Pettitte will stick with Yanks, signing one-year, $5.5 million deal; Hurler likely regrets rebuffing initial $10.5 million offer, as current incentive-laden contract will not reach that level unless Pettitte can win 15 games, land a plastic ring around the neck of a beer bottle, and guess Joba Chamberlain’s weight and BAC.

Jets to retain Brian Schottenheimer as offensive coordinator; Rex Ryan glad to preserve team’s ability to call and miserably fail on shotgun plays in crucial 3rd and short situations.

Celts deny having ever made a verbal offer to Stephon Marbury; One Boston exec does admit however, that Steph tried to sweet talk him into an oral agreement in the back of a truck.

Former Yankee David Justice vehemently denies Kirk Radomski’s HGH allegations, but will not sue; Justice says he won’t help Radomski’s book sales by keeping his name in the news.  After all, he has already done enough for the guy by buying HG… wait… never mind.

Nets fall to Thunder in front of only 5,000 fans; Massive Oklahoma City ice storm keeps fans away, gives Nets false sense of comfort as they thought it was a New Jersey home game.

“We, the owners of the Arena Football League, realize we have the most fan-friendly, affordable and accessible sport anywhere,” said Bon Jovi, conveniently overlooking that he’s saying it in the release announcing the suspension of the 2009 season. The players will be “fan-friendly” and “accessible” because they’re earning commission for every pair of shoes they sell. He wasn’t lying about the “affordable” part since, you know, there are no tickets to buy.

Now Steven and Shanna Silva. They bought the Dragons in July from the crafty Charles Wang for $16 million. I’m not entirely sure how people earn $16 million when they are stupid enough to buy an AFL franchise on the precipice of economic ruin. It’s not like smart people — ahem, Krugman — didn’t see this coming a mile away.

Then there’s the fact that they bought a team from Charles Wang. The same Charles Wang who put Garth Snow in charge of his hockey team. If Charles Wang is trying to unload an asset, it’s probably because it’s already run aground.

Thursday, virtuoso AP scribe Ronald Blum wrote that the 3.6 percent increase in the average Major League salary “was the smallest since 2004, when the average declined 2.5 percent from the previous season.” Clearly the national GDP isn’t the only growth that’s stalled.

Blum also notes that while the Yankees maintained their spot atop the Major League payroll mountain, their “average of $6.86 million [per player] was down from a record $7.47 million last year.”

So while the Yankees’ recent spree of offers sounds like a six-year-old reading the Toys R’ Us catalogue — I want that one and that one and that one — or preppy Freshman girls reading the orientation facebook — I want a CC and an A.J. and a Mark and a Bobby and a Derek — their strategy of not just beating the offers of their competitors but blowing them away by $40 million, is actually a calculated strategy to raise the average Major League salary back to pre-recession levels. The Yankees are doing their part to save the economy.

Now you get out there and max out those credit cards, just like Uncle Hank. That’s change redistribution we all can believe in.