Artificial sweetening

ESPN's penchant for wretched excess has become far too easy a target for sports fans, and to be fair and honest, a number of the sins that are laid at the feet of the self-proclaimed Worldwide Leader in Sports would be the province of any media outlet in a similar situation.
But ESPN's breathless coverage of the so-called July 31 baseball trading deadline revealed a bit of an agenda that doesn't serve anyone well.
Let me let you in on a little secret: There is no such thing as a trading deadline in baseball. I know, because I've looked it up. Trades go on all the time in baseball, though the ease or difficulty of making deals changes depending on dates. But you never, or should I say, hardly heard that piece of nuance from Bristol last week.
That's because it's easier to make up an artificial deadline, and do breathless minute-to-minute commentary than to explain a subtlety, which really isn't so subtle. Until July 31, teams can trade players without complications. After that date, a player has to clear waivers in order to be dealt, which makes trades trickier, but certainly possible.
As of Friday, all 30 Major League clubs placed, or tried to place, their entire rosters on waivers to make trades if they need to. If, for instance, Joba Chamberlain is unable to go the rest of the year, you can be sure that the Yankees will make a trade for a starter, no matter what it takes. Of course, in that scenario, one could and should expect the Red Sox or Rays to try to block said trade by putting in a waiver claim on the player being traded to New York. Usually, the team trying to deal with the Yankees would have to pull that player back or deal him to the team that made the claim.
Sounds complicated? Well, it kind of is, but it still makes the point that last Thursday might have been a plateau period, not a hard deadline. The next supposed deadline comes at the end of August, when players have to be on a team's roster to be eligible to play for that team in the postseason. Even with that said, a player can be traded in September. It's happened. I've seen it happen.
This whole thing may seem like nitpicking, but those of us who write and report on sports owe it to the public to deliver the goods with as little subterfuge and agenda as possible. ESPN missed badly on that last Thursday.