The Toronto Blue Jays and the rest of Major League Baseball celebrated Jackie Robinson Day April 15 by having all players wear his retired number 42.  The idea came from Ken Griffey Jr. when he wanted to don #42 to pay tribute to Robinson breaking baseball's colour barrier April 15, 1947.  Here are some pictures from last year's event at the Dome.

Jackie Robinson shown on JaysVision as a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

3-1 for the affiliates with the good guys scoring five times in each. Except for Vegas who scored nine and lost.

Brett Cecil has been optioned to AAA, per THE GREGOR. Chris Woodward will take his place (really?)

Update: Now with explanation.

A winning day on the farm, with a couple of big dingers.

Tuesday: With apologies to my fellow roster members, I'm bumping this to the top as I feel like it got buried under the deluge of posts from yesterday. If you're interested in having a beer over a game next week during the Rangers series, I'd love your feedback! Will make an announcement soon.

Mariano Rivera falls victim to Toronto's mystique and aura, and the Jays notch their second walkoff of the season.

Today we have video and pictures of four Blue Jay prospects, Adeiny Hechavarria; Anthony Gose; Brad Glenn; Jake Marisnick and John Tolisano.

The honorary Canadian was a big reason why the affiliates were .500 on the night.  Two games were rained out.

Brad Mills pitches against Seattle at the Dome September 23.

Here's an odd Hall-of-Names thought bubble ...
There are, of course, currently thirty major league baseball managers. Could we build a competitive full roster of players from that list of 30 names? (And who would manage the team?)

Well, quick answer -- no, we can't build a full roster as no less than EIGHT current MLB skippers never played in the show themselves -- quick, how many of those eight can you name without looking it up? (Answer appears below.) And a full seven of the remaining 22 roster candidates were primarily catchers, so that limits our options almost as much as the fact that there are only two pitchers available.

Anyway, let's see what we can come up with ...

Following up on a off topic post in a previous thread... Anthony DiComo of MLB.com reported a few hours ago that Brad Emaus was designated for assignment by the Mets.

The Yankees are at the Fabulous ThunderDome for a quick two game series with 7:07 start times for each.  The Yankees have won four of five while the Jays have dropped three in a row to crap, er, cap off a 3-7 road trip.  Toronto won 10 of the 18 games in the season series last season.

The twittersphere is abuzz with the news that Frank Francisco has been activated and Jesse Litsch has been sent down to Las Vegas.  It appears that the preservation of a potential asset in Jo-Jo Reyes is taking precedent over putting the best team on the field today.

In recent years the Toronto Blue Jays organization has not had a lot of success developing Latin America talent. In recent years, though, the club has returned to its roots and has started to invest heavily in that area once again.

Under former general manager J.P. Ricciardi the Dominican Summer League team was largely ignored. Any player that was lucky enough to receive a visa to come and play in the U.S. was used mostly as an organizational solider or roster-filler. The 2006 DSL team was a little different. A number of players caught the attention of the Player Development Staff and received brief opportunities (Bartolo Nicolas, Yensy Perez, Carlos Vasquez, Jimmy Gonzalez) but two pitchers had eye-opening seasons.

We knew Boston would start to turn things around. Did it have to be against the Jays?

It was a very good night for the Jays' farm system (4-0), and for top prospects in particular. Zach Stewart, Deck McGuire, Eric Thames, Carlos Perez and Travis d'Arnaud all had good games, but none was as good as Mike McCoy.