According to Ryan Divish of the Tacoma News Tribune, the Mariners signed outfielder Jerry Owens to a minor league deal. Owens was designated for assignment to make room for Scott Podsednik a few days ago.

Owens, 28, spent most of last year at Triple A (his third stint at the level). He hit .276/.346/.316 with 30 steals in 43 tries. In their 2007 Handbook, Baseball America had this to say about his defense: "He covers plenty of ground in center field, though his arm is below average."

According to the Associated Press, via the Miami Herald, the Nationals have agreed to terms on a non-guaranteed minor league contract with right-hander Mike MacDougal.

He was immediately assigned to Triple-A Syracuse. MacDougal, 32, was designated for assignment by the White Sox on April 21, after racking up a 12.46 ERA in five games.

Chico Harlan of the Washington Post has more.

University of Georgia wide receiver Mohamed Massaquoi has been projected as the Chicago Bears’ second-round draft pick with the 49th overall selection, according to Mike Mayock of NFL Network and Mel Kiper of ESPN.

During a conference call today, Mayock, citing league sources, told reporters that Massaquoi is one of the fastest-rising prospects in the draft.

Massaquoi is scheduled to visit the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday.

He has previously visited the Tennessee Titans and has had private workouts for the Bears, New England Patriots and the Detroit Lions.

A few other possible landing spots for Massaquoi are the San Francisco 49ers’ No. 43 overall selection and the Patriots’ No. 47 overall pick.

At the NFL Scouting Combine, he conducted formal interviews with the 49ers, Cowboys and Baltimore Ravens.

An All-Southeastern Conference selection and four-year starter, Massaquoi caught 58 passes for 920 yards and eight touchdowns last season. His career totals are 158 receptions, 2,282 yards and 16 touchdowns.

A 6′2," 210-pounder ran the 40-yard dash in 4.49 seconds at his Pro Day workout.

Jack Cutler was having too much fun living in the moment Friday to want to relive an unpleasant memory involving his son, Jay, and Jay's new offensive coordinator, Ron Turner.

But the elder Cutler sought to clarify that he had no hard feelings for Turner over a misunderstanding eight years ago that has been dredged up since the Bears pulled the blockbuster trade with the Broncos.

"It is ironic that Jay is playing for Turner,'' Jack Cutler said Friday in a phone interview from Colorado. "But we don't hold a grudge or anything like that. I talked to Jay about the trade for a long time [Thursday] and again today, and it never came up. It's not an issue.''

Time has helped heal any wounds.
In December 2001, Cutler was a highly recruited quarterback out of Heritage Hills High School in southern Indiana and Turner, now the Bears offensive coordinator, was the Illini head coach. Recalling the events Friday, former Illini assistant coach Tim Kish was the primary recruiter and the Cutlers believed a scholarship offer had been extended during the fall recruiting period.

"So Jay committed but couldn't visit in person right away due to basketball and when we visited, Mr. Turner started backpedaling and pulled Jay's scholarship,'' said Jack Cutler, who earlier in the day turned in his son's playbook at the Broncos complex. "That's the way I remember it.''

By then, Jay Cutler already had turned down scholarship offers from Purdue and Maryland so eventually landed at Vanderbilt. Illinois used Cutler's scholarship spot to sign quarterback Mike Dlugolecki, who eventually transferred to San Diego State.

Subsequent stories before the 2006 NFL draft about that chain of events quoted Jack Cutler as calling that decision by Illinois "dirty,'' a word he didn't use Friday.

Turner couldn't be reached for comment but remembered a slightly different version when recounting the episode to the Tribune in 2007 before the Broncos-Bears game at Soldier Field. He regretted any miscommunication with the Cutlers and enjoyed a laugh at his own expense.

"I don't know why, but for some reason we weren't too involved [recruiting Cutler] -- I guess that's why I'm here," Turner said at the time. "It's one of those mistakes you make. I never offered him. We never pulled anything, no. It never got that far."

The way things turned out, nobody in the Cutler family is dwelling on the past as they consider an exciting, new future in Chicago.

"At the time we were really disappointed and it broke Jay's heart but we believe things happen for a reason and Jay ended up going to Vanderbilt and having a great career,'' Jack Cutler said. "There are no hard feelings whatsoever.''

