Yesterday's game was washed out and the forecast in Detroit is for rain and thunderstorms all day, so I'm not sure the odds are great that today's will be played. Since we might not get a Jay game, us Dakers are going to go watch the Calgary Vipers this afternoon.
It has been a while since we've done a link fest, so let's see what's out there.
I think the newspaper reporter that has been doing the best stuff, lately, both in his paper and on twitter, is the National Post's John Lott. This morning John has a couple of stories. One on the silence coming from Alex Anthopoulos, even with the trade deadline coming up.
"I know they [the players] all read [the speculation] ... Our players, as much as we think that they're immune to all this stuff, they have families, they have friends, people that call them every day and read things on the Internet. Unfortunately, some stuff is somewhat true, some of it's completely false. It's hard for them to just continue to worry about performing and doing their jobs on the field, so I wouldn't want to add fuel to the fire."
Good for Alex, though not so much fun for us.
John also talks to Scott Downs about the coming deadline:
"I'd love to stay," he said yesterday. "I've gotten every opportunity here. This has gotten my career going. I feel like I'm a leader on this team. I feel like I can be a mentor to some of the younger guys. To say I want to leave would be as far off as you can imagine."
Richard Griffin, in the Star, also has a piece on AA and the trade deadline. He also talks about the logjam when the team calls Travis Snider back on Tuesday:
"Cito (Gaston) and I were just talking about it," Anthopoulos said. "Guys are going to need days off and we talked about the versatility of a lot of these players. Vernon (Wells) is going to need a day off. It might end up being seven guys for six (positions) in the sense that (Adam) Lind has some ability to go over and play first base. Bautista can go over and play first base.
"We could have a rotations where a guy's getting a day off once every seven days. Which actually works well anyways to keep everybody fresh. Certainly Cito feels he'll be able to get everyone enough at-bats to keep everyone sharp. I think it's going to work well."
Giving players a day off? What a innovative idea.
In the Globe and Mail, Jeff Blair talks about Andre Dawson's entrance into the Hall of Fame on Sunday. As an old Expo fan, I loved reading it and will be cheering tomorrow.
For many of us, though, The Hawk will be a reminder of why we care about the game and why we came to it originally and managed to keep our head above water despite living in the only country in the world where hockey is a predominant sport and the source of endless debate and discussion.
I think this was linked to somewhere else on here but the Blue Jay Hunter points out that Buck Martinez and Pat Tabler coordinate their attire before they go on camera. Only a little bit icky.
Baseball prospectus has us in 7th spot on their Power Rankings
Some none Jay stuff:
If you didn't see it, check out the dugout fun between Chone Figgins and, well, all the other Mariners. Chone watched a throw from the outfield go past him, costing the team a base and the outfielder that threw the ball an error. I don't know what was going on with Chone that he didn't move towards the throw. He looked like he was enjoying watching the baseball game that was going on around him.
SI.com has a long story on former Jay and current Brave manager Bobby Cox and his record number of ejections. It is a fun read. A little quote from his wife, about a trip to the Toronto Zoo, shows how baseball is the only thing in his life:
"It's those gorillas, he's just mesmerized by them," says Pam, her voice a soft Southern singsong. "He could stand there and watch them all day long. I could not understand why until he said to me, 'Honey, would you just look at the arms on those guys. Could you imagine our team signing one of them up?' "