Sports

Once upon a time, before baseball made millionaires of nearly every player on a major-league roster, the annual winter meetings usually produced many major trades.

When former Cincinnati Reds manager Jack McKeon was general manager of the San Diego Padres, he earned his "Trader Jack" nickname at the meetings.

One year, McKeon set up a desk in the lobby of the headquarters hotel with a sign above his head, "Open For Business."

Another year McKeon made three major trades in a day and the second one was close to midnight. After the press conference he told the media, "Don't go too far, I might have another one."

And he did — at 1:30 a.m.

No more. These days, if a team makes a major trade, and sometimes only one minor trade over the course of the four-day conclave, it's a big deal, especially to the attending baseball writers.

Mostly, as far as stories go, it is four days of boredom, a waste of time and money. Writers spend all day either in the hotel lobby or the media workroom, killing time and hoping the team they cover makes news.

Usually it doesn't happen. Writers stand in the lobby talking to scouts, agents and a general manager, when they can find one. Most GMs hole up in the team's suite, a room former Reds GM Jim Bowden called "the war room."

The beat writers see their GM once a day, for about 15 minutes, up in the suite for a briefing, which usually consists of the GM dodging any questions about trade rumors or possible free-agent signings.

Last year in Nashville's Opryland Hotel, a sprawling labyrinth of criss-crossing, winding and circling sidewalks that eventually lead somewhere, a writer ran into Linda Krivsky, wife of then-Reds GM Wayne Krivsky, for the third time in one day.

"I see you more than I see your husband," said the writer.

"And you see my husband more than I do when you go to that little meeting because he never comes out of the room," said Linda Krivsky.

The Reds haven't made a significant trade at the winter meetings since Dan O'Brien (three GMs ago) traded Sean Casey at the 2005 meetings in Orlando, Fla., to the Pittsburgh Pirates for much-useless left-handed pitcher Dave Williams.

Teams don't make trades at the winter meetings mostly because they have to wait to see which free agent signs with which team and free agents usually haven't signed before the winter meetings.

Once free agents choose where they're going, a team's needs are more defined and then trades commence – long after the winter meetings.

The Rule 5 draft, held on the last day of the meetings, has become the most exciting event of the week — which emphasizes how boring and newsless the meetings are.

The Rule 5 draft: A player who signs when he is 18 must be on his team's 40-man roster within four years or he is eligible for the Rule 5 draft. A player who signs after he is 19 must be on a team's 40-man roster within three years.

If not, another team can select him at the Rule 5 draft for $50,000. But he must remain on the 25-man major-league roster of the team that selected him or be offered back to his original team for $25,000.

Rarely does a Rule 5 player stick, but two years ago the Reds selected both Josh Hamilton and Jared Burton and both played for them all of 2007. Hamilton was traded last year to Texas, but Burton was in the Reds bullpen all of 2008.

There is one saving grace this year. When the meetings begin Monday, they'll be in Las Vegas at the beyond-posh Bellagio (didn't Commissioner Bud Selig ask the teams to watch their economic backs this year?), where boredom shouldn't be a factor.