Here’s your Thursday baseball news long toss to get you warmed up for the weekend.

• It’s been a season to forget for the Chicago Cubs. Well, it’s been a season to take out in the yard, bury in the ground, and solemnly read Ecclesiastes 3:1 over, all while an absent-minded Starlin Castro stares off into the yard next door. But for whatever problems the Cubs have had on the field, they appear to still be an attractive destination for some of the biggest names and brightest minds in front-office management. Ever since firing Jim Hendry, marquee names such as Brian Cashman, Pat Gillick, Theo Epstein, and Andrew Friedman have been mentioned as possible replacements. And now there’s speculation that Bay Area walks fetishist Billy Beane might be in the mix, as well. Reports suggest that Beane’s future in Oakland is directly tied to whether the A’s get a new park in San Jose.

• On the south side of Chicago, White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen has come to a startling conclusion after watching Angels’ center fielder Peter Bourjos: White men can jump run. Or at least Bourjos can. On Tuesday night, Bourjos scored from first, after Juan Pierre bobbled a Torii Hunter single. An effusive Guillen stopped writing Bourjos’ name and drawing hearts all around it on his Trapper Keeper for long enough to say, “I’ve never seen a white man that can run that fast. It is really impressive.” After managing Paul Konerko, you can see why he might feel that way.

• If the parliamentary procedures involved in waiver wire claims, and the rumors that swirl around said claims, get you all hot and bothered, well, (a) are you OK? and (b) last night was probably like Christmas morning for you. Heath Bell to the Giants? Carlos Pena to the Yankees? Wandy Rodriguez to the Rockies? Jason Kubel and Jim Thome to the White Sox? Or the Indians? Heavens to Betty Draper! Before you reach for your hand fan, know that a lot (if not all) of these waiver wire deals will not go through. This really seems like an opportunity for GMs to get to utter the rarely used chestnut, “If I can’t have him, no one will.”

• Via Hardball Talk, there is apparently a “secret plan” in place to keep the Tampa Bay Rays in St. Petersberg. Who is hatching this secret plan? Oh, just the mayor of St. Pete. Seeing as how the very existence of the Rays seems to have been a secret kept from the people of Tampa/St. Pete in the first place, it would seem that this is totally fine way of proceeding.

• In Philadelphia on Wednesday, Kyle Kendrick got rocked by such Valhalla-bound names as Nick Evans and Ruben Tejada, as the Phils lost to the Mets, 7-4. After the game, Kendrick retired to the clubhouse, where he approached Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay and said, “Whoo! Hot one out there. Who’s got two thumbs and couldn’t hit the broad side of Walmart with a softball? This guy!” After which, Halladay, looking at Lee said, “You hear something?” And Lee said, looking right at Kendrick, “Must have been a ghost.”

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