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A neat undercard act rather than the main bout, Lee Irvine had the misfortune to have played in the 1960s, South Africas golden age. Despite having a knot of heavy hitters ahead of him - Mike Procter, Barry Richards, Eddie Barlow, and the Pollocks - Irvine looks back on his career with breezy pride. Look carefully when he tells his stories and you can see the past dance in his lively eyes. Here is a man with no obvious regrets.Irvine remains in regular contact with his former Essex room-mate, the legspinner Robin Hobbs, and counts Mark Nicholas as a good friend. As a designated driver in his second season at Essex, he ferried Keith Boyce back to his digs in Leytonstone in his Lotus Cortina (colour: indeterminate), and spent long hours as a schoolboy practising with the peerless Barry Richards. He has a story or two about them all.Dont ask me how but I once ended up watching Spurs at White Hart Lane with Rohan Kanhai, says Irvine with a wry smile.My second game for the county was against Glamorgan at Pontypridd. The bar was closed because of a fight between some locals. I remember John Arlott inviting me up to his room for a drink. He opened a case which contained sherry and port. Take your pick, he said, and we started talking.Irvines Essex days were glorious, spoiled only by the fact that Essex played their home games in those days on a variety of local shit heaps like Southend-on-Sea and Colchester. Their secretary worked out of a Rothmans-branded caravan that he hauled across the length and breadth of the land. The Essex scoreboard was mounted on the back of a truck. The club had 12 contracted players and Irvine earned ￡1500 (plus little incentives and money for winning a national sixes competition) for four and a bit months of work.In 1968 it rained on every day of the season bar three.We were the poorest county in the country, he says. I lived with a couple called Gladys and Ron Mouldey in Chingford. Their daughter had left home to get married and they had a spare room. I paid one pound a day and I got food and laundry and I only paid when I was there. I used to write to them and send them Christmas cards.Irvine wanted desperately to tour England with South Africa in 1971, he says, because it would have given him the opportunity of playing on really good pitches. It would also, he adds, have allowed him to cement his reputation in the collective cricketing mind. Alas, it was not to be. His Springbok blazer was ready at Markhams, the outfitters, and his kit was ready and marked. Only days before the scheduled departure date, the tour was called off.Such was the bottleneck of talent up ahead of him that it took Irvine most of the 1960s to knock on the door of national selection.In 1969 he followed work from Durban up to Johannesburg in Transvaal as it was known then. Having played good cricket for seasons at Berea Rovers, he knew the importance of selecting a competitive club side and duly joined Ali Bacher at Balfour Park, rivals to two teams from Wanderers, Old Edwardians and Old Johannians, in the tough local league.Solly Katz emigrated to Israel, so there was a vacancy at Balfour for a wicketkeeper, says Irvine. Ali said: Sure, lets take a look. I took the gloves and we played for about five weeks before selection for Transvaals first Currie Cup game. Ali had a voice in selection - he didnt have a vote - and when the first Transvaal side of the season was chosen, they opted for me rather than a guy called Elton Chatterton, a neat keeper but probably not as good a batsman as I was.We played against Eastern Province in November 1969 and I batted at six, coming in at 119 for 4. I made 138 not out, took six catches in their first innings and made 46 in the second dig. Transvaal shared that seasons Currie Cup with Western Province.A couple of months later Bill Lawrys Australians arrived.The South Africans were particularly worried about two of their number: fast bowler Garth McKenzie and mystery spinner John Gleeson.We were determined to keep McKenzie out and we were pretty good at that because he ended up being dropped for the third Test, says Irvine. What were we going to do about Gleeson, though? We decided to have a look and if we needed to have another meeting after the first Test - which we won - we would.Anyway, Graeme [Pollock] says after the Test that he can read him and we all listen. Graeme says that the secret is that when Gleeson bowls the legbreak, you dont see any finger; when he bowls the googly, you can see a finger.So Ali [Bacher] runs himself out just before lunch as he tries to get Barry to a hundred, and Barry gets out for the famous 140.Eventually Im in. Im playing nicely and I look for the finger and because I dont see it, I assume its the legbreak and I get bowled for 13. Hey, what about the finger, I ask Graeme, and he just shrugs and says that he ended up playing him off the pitch.Irvine became more confident as the series progressed. He top-scored in South Africas first innings of the third Test, at the Wanderers, with 79, running out of partners before being caught by Keith Stackpole on the cover boundary, as the hosts took the series. John [Traicos, the last batsman] was