Cubs

In the Rule 5 draft, the Orioles selected Ryan Flaherty, a left-handed hitting infielder/outfielder from the Chicago Cubs roster. The 25-year-old was a first-round sandwich pick in 2008 (41 st overall) and batted .280 with 19 homers combined at Double-A and Triple-A. He is from Portland, Maine, and played at Vanderbilt. “Ryan is a high draft pick from an excellent college program, and we really like his bat," Orioles executive vice president of baseball operations Dan Duquette said.

An explosion of adorable. The three-month old Bengal from last week is now playing with a baby lion of the same age! The duo are at the Puerto Vallarta zoo.

Before the White Sox signed Adam Dunn last December, they tried to make a trade for Adrian Gonzalez. But Gonzalez went from San Diego to Boston in a perhaps-too-convenient transaction between the Padres' Jed Hoyer and the Red Sox's Theo Epstein. Both Epstein and Hoyer are now on their way to the Cubs, carrying five-year contracts in the backpacks they will tote to their transition housing in Wrigleyville. When Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts first identified Epstein as the decision-maker he had to hire, he rejected the idea of having someone like Hall of Famer Pat Gillick in his chain of command.

That sweet little tiger couldn't be cuter. Here the three-month-old cub rolls for a tummy shot at the Puerto Vallarta zoo.

Where the next curse is Dom Amore Hartford Courant The Cubs are bedeviled by the most hideous curse in sports, so what do they need? A manager who has proven he can break such things. There are only two out there who have proven then can win with organizations that haven't in 80 years or more — and the Cubs let Ozzie Guillen slip out of town. Terry Francona, like most fired managers, will land in a place where he represents the opposite approach to his predecessors.