Toronto enters this one 14 games behind the Yankees for the wild card. So if they can sweep them...

Voting for the 2012 Ford Frick Award is underway on the Baseball Hall of Fame’s Facebook page.  Tom Cheek is on the ballot again, as are a host of other names you’ll know and appreciate. Take 45 seconds and vote, won’t you? And tell us here that you did and who you cast your lot behind!

A playoff series will go to the wire while a Lansing starter dazzled.

How important is .500, versus other things?

It was a really uneventful life as far as anyone doing anything particularly interesting happening, but victory was secured in the two most important games, with one team extending their division lead and another winning it's first playoff game.

The highlights were wins over Yankees and Padres affiliates.  The lowlights were a doubleheader sweep and an affiliate barely keeping the opposition under 20 runs.  It was a 2-4 night on the farm. 

Long-time Bauxites may recall that the very first, debut, edition of Baseball's Hall of Names (back on March 15, 2003) was spurred by the creation of an "All-Food" team ... you know, Bob Lemon, Darryl Stawberry and the like.

What prompts this trip down memory lane?

Only this ... the Texas Rangers have today purchased the contract of RHP Mark Hamburger from Triple-A Round Rock... PLEASE, Rangers, hurry out and acquire Pittsburgh catcher Eric Fryer to form the greatest fast-food battery in the history of the sport! And get a side of Jeff Frye with that, won'tcha?

That is all. I am SO happy.

The Blue Jays roll in to Baltimore after salvaging their series against the Rays. The team has 28 games left, 14 each at home on the road. The good news is they play the Orioles a total of 6 times. The bad news is that with one exception, their other 22 games are against teams fighting for a division title (Red Sox [6], Yankees [6]), or the playoffs in general (Angels [4], White Sox [3]). The worse news is the exception is the Rays [3], and we all know how the Jays do against them. If the team wants to finish the season with a winning record, they'll need to beat up on the Orioles to give themselves some cushion. Can they do it, without John Farrell who will sit out the series with pneumonia? Find out next, on Advance Scout.

Bluefield clinched the division title yesterday and today is the last day of their regular season with the playoffs starting tomorrow.  Elsewhere, New Hampshire won big to keep them ahead in their division chase.  Dunedin lost and their division lead is down to 1.5 games.  Lansing had a nice come from behind win and Las Vegas and Kyle Drabek had a bad day.

The bats were alive on Sunday as the affiliates lost just one game. Darin Mastroianni and Jon Talley led the attack for their respective teams.

How have the Jays been vs the league at each position and are things improving? This is a big question for 2012 and beyond. Is JPA's 98 OPS+ enough for a catcher? What about Encarnacion's 113 OPS+ at DH?

Dating at least to "Casey at the Bat," baseball has, more than any other North American sporting event, inspired a fair amount of poetry. (You could say this is the art form of going fron "bat" to "verse.")

Today, sample the work of veteran Bauxite Rusty Priske, whose poem "Thrill Of" is part of his online collection, and who knows?, maybe part of his next book. (His first book, Rusty Priske: Trapeze Artist is available for preview on the site linked above.)

So in this thread, Bauxites -- consider it the "Arts & Letters" section of the site -- give shout-out feedback to Bauxite Poet Laureate Rusty ... name your own favorite baseball-themed poens -- and if you have heard from the muse of baseball yourownsellf, let us know right here!

Consider Brandon Morrow.

A slow day on the farm, as the Jays' affiliates go 2-5 despite some nice pitching performances.

More than 60 Ks from the Farm’s hurlers, including  8 for Ybarra and 7 for Bongiavanni, could only achieve a W/L split.  Talley slammed a Slam for Dunedin.