It's hard to imagine a better way to kick off the mad dash to baseball's trade deadline than with the Brewers and Cubs pulling trades for big-name pitchers within two days of each other. Of course, those moves raise a pretty big question: who's the favorite to win the division now? Let's break it down.

Definitely not favorites: Pirates, Astros, and Reds. The Reds are young and exciting but at least a year away, the Pirates seem to be meandering down the right road but they're still way down the path in the wrong direction, and the Astros are a disaster area.

The Cardinals: This team perplexes me. By all accounts they shouldn't be very good, and yet they've still got the second best record in the NL and are ahead of the Brewers in the Wild Card standings. They probably won't join in the arms race with the Cubs and Brewers, but they get Adam Wainwright and Chris Carpenter back from the DL in pretty short fashion. Still, they're short on offense besides Albert Pujols and Ryan Ludwick, it's hard to know what to expect out of Carpenter after missing most of a season and a half, and Kyle Lohse is a prime candidate to turn into a pumpkin.

Goodnight, sweet prince.

Who knew Pablo Ozuna was such a favorite son? The White Sox are shedding more than one tear over the designation of utilityman Ozuna, who sent to the minors to make room for the return of the considerably more valuable Paul Konerko. Even Jose Contreras is sad. Awww:

Yet, there stood pitcher Jose Contreras, hours before his team's 8-7, 13-inning marathon win at Kauffman Stadium, looking like he had just received a thunderous body blow and there wasn't enough air in the room for him to take a breath. [...] He wasn't as upset as his manager.

''[Bleep] Jose Contreras,'' Guillen said. ''Nobody in this organization is more upset or sad than Ozzie Guillen. Nobody. If some of the players didn't like the move, well, it's easy to do. Just tell Ozuna to stay here and get them to get the [bleep] out of here and go to the minor leagues.''

Yeah, [bleep] you, Jose! Ozzie Guillen is way, way sadder than you are! In the pursuit of empathy, Ozzie Guillen will never be outdone!

Among White Sox fans, the empathy returns have been far more varied. Ozuna is a fan favorite, but so is Paul Konerko; if you have to pick one, that balding World Series-winning slugger wins every time.

It's been a wild week in the world of baseball, as Milwaukee has fired the first warning shot by trading their top prospect and others for CC Sabathia. The Cubs swiftly responded by prying away Rich Harden from the Oakland Athletics.

Some of you may be confused, some of you may be hurt, but for most of you, your heads are spinning. That's okay. Because the MLB 'Haus is here to help make sense of it all. AOL Baseball Editor Andrew Johnson and I are here to chat about not only Sabathia and Harden, but anything you want about the world of baseball ... whether it be the Mets putting up a touchdown on Tim Lincecum, the Braves signing Julian Tavarez, Barry Bonds ... anything you want. Won't you join us at 1PM ET?

Chicago's Wrigley Field has been known to have its fair share of Cubs fans that aren't exactly sober in the stands, so is it at all surprising that a NASCAR Sprint Cup race car sponsored by none other than Jim Beam is lining up to support the effort to save Wrigley's name?

Nah, just a little humorous.

Robby Gordon's No. 7 Jim Beam Dodge is helping out the cause during this Saturday night's LifeLock 400 at Chicagoland Speedway by running the "Save Our Ballpark's Name" web site on his hood. That site, www.saveourname.com, is running a petition of Chicago and otherwise baseball fans who want nothing more than for Wrigley Field to stay Wrigley field.

The baseball gem's name, built in 1916, has come under fire by owner Sam Zell. Zell, who owns Tribune Broadcasting wants to help eliminate the company's debt by selling off the naming rights to the field.

Gordon's hood comes on the heels of Jim Beam placing a new billboard near the stadium advocating the petition and the "Save Our Name" drive.

If nothing else, it's a good way for Gordon -- the other Gordon in NASCAR -- to pick up some fans this weekend as he competes in Chicago, where the NASCAR fan base isn't exactly huge.

Just days after the Brewers made a splash by trading for CC Sabathia, the Cubs countered by acquiring an ace of their own, picking up Rich Harden and Chad Gaudin from the A's in exchange for Sean Gallagher, Eric Patterson, Matt Murton, minor leaguer Josh Donaldson and ... wait, that's it? Whoa. Advantage: Cubs.

Harden is obviously a huge injury risk, but no one can dispute that he's one of the most dominant pitchers in the game when healthy. In 13 starts he's been one of the best in the AL this year, posting a 2.34 ERA (1.14 WHIP) while averaging better than 10.7 strikeouts per nine.

And while Gaudin is clearly an afterthought, he's not all that bad himself, capable of eating innings from the bullpen or starting rotation.

What did it cost Chicago? Some intriguing prospects, sure, but absolutely nothing in terms of players capable of helping the Cubs win today.

Perhaps you saw Gordon Wittenmyer's Cubs' notebook in the Chicago Sun-Times today and were expecting some kind of FanHouse commentary on Jim Hendry's, "How can I panic about the CC Sabathia trade if I'm already crazy?" statement. I was kind of thinking of trying to work that into a post, but that was before the second item in the notebook hit my eyeballs:

After Derrek Lee spotted a bug in his locker Saturday in St. Louis, [Sean] Gallagher ate it for an undisclosed sum of cash -- to the disgust and delight of Lee and teammate Reed Johnson.

