As I write this, only 24 hours remain before we reach the non-waiver trading deadline. The clock can’t go quickly enough as far as I’m concerned.

In my view, this is one of the three worst times of the baseball year. The others are the general managers meetings in November and the winter meetings in December. All three times give my colleagues in the field of baseball writing license to indulge in creative writing rather than in legitimate reporting.

The two sets of meetings probably bring out the worst in writers. The weeks leading to the trading deadline are bad but not as bad as the creative fiction writers inflict on their readers from the two sets of meetings.

At one time the winter meetings were the only ones writers covered. The general managers meetings were ignored for the most part. Initially, Hal Bodley of USA Today was the only reporter who attended the meetings. Then I began going, not to drum up daily stories about possible trades but to gather comments from general managers for general stories. When the meetings were in western cities, Ross Newhan of the Los Angeles Times would attend.

At that time, the meetings didn’t produce trades. They gave the general managers an opportunity to explore trade possibilities to be continued at the winter meetings.

After Barry Bonds and other free agents signed exorbitant contracts at the 1992 winter meetings, Commissioner Bud Selig decided agents were dominating the meetings and ended major league participation in them. Newspapers switched their attention and their coverage to the general managers meetings, and reporters wrote their speculative stories there.

When Selig lifted the boycott of the winter meetings in 1998, reporters returned, too, but didn’t end their coverage of the general managers meetings, meaning they get twice as many chances to float questionable trade reports.

Why do they do it? Their newspapers and Internet companies spend a lot of money on their coverage, and reporters feel compelled to come up with stories to justify their existence at the meetings in Florida, Arizona, California and other resort locations.

No finances, on the other hand, are required to cover the weeks and days leading to the July 31 deadline. Yet trade rumors dominate baseball reporting. The Internet has made it worse than ever. Twitter has changed reporters’ jobs. Just look at tweets on websites.

In this new era of tweeting news developments, all that matters is who tweets a signing or another development first. No articles need be written, no time wasted talking to people to develop the story. It’s no longer necessary to talk to officials or managers or other sources. Just be first with the 10-word tweet.

In browsing some recent tweets, I found these as my favorites, both tweeted by Ken Rosenthal of FoxSports.com, whom I have long respected but the respect began when he wrote, not tweeted, for the Baltimore Sun. That’s a newspaper, in case you don’t know.

At 12:28 a.m. Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, Rosenthal tweeted, on the subject of Boston pitcher Jon Lester, whose name was all over the Internet, “Source: #Athletics also in the mix for Lester, as first reported by @GordonEdes.”

However, 44 minutes later, at 1:12 a.m., Rosenthal tweeted, “Just learned that @Sean_McAdam was first to report #Athletics’ interest in Lester. Wanted to set record straight.”

As silly as I think the game is, I give Rosenthal credit for correcting himself. I don’t think every reporter would do that because that would be admitting to a mistake and reporters seldom admit to and correct their mistakes.

Based on his reports on Twitter that night/morning, Rosenthal is a busy tweeter but somehow manages to get a few hours of sleep. He posted his last tweet at 1:50 a.m. and got the old Twitter going again at 7:11 a.m., a down time of only about five hours.

Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com, whose favorite subjects when he was a newspaper reporter were Scott Boras clients, is another busy tweeter, but that night he had time to tweet an advertisement for himself: “going on @WFAN660 at 10 am with @MarcMalusis (moose). trade talk.”

Interestingly, both Heyman and Rosenthal got tweets from David Price, the Tampa Bay pitcher, who has been a popular subject of trade speculation. Showing a sense of humor about the attention, Price tweeted, “This is my last start for the Rays….IN JULY!!!  (three smiley face emoticons) been up and been ready!!!”

As it turned out, Price didn’t find anything humorous about that start. He gave up four runs (three earned) in seven innings in a 5-0 loss to Milwaukee, and when the game ended, about 18 hours remained before the deadline.

