5 quick baseball links to start your day ... 

1. If you're allergic to peanuts — and my sympathies for that tragic misfortune, if you are — Seattle's Safeco Field will be the place to be on Aug. 5 and Sept. 9. The stadium staff there is planning to make two sections "peanut-controlled" zones, cleaning each before the game and banning the sale of peanuts at nearby concession stands so those afflicted by the food allergy can watch the game without worry.

The Cardinals also held aside a peanut-free section earlier this week (the Twins, last month, too), but the concept isn't limited to the bigs. A minor league team in suburban Chicago made its entire stadium peanut-free earlier this month and the Nashua Pride in New Hampshire have been peanut-free all season.

Though it might seem sacrilegious to some of us shell-cracking folk to not be able to buy peanuts at a baseball game, I don't have much of a problem abstaining for a game or two a year. Peanuts can be potentially deadly to some people and if a little sacrifice on my part means that they can attend and enjoy a game, then I'm all for it. 

Making the entire season peanut-free, though? Now that might be a little too much. 

UPDATE: Just received an email from Justin Firesheets, the media relations director for the Birmingham Barons, a team that also went peanut-free for a game in '08: "It was the first time we had undertaken such an endeavor, and we had a tremendous amount of positive response in the community. It is likely something we will repeat in the future." 

[Read More: Seattle Times]

2. Hot trade rumor of the day: White Sox send Juan Uribe to the Red Sox, freeing up salary room to deal for Brian Roberts and paving the way to send Orlando Cabrera to the Dodgers. Death, taxes and Kenny Williams making a trade the last week of July. [CBS Sportline]

3. A fan who was in attendance at the last game of Yankee Stadium I in 1973: "By the sixth inning of that last game, all you heard was hammers ... People had come not only to see the last game but to take pieces of the Stadium, and they were tearing it apart. Back then, they didn’t have that much security.” [Dugout Central]

4. Fred Wilpon admits he screwed up the Willie Randolph firing. Ya think so, Fred? [NYDN via The 'Ropolitans]

5. If the AL East teams were characters from Batman, which characters would they be? [My Sports Rumors]