WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?

It might as well have been an atomic bomb detonating in the middle of the desert. Arizona owner Jerry Colangelo, who somehow once again got his way to be the host to baseball’s expansion draft, stepped to the microphone on Monday and announced he had signed his first free agent–shortstop Jay Bell–for $34 million over five years. For the last year and a half, as Colangelo flexed the financial muscle of his expansion Arizona Diamondbacks–the 10-year, $10 million contract to Buck Showalter, the $10 million contract to San Diego State first baseman Travis Lee–the whisper among the established Lords of Baseball was that they were going to rue the day they let Colangelo into the game. That day has arrived.