That left the Rays with a difficult decision. They had won 11 of their previous 13 games and were threatening to force their way into the playoff race. A win might have convinced them to retain Price; the loss left them in a quandary.

Price was one of the names mentioned most often in trade speculation, but he was not included in the players listed by writers for MLB.com, who were asked to make “one bold prediction for what remains in this segment of the swapping season.”

Anthony Castrovince predicted that Boston’s Lester would be traded to Pittsburgh. Doug Miller said he would be traded to Seattle. Phil Rogers paired Lester with Andrew Miller for a trade to Toronto.

Tracy Ringolsby had Cole Hamels of Philadelphia being traded to the Dodgers. Richard Justice predicted that Troy Tulowitzki will go to the Mets. Lyle Spencer said Chase Utley would wind up in San Francisco. Paul Hagen wrote that Philadelphia could have a clearance sale with almost everybody available except Hamels and Utley.

This is the equivalent of playing fantasy baseball.

But the best part of this foolish exercise is the e-mail I received from the Bovada online betting outlet.

Instead of offering odds on any particular player being traded, Bovada gives you an over-under bet: How many trades will be made on July 31, the final day of the non-waiver trading period? Bovada gives the over/under as 10 ½.

What people have been saying (not all of it intelligently):

On the eve of Hall of Fame weekend, one inductee used his new status to comment on the status of steroids-tainted candidates. In my opinion, Tony La Russa would have been wiser to keep his thoughts to himself.

“Treat them all the same,” La Russa said in an interview in Cooperstown with Willie Weinbaum of ESPN, speaking of players suspected of having used performance-enhancing substances.

“If you were a Hall of Famer during that period as far as your pitching and playing, I would create some kind of asterisk, where everybody understands that, ‘Look, we have some questions, but you were still the dominant pitchers and players of your time.’

“We have to acknowledge that that period for about 10 or 12 years, somewhere around the early ’90s to the early 2000s, was a black spot, a negative mark in our history.”

Put aside for a moment the problems inherent in La Russa’s idea and think about the background of the man proposing the idea.

In March 2005, when McGwire was scheduled to appear before a Congressional committee looking into steroids use in baseball, La Russa, who had managed the first baseman in Oakland and St. Louis, defended McGwire before the hearing. “I believe in Mark for a ton of reasons,” he said.

And he continued defending him after his curious testimony.

“I’m not here to talk about the past,” McGwire said repeatedly in response to Congressmen’s questions about him and steroids use. He sounded like a mob figure taking the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination in the Kefauver hearings in the 1950s.

McGwire had obviously been instructed by his lawyers to use that reply to avoid admitting steroids use while at the same time avoid lying to Congress. No one, however, was fooled; no one, that is, except perhaps for La Russa, unless he was being disingenuous.

Asked a couple of days after the hearing what he thought of McGwire’s approach, La Russa said, “I was surprised by it. He’s made a statement where he’s denied it. I thought it was a great time for him to make that same statement. He had the biggest stage of all to say it and it looked to me like he was coached in the other direction and it surprised me.”

The manager added, in a spring training interview, “A couple of key comments were not made. He repeated that one thing over and over again like he had been coached that that was a smart thing to say.”

I suggested that perhaps McGwire had not repeated his earlier statement because he was speaking under oath.

“In my opinion,” La Russa, a lawyer, said, “being under oath wouldn’t have changed what he would have said. I don’t take that conclusion; I believed him when he made the statement.”

But did he think the possibility of perjuring himself was the reason McGwire had not repeated his earlier denials? “No, that’s not what I think,” La Russa said. “I just think he was overcoached. That’s what I think.”

I suppose I’d rather believe that La Russa was being naïve and not dishonest, but it’s hard to believe that a man of his worldly experience and legal training could be naïve about drug use, especially when it was somewhat rampant in his clubhouse.

As for his idea of admitting suspected steroids users into the Hall of Fame, it’s clear that the electorate has no interest in electing candidates like Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro. Members of the Hall of Fame don’t want them either. Some, perhaps, many members have said they would not attend induction ceremonies if any of these questionable candidates were elected.