angry with me because he said he would have kept them out, but I didnt know very much about him - we were scrambling mad singles into the gully at the end.Irvine improved on that 79 by scoring his maiden Test hundred in the fourth Test, at St Georges - on his 26th birthday.He never played Test cricket again. Bacher, comparing him to AB de Villiers in terms of all-round sporting ability, said that he was one of the most scandalously neglected cricketers of the age.My technique was very unlimited, if I can say that, says Irvine, and I was always known as a fast scorer.In Gods Forgotten Cricketers, by Andre Odendaal, Vince van der Bijl reckoned I was one of the most difficult batsmen to bowl to. Les Theobald, our cricket coach at school, used to say to opener Bruce Heath and me that we had one ball as a sighter and then we had to look for a run every ball. We were brilliant runners between wickets and that was good for Barry because he was flat-footed and he wasnt that great a runner himself.If Irvine does have a lower-case regret, its that he didnt return to Essex for a third consecutive season, although the reason for not doing so was obvious - he expected to be involved with the South African tour to England instead.He is at his most animated when discussing his Essex days, whether it was a battling spell when facing Derek Underwood on a sticky in a 40-over game against Kent at Purfleet, or being cheated out in a crucial end-of-season game against Yorkshire.I got my county cap after a game against Yorkshire at Westcliff-on-Sea in my first season at Essex, he remembers. They were chasing the Championship and in a low-scoring game we batted last, needing 96 to win. I came in at 38 for 3 against a proper side. They had [Fred] Trueman, [Brian] Close, [Geoff] Boycott, Don Wilson. They were talented, but Close, who was fielding at short leg, tried to cheat me out. He clicked his fingers to simulate a caught-behind and when I didnt walk - you walked in those days - I got ten kinds of lip.So, anyway, the bottom line was that I got 28 not out and we won the game when I hit Geoff Cope for a six. No sooner had I stormed off than one of their juniors gets sent by Close into our dressing room to congratulate me. I told him, If Close wants to come and say anything to me he should come and do it himself.There were other bizarre occasions besides. When he played the touring Australians in 1968, a new pitch had to be rolled at Southchurch Park in Southend. In the second innings he padded up to Bob Cowper (the ball pitching outside leg) as the ball spun across him. It hit the back of his bat before being pouched by Ian Redpath at first slip. Essex were bowled out for 122.Unlike some of his former colleagues, who seem to enjoy being swept along by almost infinite tides of bitterness, Irvine rejoices in his memories. He would have loved to have locked horns with West Indies, Pakistan and India overseas.The first challenge for me was to succeed at top level, but after having accomplished that, you wanted to do it away, he says. In Pakistan and India they had their own umpires and, to put it mildly, they were dodgy. Our umpires were dodgy. They were amateurs, some who had never played the game. At least England had guys like Dickie Bird, who had first-class experience, so you could trust them.The biggest challenge was to play away against the top sides, against some of those guys I played on the county circuit. Eating curry with Mushtaq Mohammad one or twice a season just wasnt enough.Nike Air Max Plus TN Ultra Pink/Cherry Camouflage Womens . -- Running backs Darren McFadden and Rashad Jennings were back at practice for the Oakland Raiders on Wednesday despite being hampered by hamstring injuries. Nike Shox Shoes Cheap .35 million, one-year contract that avoided salary arbitration. Plouffe batted .254 with 14 home runs and 52 RBIs in 477 at-bats last season, his second as a regular in the lineup. http://www.niketnshoesaustralia.com/ .C. at the helm of the top team in the Eastern Conference. His tenure as the GM in Vancouver was all too brief. Though he led the Canucks to what was then a franchise record-shattering campaign in just his second season, Nonis was gone and replaced one year later. Mens Nike Air Max TN Plus Ultra White Lemon Yellow . It was Kerbers third final of the year after losing to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia in Monterrey in April and to Petra Kvitova of Czech Republic in Tokyo two weeks ago. The 10th-ranked German improved her record in finals to 3-5. Cheap Nike Shox R4 . Coach Mike Munchak says Fokou stretched ligaments in his left knee Oct. 13 against Seattle, which could keep out up to five weeks even though the linebacker didnt need surgery.So now that weve got that pesky little labor snafu out of the way, let baseballs real offseason fun begin. And by that, of course, we mean:Bring on the winter meetings!They will come roaring at us from the shores of the Potomac River. And when you consider all the offseason activity that got shoved in the back of the freezer as teams awaited further developments on the labor front, these meetings have a chance to be crazy.If you want a prediction, I would expect a lot of action, one AL