the *only* time of the year Prince Albert is willing to talk contracts and all–it’s just funny to think of the Marlins organization coming out in force to woo one player. It’s not like he’s enough to win the WS by himse–actually, maybe it’s not that funny after all.