If, however, La Russa’s idea were accepted and implemented, who would decide which players fell into the asterisk category: The players themselves might object, especially if they had never been accused of using steroids by anything stronger than circumstantial evidence.

Some may suggest that someone like La Russa would be a reasonable choice, but he was certain that McGwire never used performance-enhancing drugs. That misjudgment alone would disqualify him.

TWO GUYS NAMED COLBY PLAY DIFFERENT GAMES

One of the only two major league players named Colby made what was probably the most bizarre comment of the past week. Making it even more bizarre was that it was provoked by the other Colby.

Colby Lewis is a Texas pitcher, Colby Rasmus a Toronto outfielder. They crossed paths July 19, and Lewis took exception to a bunt single Rasmus executed in the fifth innings with two out and no one on base.

Was Lewis angry because the Blue Jays were leading by a bunch of runs and a bunt was poor form? No, the Blue Jays were ahead by only 2-0, and the Rangers had plenty of time to catch up.

According to MLB.com, Lewis said “I didn’t appreciate it” and told Rasmus, “You’re up by two runs with two outs and you lay down a bunt. I don’t think that’s the way the game should be played.”

Let me pause here to make a point. Managers and players don’t appreciate a bunt or a stolen base when the bunting/stealing team has a huge lead in the last couple of innings. But a 2-0 lead in the fifth inning?

Another point:

The Rangers were playing a shift against Rasmus, with only one infielder on the third base side of the infield. With players often deployed in such shifts, observers and fans ask why teams don’t bunt more for easy hits. So Rasmus bunts, and he’s wrong?

“I felt like you have a situation where there is two outs,” Lewis said, “you’re up two runs, you have gotten a hit earlier in the game off me, we are playing the shift, and he laid down a bunt basically simply for average.”

Proof that Rasmus was just thinking of his batting average, Lewis added, was that he “didn’t steal within the first two pitches to put himself in scoring position.

“That tells me he is solely looking out for himself, and looking out for batting average. And I didn’t appreciate it.”

I can only imagine that if Rasmus had stolen second with a 2-0 lead in the fifth inning, Lewis would have had a lot more to say, and most of it would not have been printable.

At the time Rasmus bunted, he was hitting .152 (7-for-46) in his last 16 games and had 2 hits in 5 career at-bats against Lewis. He said after the game he was trying to help his team and didn’t understand why Lewis was offended.

“I’m just trying to help my team and he didn’t like it – so sorry about it,” Rasmus told MLB.com. “I’m not here to try to please the other side, I’m here to help my team, and I had an opportunity where I could, and I took advantage of it.”

PAP LOOKING TO GO BUT STAYING IS OK, TOO

Early this month Jonathan Papelbon saved three consecutive Philadelphia victories over National League Central leader Milwaukee, and with the non-waiver trading deadline approaching in a few weeks, it was only natural to speculate that the last-place Phillies might trade the closer to a contending team and save a few million dollars, or more like $30 million over the next two and a third seasons.

Papelbon has a provision in his contract by which he can block a trade to 17 teams, but when reporters asked him after his success against the Brewers about his view on a trade, he made it clear he was ready to go.

“Some guys want to stay on a losing team?” he asked. “That’s mind-boggling to me.”

Did that mean he would approve a trade? “Yeah,” he said. “I think that’s a no-brainer.”

He wasn’t seeking a trade, a way to escape a last-place team, but he wasn’t exactly expressing loyalty to a team that gave him a $50 million contract when he was a free agent.

Loyalty isn’t the No. 1 sentiment these days on the list of clubs or players, but I have a problem with the free agent who will grab the best offer he gets, then be eager to jump ship if the team falters and something better comes along.

In Papelbon’s case he heard about his comments from Phillies fans, and the next time he addressed the topic he expressed a different view.

