I got forty red white and blue shoestrings
and a thousand telephones that don't ring
Do you know where I can get rid of these things?

Just some dumb lists to share before I head off to the ballpark.

Yesterday, in my e-mailbox, I found my daily Newberg Report (archived at NewbergReport.com here) from one of the deans of independent Internet baseball journalists, Dallas lawyer Jamey Newberg.

You may have encountered Jamey here on Batter's Box previously -- he is a registered member, mostly for the purpose of sharing his Ranger Expertise -- like team previews in '07 and '08 -- here for the benefit of the majority of Bauxites, living in a whole 'nother country far, far away from the Lone Star State.

The affiliates went 2-2 on Sunday but Catcher J.P. Arencibia was again the story.

A quirky day on the farm as the Chiefs and the Fisher Cats were both done in by nearly identical innings, while the D-Jays had a thing for the number '2'.  All in all, the affiliates combined to go 3-2 on Saturday.

... and on the 55th day, they passed Baltimore. Maybe for good. Maybe not.

I was originally intending to save this book for later.

A 15-hit night by Syracuse in Virginia was the highlight of the evening in the minor leagues. However, it was not the only thing to write about as the affiliates picked up three wins and Dunedin only scored one less run than the SkyChiefs. The Lugnuts couldn’t compare to either of those performances, but still scored in the first four innings of their game to deliver an early blow their opponents and never looked back.

Me, I'm still on the road
Heading for another joint

It's Bob Dylan's birthday today. He's 67 years old. I'd say this should be a global holiday, and it already is in our northern land although I believe that's supposed to be in honour of Queen Victoria, or possibly my mother, who were also born on May 24.

Somehow, I'll tie this into baseball...

The Royals bring their league worst (by a hair) offense to town for a four game set having lost four straight. The Jays will seek to capitalize, and potentially crack the elusive .500 barrier.

On to the Advance Scout!

Closing in on the end of May, let's re-visit some of Da Box's Always Entertaining, Generally Wildly Inaccurate pre-season previews and projections.

I challenge my fellow forecasters to revisit their own team-by-team features and share with us the (already) so-wildly-wrong-its-funny projections contained within. Ready? Here are mine ...

Ho hum. The Jays show what they can do with a couple of timely hits and pull out the finale against the Angels, 4-3. The Jays allowed only 10 runs during the three game set, but of course its the Jays so they scored only 7 and won just once.

 The Ottawa Rapidz played its first game in the independent Can-Am League and a former Blue Jay farmhand was the winning pitcher.

The left side of the infield helped Syracuse lose the only game of the night for the Jays' affiliates.

The 2007 draft class was on display last night - some good, some bad, and some ugly.

Same old, same old.