It's the end of an era in Lindenhurst.

Looking to shake up a team that's fighting for a division championship despite being mired below the .500 mark for most of the season, GM Jason Boland parted ways with two of his franchise's most familiar faces on July 28 - Manny Ramirez and Randy Johnson. Manny and RJ will now be wearing the uniforms of cross-town rivals Wellwood, who sent David Wright, Ben Sheets and Moises Alou to the Hitmen in exchange. The Scribes also picked up Troy Glaus in the deal.

On the surface, it appears the Hitmen got the better end of the intra-city swap, at least in the short-term. Sheets is an improvement over Johnson and the upgrade of Wright from Glaus is roughly equal to the downgrade of Ramirez to Alou. However, the injury-prone Alou does his best work against lefthanders and swapping Johnson to Wellwood means that Moises will get a chance to feast on the aging southpaw a few more times this season.

However, Wellwood GM Jim Baumbach is incredibly conscious of contract implications, and it's surely no mistake that Johnson reaches free agency one year sooner than Sheets. Of course, Glaus is signed through 2009 and Ramirez has two club options that, although unlikely to be picked up, could theoretically tie Manny to Wellwood until 2010.

That said, Sheets looks like a bust for 2007 and perhaps beyond, as persistent shoulder troubles are threatening his career. Alou, a free agent after this season, has performed well in limited duty and the Hitmen will face a tough off-season decision about whether or not to resign him. Wright is, of course, a budding superstar, but this is the fifth team he's been on in 2006. In the end, the deal will likely to come down to Ramirez vs. Wright and who will be better going forward.

The deal is especially shocking to NYLISL observers, who undoubtedly remember Boland's staunch opposition to a widely-publicized plan to make over 90 percent of the league's players free agents before the 2006 draft. In the winter of 2005, a majority of the league's owners voted in favor of the controversial proposal, which was intended to place each franchise back on a level playing field that was irrevocably tilted by a midseason decision to make the NYLISL a keeper league in the summer of 2000.

The Lindenhurst ownership was especially vocal about their opposition - professing undying loyalty to the core of their team and even threatening not to field a team in 2006. Trading Ramirez and Johnson, two of the "original" Hitmen, would seem to indicate that loyalty was a little more flexible that initially avowed.