I'm on vacation, sleeping off the Olympics, the week of Aug. 25. The regular Sports Daily column returns Sept. 2.

If you're looking for the Olympics blog to review the two weeks of coverage by Gary Kamiya, John Krich, Jennifer Sey and me, here's the link.

The eyes of the sports world will be on Beijing over the next two-plus weeks, and this column's eyes are of course no exception. So for the next few weeks, King Kaufman's Sports Daily stands aside for the Salon Olympics Daily, which I'll be writing along with Salon's Gary Kamiya, author John Krich and former gymnast Jennifer Sey.

This column steps aside for two weeks while its author contributes to the Salon Olympics Daily blog.

If something non-Olympic simply can't be ignored, I'll write about it here. Otherwise, see you there.

The Sporting News is trying to rage against the dying of the light.

Once the bible of baseball, a weekly newsprint tabloid that was must reading for anyone who cared deeply about the national pastime, it had in recent decades become a moribund glossy general sports magazine and Web site. Its niche of baseball wonkitude long since taken over by USA Today and then the Web, unable to hang with Sports Illustrated and ESPN the Magazine, it was left with little reason to exist beyond a historic name and a large radio network.

Wheezing, it was sold at a bargain to American City Business Journals two years ago and moved from St. Louis, where the paper was founded in 1886, to Charlotte. This is the kind of tale that usually ends with a once-proud publication quietly dying.

But the old paper-turned-magazine is trying to reinvent itself -- as a newspaper. Online. Late last month the Sporting News launched Sporting News Today, a free daily online publication that looks and reads like a newspaper, though it still acts something like a Web site.

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The growing scandal around baseball scouts and other officials skimming money from signing bonuses paid to prospects in the Dominican Republic has reached the New York Yankees, who placed several employees on leave pending the results of Major League Baseball's investigation, the New York Times reports.

Those implicated so far in the probe, which first made the news in spring training, have worked for the Washington Nationals, Boston Red Sox and Chicago White Sox. ESPN quotes a source familiar with the MLB probe saying that "less than a half-dozen" teams would be implicated, including the Yankees, White Sox, Red Sox and Nationals.

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As the world arrives in Beijing and the frenzy ratchets up, it's becoming clear that, unless we choose to ignore it all and just focus on the running and the jumping and whatnot, we're in for a pretty depressing Olympics.

Amnesty International and other human rights groups are condemning China for its crackdowns on Tibet protesters and its evident policy of rounding up undesirables to present a clean, happy image of Beijing to the world. The world press has been howling about promised openness that hasn't materialized. We've heard enough about Beijing's air pollution to choke the heartiest of souls.

George Walden, a reporter and former Tory M.P. who has lived in China and written extensively about it, summed up the scene in less than one sentence in the U.K. Telegraph: "Unbreathable air, stepped-up arrests of dissidents, restrictions on journalists, terrorist alerts, mournful echoes from Tibet -- the Beijing Games do not seem set to earn a gold medal."

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I take back everything I said about the Harold Baines statue in Chicago. Statue inflation has gone way beyond that sweet-swinging, unassuming longtime designated hitter. The Milwaukee Brewers are going to be a big part of a daylong celebration Aug. 19 accompanying the unveiling of a statue of Arthur Fonzarelli.

Fonzie. From "Happy Days."

The statue will stand on the Riverwalk on the Milwaukee River, and Henry Winkler and other cast members will be in town for a whole day of wingdingery that includes ceremonies at the Brewers game against the Houston Astros. Anson Williams -- he played Potsie! -- will sing the national anthem.

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Why wouldn't the Green Bay Packers trade Brett Favre to the Minnesota Vikings?

Favre has rejoined the Packers, the soap opera going through a plot twist this weekend when NFL commissioner Roger Goodell granted his request for reinstatement to the active list and he flew to Green Bay. There was national TV coverage of Favre's charter plane taxiing in, not that August is a slow sports month without an Olympics or anything.

When Favre began making noises about coming back, the Packers said they'd moved on, handed the reins to Aaron Rodgers, who'd carried Favre's clipboard for three years, and wished Favre well doing that tractor thing or whatever people do in Mississippi. He asked for his release and the team said no. One doesn't just give away a Hall of Fame quarterback coming off a fine season, but really, Aaron Rodgers is our guy.

The Packers offered Favre a 10-year, $25 million marketing contract if he'd just stay retired, but he said no. And by the time that plane rolled in Sunday, the team had backpedaled to saying Favre would be allowed to compete with Rodgers for the quarterback job.

So much for staring down a god.

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Another baseball trading deadline has come and gone with a whole lot more noise than action. As usual, a ton of speculation turned into a few crumbs of ...

Wait a minute. Manny Ramirez went where?!

The three-way deal that sent the tempestuous Boston Red Sox slugger to the Los Angeles Dodgers capped off a far more entertaining than usual deadline season. It was announced after the 4 p.m. EDT limit, after having been agreed upon at "3:59 and seconds," according to Pittsburgh Pirates general manager Neal Huntington.

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A big three-way trade that would send Manny Ramirez from the Boston Red Sox to the Florida Marlins has been the hot rumor of the 24 hours leading up to Thursday's 4 p.m. EDT non-waiver trading deadline. Various outlets are reporting various sources saying the deal is imminent, 50-50 or, in the words of Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria, "no news, nothing to talk about."

Consider the source on that last one and take it for what it's worth. The rumor mill has Pittsburgh Pirates slugger Jason Bay and reliever John Grabow going to Boston, Marlins outfielder Jeremy Hermida going to Pittsburgh and various prospects changing hands. Some rumors have the destinations for some of the players switched around.

For all of Ramirez's antics, a trade looked unlikely just a few days ago, but he may have done enough this time around to force Boston's hand. Telling ESPN Deportes Wednesday that the Sox don't deserve a player like him could have been the last straw. If the Red Sox can net Bay and Grabow from a Ramirez deal, they probably won't lose much on the field, as David Pinto pointed out on Sportingnews.com Wednesday, but they'll cure a headache.

That sounds great, but don't forget that headache was a big part of two World Series wins in the last four years.

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The Seoul Broadcasting Station in Korea has run footage of a dress rehearsal for next week's elaborate Olympic opening ceremony. The SBS video has the Beijing Organizing Committee fuming. The Wall Street Journal reports spokesman Sun Weide saying the SBS obtained the footage "through irregular means" and that the station has "not acted in conformance with professional ethics."

The Journal says the organizers have made a state secret out of the ceremony, which has been three years and $300 million in the making. BOCOG, the Beijing Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games, acted quickly to get the video yanked from YouTube.

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