executive said. I think theres a lot of stuff out there that people have arranged and want to do and have had a lot of substantive talks about. And they were left like, Once we know all the rules [in the labor deal], lets get moving on this.OK, so what happens now that those folks finally know all the rules -- or know most of them, anyway? Let the transactions begin. Thats what.First off, there are many, many free agents left to sign, in a world in which 19 of Keith Laws top 23 free agents remain on the board. And some of them -- say, Edwin Encarnacion, Carlos Beltran and Rich Hill, to name three -- could go quickly.But what really will make these winter meetings an awesome Rumor Central attraction is that, for once, those free agents arent going to be headliners in this show. Its going to be a week in which a bunch of five-star, bright-lights players are going to turn up in, like, a dozen trade rumors a day -- because, as long as theyre not a closer or a first baseman/DH, theyre potentially much bigger difference-makers than anyone on the free-agent market.Its one of the worst free-agent groups I can remember, said one longtime NL exec. So I think people are saying, Lets go make a trade.And if thats what theyre saying, it could be one action-packed week. So if anyone needs help out there as they steer their shopping cart through the aisles, were here to offer our expert assistance -- by presenting this handy-dandy buyers guide to the winter meetings:Starting pitchingThe good news: There are three dozen available free-agent starters. The bad news: Exactly one of them is coming off a season in which he worked more than 100 innings, had an ERA under 3.70 and had an ERA+ more than 23 percent above the league average. That would be Rich Hill, naturally. And even though hell turn 37 next March, Hill is poised to sign the contract of a lifetime. (Our prediction: He goes back to the Dodgers.)So for teams looking for top-of-the-rotation arms, the only real route is the Trade Rumor section of this market. And luckily for them, there are some intriguing starters on those shelves.Chris Sale: Were hearing the same grumbling about the White Soxs price tag this winter as we heard last July. One exec described them as asking for the Shelby Miller deal, plus at least two additional pieces. Which means every clubs offer needs to start with its No. 1 prospect and then pile on from there. So why, you ask, would any team pay that?They might not, to be honest. But deals like this normally are easier to make in December than July. And the White Sox seem more motivated to move Sale than they were at the deadline -- with strong interest from teams like the Red Sox, Nationals, Braves and Rangers, all of whom could potentially match up.I think the price is going to come down ... and I think theyre going to move him, said one NL exec. In fact, Id be surprised if they dont.Justin Verlander: This is going to be a tough one. Verlander will be 34 next season. Hes guaranteed $28 million in each of the next three seasons. And he has full trade-veto rights. Beyond that, the new luxury-tax thresholds and penalties may have eliminated a couple of his most likely destinations (namely, Boston and L.A.) -- especially when you factor in that the Tigers have shown no interest in eating any of his salary.But the new labor deal also has heightened the pressure on Verlanders team to cut payroll to stay under the tax threshold. And while the Tigers arent interested in a strict money dump, theyre asking for quality, but not quantity, in the package they would want back.Is there a deal to be made there? I think there is, said one AL exec. I think it comes down to this: Do you want to give up five or six prospects for Chris Sale? Or would you rather give up two or three prospects for Justin Verlander?Chris Archer: Weve speculated about how the labor deal could affect the buyers. But how about the sellers? Put yourself in the shoes of the Rays -- a team that now knows definitively it has almost no chance of getting a first-round pick as compensation if it lets one of its veteran players get all the way to free agency. So this figures to be a club more motivated than ever to trade at least one of its starters, and maybe more than one.Archer -- who is under control for five more years (for just $39 million total) -- is the star attraction in that group. And the Rays havent quite said, Hell no, when teams ask about him. But other clubs are convinced theyre much more likely to move one or two starters who are closer to free agency. So that probably means Alex Cobb, who has one year of control left, or Drew Smyly, who has two years remaining. And Jake Odorizzi (a free agent after three more years) is another option.Thats their M.O., to move guys as they get close to free agency, said one longtime exec. Everyone will call on Archer. I just dont see their motivation to move him now. But with their other guys, theyve got to see what they can get before they walk out the door.Back of the bullpenLooking for a closer? Youll need too keep your checkbook handy.dddddddddddd Aroldis Chapman, Kenley Jansen and Mark Melancon have an excellent chance to reel in $200 million in guaranteed money among them. And if you