While most of us were sleeping Wednesday night, the Miami Marlins began what may be this year’s ‘fire sale’ by trading Hanley Ramirez to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

    The race to the Major League baseball trade deadline is now in full swing.

    Fans may remember the Marlins were big spenders during the offseason, signing Jose Reyes and Heath Bell. But now that they find themselves 13.5 games out of first place, it appears ownership feels it is time to dump salaries.

    The opening of Marlins Park and the hiring of Ozzie Guillen as manager are all an afterthought as the focus has shifted to 2013 in South Florida.

    The so called ‘fire sale’ is something I am very familiar with growing up as a Padres fan.

    Many of may not remember Gary Sheffield, Fred McGriff, Joe Carter, Roberto Alomar and Kevin Brown were all Padres at one time in their careers and each went on to better things after they left San Diego.

    Carter hit the World Series’ winning home run for Toronto in 1993. Alomar was on that team as well and is now in the Baseball Hall-of-Fame.

    Most recently, the Padres sent Adrian Gonzalez to Boston.

    Houston has also begun a ‘fire sale’ of sorts in the last few weeks.

    Carlos Lee, Brett Myers, Brandon Lyon and most recently starting pitcher Wandy Rodriguez have all been dealt as the team looks to build towards the future.

    Fans of many teams are used to watching the best players on the team get traded at the trade deadline, especially when the team has fallen out of playoff contention.

    Ramirez is not the last big name to be traded this year, instead he s just the latest of some pretty shocking trades in the last week.

    Long time Mariners outfielder Ichiro Suzuki was traded to the Yankees this week, ironically enough when the Yankees were in Seattle.

    So after the press conference announcing the trade, Suzuki walked across to the visitors’ locker room and put on his Yankees uniform.

    The 12-year Mariner looked awfully odd in a New York uniform, but instead of being bitter about the trade, he did the honorable thing and showed his appreciation for the Seattle fans.

    With a bow and a wave of his helmet, Suzuki acknowledged the fans who have been his biggest supporters since he arrived from Japan.

    My gut tells me that Suzuki could return to Seattle next season as he will be a free agent. But watching him down the stretch run in a Yankees uniform is going to be tough to take.

    Teams have until July 31 at 2 p.m. to make trades and with the addition of two more teams to the playoffs this season it will make the next few days more interesting.

    I would expect a few more big name players to be moving before the deadline and if you need a pitcher there are a few big names reportedly available.

    Milwaukee’s Zach Greinke, the Cubs’ Ryan Dempster and the Marlins’ Josh Johnson have all been rumored to be moved, and I expect two of three to have a new team next week.

    It will be interesting to watch what happens over the next few days as teams jockey for position down the stretch run.

    Every sport has its silly season and MLB’s is in full swing.