A great breakdown of the numbers involved in determining what a star player like Alex Rodriguez, means to an organization like the Yankees.

Quoted: The landmark $305-million contract should prove a sound investment because of Rodriguez's performance and marquee value. - Major League Baseball news

BLDGBLOG interviews avant-garde architect Lebbeus Woods about a sketch of New York where the East River and Hudson are dammed to expose a currently underwater new sub-world.

Quoted: I wanted to suggest that maybe lower Manhattan – not lower downtown, but lower in the sense of below the city – could form a new relationship with the planet. So, in the drawing, you see that the East River and the Hudson are both dammed. They’re purposefully drained, as it were. The underground – or lower Manhattan – is revealed, and, in the drawing, there are suggestions of inhabitation in that lower region.

Steve Wasserman takes a look at the state of newspaper book reviews for the "Columbia Journalism Review" and finds that they're broken.

Quoted: That book coverage is disappearing is not news. What is news is the current pace of the erosion in coverage, as well as the fear that an unbearable cultural threshold has been crossed: whether the book beat should exist at all is now, apparently, a legitimate question. Jobs, book sections, and pages are vanishing at a rate rivaled only by the degree to which entire species are being rendered extinct in the Amazonian rain forest.

Quoted: GET LOST is a collective portrait of downtown New York. Twenty-one international artists were invited to create a personal view of the city and draw a map of downtown New York, uncovering a territory that is both real and imaginary.

Quoted: GET LOST brings together fictional landscapes, utopian visions, private memories, and obsessive instructions to explore Manhattan, its past, present, and future.

The New York Daily News has reported that Kevin Federline showed up to hype a charity for Virgin Mobile called "Save the Penny." He gave his pennies to the children's charity, vamped in front of the cameras, gave some soundbites, and then whisked away in a SUV which promptly rear-ended a car. While the drivers sorted things out, a topless (except for pasties) street performer approached Federline's vehicle. Two dollars were extended from the window.

Tin Cup meltdown in the US Open. Instead of taking his lumps and punching out from the rough, Phil tried a miracle shot, smacked a tree limb and only moved the ball forward by about 10 yards. Ouch.

Quoted: Phil Mickelson's double bogey on the 18th hole derailed his bid for his first U.S. Open and his third straight major title.

Wow. Phil totally "Tin Cupped" it. One of the worst 72nd hole collapses ever in a US Open. I'm bummed. I was pulling for the big lefty. Congrats to Geoff Ogilvy though. He put himself in position and played really well. Pretty good tv until the end.

The U.S. Open is shaping up to potentially be another major win for Phil Mickelson. Go Phil!

This is a beautiful Frank Lloyd Design which was only recently built. The linked page is from the Apple site so it's showing a lot of marketing material but the property and house are stunning.