The Jays continue their trek through the Wild, Wild West. Tonight they get the reigning Cy Young winner.

Near the end of the last decade of the 20th century, the NFL’s New Orleans Saints, under the calming influence of head coach  (wait, strike “calming, leave it as “under the … influence of”) Mike Ditka, traded their entire  collection of1999 draft picks to the Washington Redskins for the rights to draft  University of Texas running back Ricky Williams.

Big trade, but ultimately … big deal! It’s not like Ricky Facemask was ever traded for/with an entire roster of players. It’s not like Ricky has anything on … Bert Blyleven. That’s right, Rik Aalbert Blyleven, who this summer will at long last (and very deservedly) be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, changed teams via trade five times in his long career, in a series of deals that included, literally, an entire roster – and a pretty good one! – of players, more than two dozen MLB veterans who are now forevermore also to be known as part of a team called (thank you, Chris Berman) ...

A 1-for-3 night for the affiliates doesn't sound that great but three bullpen implosions kept the squads from going 4-0. There were also some impressive hitting performances in low-A and a nice pitching line for a 2010 No. 1 draft pick in high-A.

That was quite a game last night.  From Bob Davidson to Brett Cecil to Yunel Escobar to Travis Snider to Edwin Encarnacion and missed opportunities there was a lot that happened in this game.  And unfortunately the end result was not good. 

The impressive bats on the top part of farm made us proud Saturday.  Las Vegas and New Hampshire were strong at the plate and on the mound.  Dunedin suffers 3rd loss in as many outings.

Winners Las Vegas and New Hampshire had loud lumber with 10 hits while Dunedin managed only 5 and came up the evening’s loser.  Lansing had their second postponement in as many nights due to field conditions (that soggy Michigan permafrost is really something).

Manny Ramirez has "retired."

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Hey Batter's Box! To all you devotees of "Baseball from a Canadian Perspective," there's an interesting post today from valued fellow Bauxite Tangotiger on his The Book blog called Lowering the standards to retire numbers so that we can have an excuse for celebration.

More to the point for our site's interests, though, Tom also dips his toe into the question(s) raised by the fact that "the Nationals have retired the Expos numbers." First, can you name the four Expos whose numbers have been retired***? And what do you think of Tom's list of four (especially one) who should be, but who aren't on that list?

Well that wasn't exactly how you want to kick off a season. One affiliate couldn't get their field in order while the other three should have followed suit. Let's try it again tomorrow, shall we?

The minor league season gets under way tonight with four Blue Jay affiliates in action.  With the parent club en route to the west coast tonight the minors can get our full attention.

Zach Stewart starts in AA tonight and Gregor Chisholm got the story on why Stewart is in AA:

"We talked about that at length," Anthopoulos said. "We figured with a guy like Zach it won't be the worst thing in the world to continue to work on certain things, because we know it's a tough environment in Las Vegas."

 

Another win for the good guys yesterday but it wasn't a totally good news day.  Jesse Litsch and Marc Rzepczynski were good and very good respectively while Travis Snider had the one big hit the Jays needed.

On the not so good side Yunel Escobar is being examined to see if he has a concussion after a collision at third base.

Elsewhere there must be panic in the streets of Boston as the Sawx drop to 0-5.  On the streets of Tampa, whose team is in the same predicament, there might be a slight note of concern.

 

Just a strange, compelling game.

The Oaklanders visit town for games 4, 5 and 6. The team made some low-profile upgrades over the winter and have a solid club. Here's an abbreviated series preview as we just figured out who's writing on which day and I'm trying to do this from work.

That was the question Bob McCown posed to Stephen Brunt during the 4:00 hour on Monday's edition of Prime Time Sports.  Brunt answered he was okay with them and that they are better than the 70's version.  McCown then said, "if you like the current jersey, you better go get one because this time next year, they won't be available."  McCown said he did not know what the proposed new uniforms will look like but guessed it would be closer to the original version or a combination of the new and old one.  There appears to be further proof that McCown is on to something because the Jays have joined forces with a marketing firm for re-branding purposes.

     The 1994-1996 alternate uniforms (best in team history!)                                           The current day uniforms.

Images provided by Sportslogos.net.

One weekend down .... 155+ games to go. What's caught your eye?

The Orioles, Royals and Dodgers, respectively, are each alone in first place.

Those Royals took a series from the Angels. The Rangers swept the Red Sox. Those same Rangers are "on pace" to hit no less than 594  home runs this season. Like the Red Sox, the Rays and Brewers -- all popular pre-season picks to make the post-season -- are winless. (So are the Astros, but nobody was picking them, right?)

Howie Kendrick is tied for the MLB lead in home runs, along with Rangers Ian Kinsler and Nelson Cruz and ex-Ranger Mark Teixeira. All are "on pace" to slam 162 bombs in 2011.

So what else has caught YOUR attention?