Asked if the booing bothered him, he said, “No, I enjoy it. I just think that it’s fun. It just brings a little bit of energy and life to the park, and gives me a little bit of something to look forward to do every day … You’ve got to be able to take it if you want to dish it out, right? I think that goes both ways for me.”

The 33-year-old right-hander is having a better season than his team. He has a 1.87 earned run average and 24 saves in 27 opportunities.

YANKEES SPEAK SOFTLY, CARRY SOFTER STICKS

It’s not what the New York Yankees said verbally last week that said a lot about them but what their bats didn’t do that showed how feeble they are offensively.

They were playing a four-game series against Texas at Yankee Stadium, and in the second game of the series they couldn’t score in the first 13 innings despite batting against the worst pitching staff in the American League.

When the game began, the Rangers had a 4.90 earned run average, the league’s worst, and had allowed the most runs and earned runs. And for a staff that didn’t allow the Yankees to score for 13 innings, the Rangers had pitched only two shutouts, fewest in the league.

The Yankees didn’t score in 5 1/3 innings against Nick Martinez, a member of the starting staff whose 5.15 e.r.a. was the A.L.’s worst and which had given up the most runs and earned runs in the league.

The Yankees also didn’t score in 6 2/3 innings against six relievers who were members of a relief corps that ranked next-to-last in e.r.a., runs and earned runs permitted.

The Yankees scored two runs in the 14^th against two relievers, including the Texas closer, Joakim Soria, after the Rangers scored a run in their half of the inning. The Yankees won three of the four games despite scoring only 10 runs in the series.

Have Major League Baseball clubs found yet another way of manipulating players’ pay? They have if the union is correct in its suspicions about the Houston Astros’ contract negotiations with three of their selections in last month’s draft.

The union filed a grievance against the Astros this week, contending the Astros tried to manipulate the signings of pitcher Brady Aiken, the No. 1 player picked in the June draft, and two players selected in lower rounds, pitchers Jacob Nix and Mac Marshall.

Tony Clark, the head of the union, declined to talk about the issue because a grievance had been filed. Dan Halem, MLB’s chief labor executive, and Jeff Luhnow, the Houston general manager, did not return telephone calls seeking comment. In the messages I left, I mentioned the reason why I was calling.

However, a person familiar with the dispute said of the Astros’ treatment of the players, “Everything they did reeked of desperation. It didn’t smell right from the start and as he continued to talk about it, it smelled worse.”

Last Friday, the day on which unsigned draft choices had to be signed by 5 p.m. Eastern time, Luhnow told reporters the Astros made three different offers to Aiken, the key player in the scenario, and that the San Diego high school left-hander rejected them.

Aiken’s adviser/agent, Casey Close, has not confirmed Luhnow’s version of developments, but the Astros needed to sign Aiken to be able to sign Nix, a fifth-round choice, and Marshall, whom the Astros took in the 21st round.

The signings, or non-signings, were tied to the relatively new draft rules. Under the system, which the union agreed to in the 2011 collective bargaining negotiations, the commissioner’s office assigns each club recommended figures as signing bonuses for players selected in the first 10 rounds of the draft.

Clubs can sign players for more or less than what is called the slot figure, but if a club’s total bonuses exceed its pool total, it incurs penalties in the form of a tax on the excessive amount or loss of future draft choices.

Shortly after the Astros made Aiken a rare No. 1 pick, a high school left-handed pitcher, they reached agreement on a $6.5 million bonus, which was below the slot figure of $7,922,100, leaving them approximately $1.4 million to use on other draft choices.

The money would come in handy in their effort to sign Nix and Marshall because both had dropped in the draft after announcing their intention to attend college instead of signing to play professionally. The Astros reportedly agreed to sign Nix, whose slot figure was $370,500, for a $1.5 million bonus and were prepared to give Marshall $1.5 million, which was later raised to $1.65 million.