want to get a feel for what that means, how about this: Mariano Rivera made only $169.4 million over his entire career.A quick look at those three:Aroldis Chapman: Multiple sources say hed love to go back to the Bronx. And the Yankees have let him know they want him back. But if hes waiting for them to throw 100 million bucks at his feet, he could have a long wait, particularly now that the labor deal has applied renewed pressure on the Yankees to keep their payroll under control. The Dodgers and Giants both have interest, but he doesnt seem to be either teams first choice. So this could turn into a waiting game.Kenley Jansen: Because hes the only closer in this group with a qualifying offer weighing him down, there is more reason than ever for Jansen to return to L.A. But watch out for the Marlins. Their manager, Don Mattingly, managed him in Chavez Ravine and is pushing hard for him. And their owner, Jeffrey Loria, is said by agents to be mulling whether to sign off on a huge offer for him.Mark Melancon: The Giants feel like a perfect fit. But the Nationals would love to bring him back. The Marlins have kicked the tires. And Melancon could end up with so many good choices, he could easily wind up with one of the biggest deals by any closer in history.I think all three of these guys wind up at $15-16-17-18 million a year for five years, said one NL exec. Its obvious with Chapman and Jansen. But I dont think Melancon deserves [a whole lot less]. Youre talking about [131] saves over the last three years and extraordinary makeup. Id put as much faith in bringing him in as any of these guys.The bat marketIf youre shopping for a first baseman/DH kind of bat, this free-agent market works for you. But beyond that, the supply of impact hitters drops off precipitously. So lets just say the trade market for bats is alive and well. With names like these ...Andrew McCutchen: He has been the face of the Pirates franchise. But that sure feels as if its about to change. And based on all the chatter between the Pirates and Nationals on Thursday, it could change as soon as the next 24 hours. So who knows if McCutchen is still in play when the Pittsburgh delegation pulls into the winter meetings.Theyre actively trying to move that contract, said one NL exec. And theyre actively trying to move him. Theyre ready to put Starling Marte in center field and move on.Ryan Braun: The Dodgers have gone out of their way to tell other teams they were never as close as advertised to trading Yasiel Puig for Braun last August, even though no one has denied that swap was discussed. So L.A. may not be as logical a fit for this man as many people assume. Nevertheless, he couldnt possibly be more available. And even with some of the baggage Braun carries and the four years and $76 million left on his contract, hes as productive an offensive player as anyone you can trade for this winterI honestly dont know why he wouldnt get traded, said one of the execs quoted earlier. If people really watched him play this year, Id think they should be lining up to take a run at that guy.We havent heard a single decent rumor about Braun all winter. But you know the great thing about the winter meetings? We can just about guarantee that will change next week.Miguel Cabrera: Hey, we bet Miggys name got your attention. But this just in: Theres about as good a chance of Ty Cobb getting traded as there is of Miguel Cabrera getting traded. Asked what the Tigers would want back, one exec we surveyed replied: Lets put it this way. If it happens, it would have to be a historic deal.Another exec said he believes the Tigers have to trade two players in the next few weeks to get younger and slash payroll. The most obvious is J.D. Martinez. His prediction on the other: Ian Kinsler. But bear in mind the Tigers have told everyone when the smoke clears, they still expect to contend next year. So theyre interested only in baseball deals, not zapping dollars. Which makes them one of the most intriguing teams to watch next week.Todd Frazier: The White Sox have told teams they would talk about a long list of their position players -- including Jose Abreu, Adam Eaton, Brett Lawrie and Melky Cabrera. But in an offseason in which the third-base free-agent market basically consists of only Justin Turner and Luis Valbuena, keep Frazier in mind. Hes just a year away from free agency. MLB Trade Rumors projects hell earn $13.5 million in arbitration. And the White Sox are hoping his effervescent personality and 40 home runs will make him more marketable than your average .225 hitter might ordinarily be.If you asked me to name the one guy in their lineup I think theyll trade, Id guess Frazier, said an AL exec. I think of all of them, theyd prefer to move him.But you know the best part about the winter meetings? When you get all 30 teams assembled in one zip code, almost anything is possible. And thats especially true in an offseason that is going to place a bigger premium on creativity than check-writing.So fasten those seat belts. Place your seat backs in the upright and locked position. We cant predict everyone who is about to get traded, but we feel safe in making this bold prediction: Its going to be one entertaining week. ' ' '