Blue Jays ace Halladay is willing to consider a trade

Roy Halladay wants to keep pitching for Toronto but is willing to consider accepting a trade if approached by the Blue Jays.

“I want to stay, but I think it’s a situation you have to evaluate,” Halladay said Tuesday. “I’m really not at that situation just yet. If something does come up, you weigh your options at that point. I hate to put the cart in front of the horse and start saying, ‘Do I want to do that?’ I think you just evaluate the situations when they come.”

Halladay is 10-2 with a 2.79 earned-run average. He will be paid $14.25 million this year and his contract, which has a no-trade clause, expires after the 2010 season, when he is set to earn $15.75 million.

Halladay, 32, has spent his entire career with the Blue Jays and has a record of 141-68 with a 3.47 ERA. He won the Cy Young Award in 2003 and last season finished second to Cleveland’s Cliff Lee.

J.P. Ricciardi, Toronto’s general manager, said he’s willing to listen to offers for Halladay.

“I don’t think anything has changed, I just think, ‘You know what, why not listen? The worst we can say is no,’ ” Ricciardi told the Canadian Press.

“If someone wants Roy and they’re willing to blow us away, we’d be willing to listen, that’s all I’m saying. That doesn’t mean we’d trade him, that doesn’t mean we’re looking to trade him. All it means is we’d be willing to listen.”

Dempster sidelined

The Chicago Cubs put right-hander Ryan Dempster on the 15-day disabled list because of a fracture of his big right toe.

Dempster was hopping over the dugout railing to go on the field and celebrate Sunday’s victory over the Milwaukee Brewers when he caught his back leg on the railing and landed hard, injuring his toe.

La Russa drops suit

Tony La Russa has dropped his lawsuit against the social networking site Twitter.

A one-paragraph statement filed June 26 with the U.S. District Court in San Francisco said that the St. Louis Cardinals manager had dropped all claims -- and that San Francisco-based Twitter did not compensate him in exchange. It also said he could not refile the same complaint.

La Russa declined Tuesday to discuss specifics of the lawsuit in which he alleged trademark infringement, “cybersquatting” and misappropriation of his name. It claimed an unauthorized page that used his name caused emotional distress by making light of his DUI charge and the deaths of two Cardinals pitchers in recent seasons.

La Russa said June 5 that he and Twitter had reached a settlement, with Twitter agreeing to pay legal fees and make a donation to his Animal Rescue Foundation.

But Twitter, in a blog posting, said there was no settlement. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone later told the Associated Press in an e-mail that Twitter resolved the account impersonation in accordance with its terms of service.