Jose Reyes Day In Toronto - Thursday Morning Bantering

Finally, Toronto Blue Jays fans will get a chance to welcome one of the players from the blockbuster trade with the Miami Marlins back in November as shortstop Jose Reyes will be joining general manager Alex Anthopoulos in a media conference this afternoon at 4 pm Eastern. The official notification came out yesterday afternoon, but followers of Reyes on Instagram (or readers of Drunk Jays Fans) got the scoop right after R.A. Dickey's presser last week.

During the ceremony, Reyes will be expected to awkwardly put on a Blue Jays uniform and cap. The over/under of the time it takes for him to put it on has been set at 16.5 seconds. Be sure you come back to Bluebird Banter around 4 pm to join us in our live blogging of the event.

UPDATE: You can live-stream the event here or on BlueJays.com.

While we all wait for that time let's look at other things going on in Blue Jays land:

Yesterday was a busy news day (for mid-January): we first found out that Blue Jays minor leaguer Alan Farina was suspended for 50 games, probably for using marijuana, and that reliever Darren Oliver has decided to give baseball another go in 2013. Missing from our summary of the conference call was that Alex Anthopoulos and pro scout Perry Minasian, who happened to be Oliver's buddy, went down to Dallas to meet Oliver's family to show how great of an organization the Blue Jays are. I linked John Lott's article on the National Post there but here is Shi Davidi's take on the conference call (includes a bit of analysis on the structure of the bullpen), and Gregor Chisholm's piece, along with a video from MLB.com's Hot Stove, can be found here. Andrew Stoeten tuned into Prime Time Sports to hear Oliver say that his agent Jeff Frye made a mistake in making demands in the media, but he hasn't fired him for it.

A "help wanted" ad went up yesterday: Sportsnet 590 The Fan is looking for a radio commentator! Stoeten has the details over at DJF...Ian the Blue Jay Hunter looks at a Josh Johnson extension... Flip Flop Fly Ball creator Craig Robinson posted a colourful history of the Blue Jays' draft history under the Gord Ash and J.P. Ricciardi regimes over at Getting Blanked... Seneca College is running a Continuing Education course called "Baseball Spring Training", which sounds pretty awesome (read all the guests that will appear!), you can check it out over at Seneca's website... I updated the uniform numbers post with Henry Blanco's #22 and a bunch of numbers for non-roster invitees... Former Blue Jays pitcher Jo-Jo Reyes (we all remember him, right?) will be pitching in Korea next year with the SK Wyverns and will look forward to facing other former Jays Scott Richmond and Dana Eveland... And I'm all out of ellipses... (oh there's one more)