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Baltimore Orioles: A number of major league baseball players have followed up their careers with forays into politics. Vinegar Bend Mizell was a congressman for many years and Jim Bunning a senator. No big leaguer -- save for one who played a ballplayer in a movie -- has ever been President. Orioles outfielder Melvin Mora hopes to change that one day. Dave Sheinin of the Washington Post writes that Mora harbors dreams of becoming president of his native Venezuela, a country in the throes of some serious problems. "I want to find a way to fix the country, and I think the only way to fix the country is to be on the top, the president," he told Sheinin. "I've been thinking about [running]. But now is not the time." Mora is in the first year of a three-year, $10.5 million contract. Sheinin asked Ramon Guillermo Aveledo, the president of the Venezuelan Baseball League for an assessment of Mora's chances. Said Aveledo: "Melvin is a popular figure here. He's someone about whom we feel a lot of pride, not just in his region, but the whole country. If he thinks that after his playing career, he would like to become a politician, I see no reason why he could not be very successful."

Detroit Tigers: Don't add Ugueth Urbina to the Cleveland Indians just yet. With former speedballer Matt Anderson's effectiveness a thing of the past and Fernando Rodney suffering lingering arm pain, the Tigers appear to be in the running for the services of Urbina, the last of the free agent class of 2003-04. "We are talking to several teams, and one of them is Detroit," his agent, Peter Greenberg, told Gene Guidi of the Detroit Free Press. Guidi also reports that Pudge Rodriguez is pushing for his signing.

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