Sean Gallagher eats bugs ... now that's a scoop! Still, the little blurb in the notebook now leaves me with more questions than answers. What kind of bug was it? How much money do you have to pay a guy that makes $350,000 a year to eat a bug? Is this some kind of rookie hazing? Will Gallagher continue to eat bugs if it helps him break out of his recent slump? What else will Sean Gallagher do for cash? Wait ... don't answer that last one.

The real question now is whether or not the light-hearted, bug-eating atmosphere will continue now that the Cubs appear to have a genuine division race on their hands. The Cubs might claim otherwise, but it kind of seems like they've been on cruise control for a month now. They can't really afford to keep that up now that the Brewers have made their move.

So now that the Brewers have traded for C.C. Sabathia, one has to wonder what move, if any, the Chicago Cubs are going to make to counter it. After all, a top of the rotation that features Ben Sheets and Sabathia is quite formidable, and the Brewers are currently constructed are more than capable of making up the 3.5 game gap between themselves and the top of the division.

So what are the Cubs going to do to answer Milwaukee's challenge? Word out of Chicago is that general manager Jim Hendry has been talking to Billy Beane a lot lately, and the topic of their conversation is not the weather, but rather what it would take to get Rich Harden in a Cubs uniform.

While this move would make a lot of sense for the Cubs if they could pull it off, I wouldn't exactly plan on seeing it happen anytime soon. First of all, Beane has showed us in his recent deals for Dan Haren and Nick Swisher that if you want one of his top players, you better have a truckload of prospects to send back his way. I'm not sure the Cubs have enough players who would qualify as somebody Beane would be interested in taking.

Then there's the fact that while Harden was on the block at the beginning of the season, that was because everybody expected the A's to suck this season, including Billy Beane. The fact that they're only six games out of first place right now will probably cause Beane to hold off on pulling the trigger on this deal. Though if Oakland falls out of it by the trading deadline, then all bets are off.

For all his faults, no one's ever accused Ozzie Guillen of being anything but transparent and honest. Case in point: he's made his e-mail address (OzzieGuillen13@hotmail.com) public, and invites fans to e-mail him directly. As this is the internet, Guillen gets a ton of racist, xenophobic e-mail, stuff sent by that incredibly stupid vocal minority that give all the reasonable people out here a bad name.

He also gets fan mail, not least of which from the Chicago Tribune's Rick Morrissey, who did his best to anonymously get Guillen's goat via e-mail. Guess what? It worked:

Then I forgot about it. Four hours later, I checked my mail, and there it was. From: OzzieGuillen13@hotmail.com. I opened it.

You have to be stupid. Get a life, loser. I hope you have no kids. They have to be like you.

Zing! The conversation goes on like that, Ozzie trading barbs with this anonymous heckler, before Morrissey visits Guillen in the clubhouse and reveals his true nature. Naturally, Guillen laughs about it.

Of course, it seems weird that Morrissey would use a computer at all, given how much he seems to hate the wretched beasts. Computers are destroying baseball. What's to stop them from destroying emails about baseball? Food for thought, people.

The Cubs' sale trudges onward, and little or no detail has trickled out. The candidates -- which include Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and Chicago rich dude John Canning -- are, along with their chances of owning the team, still relative unknowns. Who's going to pony up the cash?

The Chicago Tribune reminds that the money question might be the least important one. Instead, it will matter who is "most acceptable" to Major League Baseball, which we all knew but which has never been made as clear as it is today:

Canning is the leading contender not only because of his wealth and local ties, but also because he's part-owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, a team once controlled by Major League Baseball Commissioner Allan "Bud" Selig. [...] Selig has stated publicly that Canning is a "very close personal friend of mine," as are other members of Canning's group, which includesMcDonald's Corp. chairman Andrew McKenna, who served as chairman of the Cubs early in Tribune's ownership. Canning declined to comment on his relationship with Selig or his front-runner status.

[...] "If you're not acceptable to baseball, it's something that doesn't really resolve itself," Stone said. "There will be somebody else around who is acceptable."

In other words, if Canning bids the same amount of money as other prospective owners (including Cuban), Canning will get the team because ... he's friends with Bud Selig. That seems fair, and by fair, I mean incredibly nepotistic. And wrong.

Alfonso Soriano is a fast healer. Last year, when the Cubs centerfielder tore his left quadriceps muscle, he returned from the 15-day DL and immediately had the best September of any Cub maybe, like, ever. It was that good. This year, he's trying to return from a broken hand, and he's already making process:

He didn't look timid as he hit one line drive after another, and launched two balls out of Busch Stadium over the center-field fence. Soriano was batting .283 with 15 homers and 40 RBIs in 51 games before he was injured. This is his second stint on the disabled list; he was sidelined earlier because of a strained right calf.

Soriano won't likely be back for the All-Star game, but whatever. That's not important, no matter what Bud Selig says. What is important -- to Cubs fans, at least -- is that he returns to the Cubs as safely and quickly as possible, so the dreaded Cardinal scourge doesn't creep up and do something truly unexpected in the NL Central. This is getting ridiculous.