However, before any of the three signed a contract, Aiken had an MRI that gave the Astros pause and second thoughts. They apparently discovered something unusual about the ulnar collateral ligament in his left elbow. The unusual ligament didn’t seem to need Tommy John surgery – teams have drafted and signed pitchers who needed the operation – but the Astros weren’t about to pay $6.5 million to find out.

They withdrew their $6.5 million offer and subsequently gave him an offer of $3,168,840, which they had to do to retain their right to next June’s second pick. They qualify for that pick, which is one below this year’s, by making an offer that is 40 percent of their first-round slot bonus this year.

In the final hour of deadline day, the Astros say they made three increasingly higher offers. They didn’t say what they were, but a person not connected to them identified the offers as $4 million, $4.5 million and at the deadline $5 million. Aiken rejected them all.

At the same time, this person said, Nix nixed a $600,000 offer.

The Aiken deal was the key to the signing of all three players. Without, the remainder of the first-round slot amount, the Astros could not satisfy Nix and Marshall.

“The entire process was manipulated to the detriment of the players,” said a person familiar with the union’s position.

The dispute erupted in public late Friday, after the deadline had passed, when Clark issued a terse, cryptic statement:

“Today, two young men should be one step closer to realizing their dreams of becoming Major League ballplayers. Because of the actions of the Houston Astros, they are not. The MLBPA, the players and their advisers are exploring all legal options.”

The union could argue its case on several bases. One is the alleged manipulation of the Aiken deal to use it to sign Nix and Marshall as well.

Another is the Astros’ release of medical information about Aiken’s elbow. Since he was not their player, they had no authority to disclose confidential medical information in violation of the privacy rule of the federal HIPAA law.

In addition, dealing strictly with Nix, he had an agreement with the Astros for $1.5 million, having nothing to do, as far as he knew, with Aiken, but the Astros didn’t honor it.

The union most likely will not be able to use the Astros’ withdrawal of their $6.5 million offer as part of its case. Baseball has a long history of teams’ rejecting contracts because of failed physicals.

Aiken’s case is reminiscent of R.A. Dickey’s in 1996. The Texas Rangers drafted Dickey in the first round of the June draft and were prepared to give him an $810,000 signing bonus when their doctor discovered he didn’t have an ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow. He signed instead for $75,000 and five years later reached the majors as a knuckleball pitcher.

Christopher Geary, an orthopedic surgeon and chief of sports medicine at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, brought up Dickey when I called him to discuss Aiken. Geary has not examined Aiken or seen his MRI but said, “I got a little information.”

“A lot of times these things are straightforward,” he said. “There’s a tear, a partial tear or a full tear.” Then referring to Masahiro Tanaka of the New York Yankees, he added, “Tanaka has a partial tear that they’re trying for rehab to see where it goes.

“From what I’ve heard that’s not what’s happening with Aiken. He apparently has a small ligament or part of it is missing. It sounds like it’s congenitally small or absent. That was the case with Dickey. Dickey never had one and that’s what caused him to rethink his delivery.”

There’s one other element of the Aiken case that could be perilous to him, Nix and Marshall. One of their options is to go to college. Aiken and Nix have committed to UCLA, and Marshall has already enrolled at LSU. But would they be eligible to play baseball if they opted to attend college?

The NCAA doesn’t allow its athletes to have agents, and one person who has dealt with players suggested that since the three players had agreed to contracts, the NCAA may view their “advisers,” Casey Close, a prominent agent, in the case of Aiken and Nix, as agents. In other words, the NCAA could rule them ineligible to play college baseball.

However, an agent found that possibility highly unlikely. “If Major League Baseball breaks their rules,” he said, “who’s going to run to the NCAA first? If that were to happen, next year nobody would talk to anybody. No one would ever reach an agreement.”

Other options for the players would be junior college or an independent league. Once players attend four-year colleges, they can’t be drafted until after their junior year. Junior college players can be drafted after one year. Players who play in an independent league – a favorite destiny of unsigned Scott Boras clients – lose their amateur standing and are considered professionals.

That’s why MLB changed the name of the June draft from amateur draft to first-year player draft.