In the annals of North American popular culture, two of the greatest heroes of the 20th century -- one fictional, one who played fictional characters -- bore the last/family name "Wayne." (We refer here, of course, to Bruce "The Batman" Wayne and to John "The Duke"Wayne.)

There have also been two major league players with that family appellation,neither particularly "heroic," LHRP Gary Wayne (14 wins and four saves mostly with MIN in the early 1990s) and RHRP Justin Wayne (eight starts and 18 relief appearances for FLA in the early part of the current decade). Fortunately, there are more than a hundred other ballplayers with "Wayne" as a first or middle name, so we shouldn't have too much trouble building a legitimate team for, no, not "The Batmen" (though that'd be a nice basebally name), but rather ...

Rich Gossage is now a Hall of Famer, the only member of the class of '08 at this point. Jim Rice just missed, Andre Dawson and Bert Blyleven were in shouting distance, and nobody else was close.

Your thoughts?

It's the season for minor league top ten lists.  Batters Box published our own list shortly after the season ended, but the more general minor league books are now becoming available.  Batters Box recently featured Deric McKamey's list from the Minor League Baseball Analyst.  The Baseball America list is out in the magazine and will be released on their web site on Friday.  John Sickels has just finished his book and his list is now available on his web site, and to complete the party Baseball Prospectus published their top ten list today.

Baseball Prospectus has their Jay top 11 prospects today.

Yeah, it's so slow these days that each prospect list gets its own thread

John Sickels weighs in on the Jays top 20 prospects. Having just 3 players in the Bs is really low.

If anyone could lay claim to the title of "World's Biggest Jays Fan", it was her.

After weeks of hot stove action it is time to begin Batters Box 2008 coverage of the minor leagues.  On Friday of this week Baseball America will release, on their web site, their Blue Jay top ten list but we are starting the week with another Blue Jay top ten, this one from Deric McKamey who is about to publish the third edition of his Minor League Baseball Analyst.

We've "honored" a number of legendary television series here on Da Box with cast-and-character Hall of Names teams for, among others, Star Trek, M*A*S*H, Happy Days, Gilligan's Island, The Simpsons, Stargate and even Sesame Street. So let's launch the first Hall of Names volley of 2008 with an homage to the greatest prime-time cartoon ever developed, South Park.

Oakland, after trading ace Dan Haren to Arizona just two weeks ago, has acquired LHP Gio Gonzalez, RHP Fautino De Los Santos and OF Ryan Sweeney from the White Sox in exchange for switch-hitting OF Nick Swisher, who hit 22 homers in his age-27 season last year. Thoughts?

The Jays avoid arbitration with Reed Johnson, signing him to a 1 year, $3.275 million contract.

The article linked above also mentions that the Jays have signed minor league contracts with pitchers Lance Carter, John Parrish, and Ryan Kethner.

Yep -- as you will no doubt have noticed from the previous feature (oh, and billions of other media outlets), it's New Year's Eve. And that means one thing around North America -- making resolutions.

Now's your chance to share either your own baseball-related resolution, posted in public where you'll have no choice but to own up to it a year from now, or -- if you want to go for the cheap laugh, to post a resolution "on behalf of" someone in MLB.

That said, a few pointers ...

You may recall that a couple of years ago, we introduced a little New Year's Eve "singalong" here at Batter's Box, with help from our indispensible friends at BaseballReference.com. In doing so, Hall of Names style, we linked each viable word in the lyrics of Auld Lang Syne to the name of a past or present major league baseball player.

Now, as we change the calendar year into 2008, rather than simply revisiting that particular linkfest ode to New Year's, let's try "Another" one (literally) and dip into the lyrics of Just Another New Year's Eve by the great, the incomparable, the truly magnificant Mr. Barry Manilow. He Writes the Songs, you know.

No, really ... here we go ...

I'm not sure exactly when the Winter Baseball Solstice falls on the calendar, but we have to be getting pretty close. Hall of Fame voting is starting to monopolize headlines. Irrelevant signings are becoming a source of wonderment. Dreaming of the winter meetings 11 months from now feels perfectly reasonable. It's beginning to feel a lot like January...

Every year here on Batter's Box, we gather on Christmas Day to recount our blessings of the past year and to share ....

Oh hell, no we don't. We come to brag about what baseball-related gifts we found under the tree left by that irascible never-aging prospect, Kris Kringle (DH, North Pole U.) ... so, Bauxites, what did YOU get (or give) that relates the Winter Holidays to the Summer Pastime? Don't hold back! Best gift story gets, you guessed it, a Yuletide No-Prize!

No, not involving the Jays, sorry. But an interesting youngster-for-youngster deal. The Dallas Morning News is reporting "The Rangers will trade pitcher Edinson Volquez and a minor leaguer to Cincinnati for power-hitting Josh Hamilton, according to sources."

No word yet on the identity of the "minor leaguer" involved, and as much as Volquez and his 7+ ERA have shown flashes of respectability and even brilliance, to snag Hamilton, we can assume it will be someone of real value. More as the story develops.

You hearing anything else?