Ace? Check. Winner? Check. Dominating? Not exactly, but two out of three aint bad. After a solid year in 2005 with the Braves, Tim Hudson is probably the best current starter in mid-career if we count Pettitte and Pedro Martinez as being in late career. Does he have a chance at the Hall?

It's spring! So it's time for Batter's Box to throw out our first pitch. Here begins our series of season previews, with a look at the defending world champion Chicago White Sox!

Speak up. Is there anyone out there who had ever heard that phrase before this past October?

Today is not February 29, though I suspect many of you will write that date at the top of a check or the outside of a bluebook before turning it in at some point.

Who knew -- or frankly, even suspected -- that date would also provide an interesting, if not quite complete, lineup of players born as "leap babies" and who leapt all the way to The Show? There are even a couple of All-Stars, which is more than many dates that show up more than once every four years can claim.

Let's meet this short but interesting list of February 29th's Hall of Names roster, which we will of course dub ...

Has everyone forgotten my challenge to Aaron? I sure hope so because 2005 wasn't pretty for me, and 2006 looks worse.

39 of the 52 returning BBFL owners partook in Democracy's Greatest Adventure: the annual voting on rule changes. Owners resoundingly approved two changes to league administration and defeated two proposals regarding game play.

This week we have a pinch hit photo to share with you -- GregH and his sons were at the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame meet 'n' greet with Larry Walker and Orlando Hudson.

Here's Walker with the boys:

How many of you would like to be working for the Toronto Blue Jays instead of whatever it is you are doing today? How would you like to be living in Florida right now, enjoying the warm weather? Meet Charlie Wilson, a Toronto native, who now works in Dunedin as the Blue Jays Manager of Minor League Operations. Currently Wilson is one of the busiest men in Florida as he prepares for an influx of players to minor league spring training.

Assume that you have an expansion team and can select any player in professional baseball and have them on your team for the remainder of their career. Who do you want?

The BBFL has four proposed rule changes. Returning BBFL team owners may now vote on these propositions. The fourth pro, which has three options, will be voted on via the Borda Count Method. In voting for such propositions, owners must rank their answers from most favored to least favored.

To vote, send an email to bbfl at scottlucas dot com. Please put your team name in the message so I can keep track of who has voted. Use this forum to discuss your vote, the upcoming season, or whatever.

Voting ends at 1159pm PST, Monday, February 27. I will immediately begin placing owners with teams depending on the voting results, and when that process ends, I'll open the trading window.

Here at the Hall of Names, we take all challenges seriously, such as this one, posted during our little downtime period and reproduced here in case you missed it:

Mike Green - Wednesday, February 22 2006 @ 11:07 AM EST (#141427)
[Feb. 22] is also J.J. Putz's birthday. In honour of bureacratic delays, I thought that we might work on an all-insult Hall of Names. Lefty (Goofy) Gomez and Phil Paine would be all right, although Putz gets the gold so far in insult value...

William "Dummy" Hoy seems obvious, and though he was a fine Brett Butler/Willie Wilson-type OF for 14 years, believe it or not ...

As we have watched Andy Pettitte’s career unfold, few of us have thought, “there’s a Hall of Famer”. But, after a great year at age 33 (17 wins, 2.39 ERA with ratios to match in 222 innings) with Houston, Pettitte deserves a second look.

You will have noticed that, from February 19th until February 23rd, Batter's Box was unavailable from the url battersbox.ca. We're sorry for the downtime, but there was a comedy of technical errors, combined with some very poor customer service, and that multiplied by layers of bureaucracy, that culminated in our domain name being unavailable.

These problems should not happen again, because we're in the process of changing providers of domain names. (By the way: for those in positions of power: Never ever deal with Internet Names for Business, also known as the domain registration arm of Rogers Hosting.)

UPDATE Feb 23, 10:52 am: Our domain has finally been renewed correctly, and battersbox.ca should be coming back on the air in your vicinity very shortly.

UPDATE Feb 23, 1:06 pm: We're back, baby!

Pitchers, catchers, and just about everyone else are in Dunedin.

So what's new?

For those who have been asking, here they are.

If today happens to be your birthday, well, then, happy birthday! If you've been a reader of this site for any length or time, you know that one of the offshoots of the "Hall of Names" features is All-Birthday; we've done a number of holidays and every month of the year; last autumn, we introduced the first All-Birthday (October 20) team in honour of my dear ol' dad's annual celebration.

Now, it's mom's turn. Yep, that's right, happy birthday, mom, and here's your own All-Birthday (February 17) squad ...