The trade will allow Jay Cutler to play for the team he grew up cheering for in Santa Claus, Ind., and his dad to move back closer to his northwestern Indiana roots. Jack Cutler was a running back for Chesterton High School, about an hour east of Chicago, and later played a season at Indiana State University.

He retired in 2006 after 25 years as an Indiana state trooper and plans to move back to the Midwest after he and his wife, Sandy, sell their home outside Denver. Neither they nor their son could be happier. The Cutlers used to take regular family vacations to Chicago in summers to visit the city's museums.

"Jay's ecstatic,'' Jack Cutler said. "To go play for the team he watched growing up is something he always wanted to do. He wanted to do it coming out of college but knew Rex [Grossman] was there and that wasn't going to happen. But now he gets that chance he has dreamed about.''

The past six weeks have served up a cold dish of reality for the Cutlers as they have seen their son depicted as petulant and whiny. Owner Pat Bowlen wrote an open letter to fans in Thursday's Denver Post to explain the saga that said, "I assure you both Josh [McDaniels] and I made repeated attempts to reach out to Jay, and I can not speak for him as to why he chose to limit his response.''

Jack Cutler claimed the Broncos never tried as hard as they said to reach Jay and believed the team simply tried to spin the story publicly to make the quarterback look bad.

"It would be hard to believe [Jay wouldn't return their calls] if in fact they were really trying to contact Jay but they weren't,'' Jack Cutler said. "It's hard to read and listen to people cut down your son and call him a baby. So much in the media has been distorted. That was what was hard. The Broncos organization was putting a spin on it to make Jay look bad.

"It's unfortunate that it had to get to this point but it boiled down to a trust issue.''

University of Georgia wide receiver Mohamed Massaquoi’s stock is rising to the point where he’s considered a potential second-round draft pick on several NFL teams’ draft boards, according to a league source.

The All-Southeastern Conference wide receiver and four-year starter has scheduled visits with the Dallas Cowboys and the Tennessee Titans and has had private workouts for the New England Patriots and the Detroit Lions.

He’s scheduled for a private workout with the Chicago Bears next week.

He’ll visit the Titans on April 5-6 and the Cowboys on April 16.

Voted team captain for the Bulldogs, Mohamed caught 58 passes for 920 yards and eight touchdowns last season.

Mohamed, who played with North Carolina wide receiver Hakeem Nicks in high school, is the state of North Carolina’s all-time leader in receiving yardage and touchdown catches.

Listed at 6-foot-2, 210 pounds, Mohamed ran the 40-yard dash in 4.49 seconds and registered a 10-7 broad jump. He improved upon his 4.60 clocking in the 40-yard dash at the NFL Scouting Combine, where he posted a 36 1/2 inch vertical leap.

Mohamed was ultra-productive at Georgia, catching 158 career passes for 2,282 yards and 16 touchdowns.

A growing list of NFL teams have confirmed that they will attend Cleveland State basketball player J’Nathan Bullock’s workout, according to a league source.

On April 10, Bullock will try out at tight end for the Buffalo Bills, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Chicago Bears and the Cleveland Browns.

The 6-foot-5, 245-pound basketball standout is a former honorable-mention all-state football player from Flint, Mich.

Bullock is hoping to follow in the footsteps of San Diego Chargers Pro Bowl tight end Antonio Gates, who played basketball at Kent State.

Bullock is the fourth all-time leading scorer in school history, averaging 15.4 points last season.

In high school, Bullock played every skill position as well as defensive end and linebacker.

Enjoy

[From the FanShots. Pretty fantastic, considering. Thabo was scheduled to make ~$2.75m next season. Not a bad situation for him to be in, either -ed.]

Chicago is dealing Thabo Sefolosha to Oklahoma City for a 2009 first-round pick, a league source said. The Thunder own the first-round picks of the Suns and Nuggets, and will send the least valuable pick to Chicago in exchange for Sefalosha.

The Denver Nuggets had been trying to package their most attractive asset -- a first-round pick obtained from the Charlotte Bobcats last June -- - to acquire Foster, the Knicks' David Lee or the Bulls' Joakim Noah. But nothing was doing on any of those fronts.