How many times have you woken up and prayed for the rain?
How many times have you seen the papers apportion the blame?
Who gets to say, who gets the work and gets to play?

Howdy, everybody. For those of you who joined us since the offseason: every month, I produce a Blue Jays report card, grading each Jay using my patented GPBRFON system (Grades Produced By Random Firing Of Neurons).

The first month of the season nears its conclusion, but before we get to the May Sweeps (and splits, for that matter), it's time to track down the members of the 11th of what will of course be 12 "all-month" teams for our Baseball's Hall of Names roster.

April is clearly the runaway month to have your kid born if you want him to be a Hall of Fame baseball player. No less than 28 current Cooperstown denizens have -- get this, now -- diamond birthstones, while another (Pete Rose) clearly racked up Hall-worthy numbers and started an ongoing debate that need not be rehashed here.

The number will continue to swell towards three dozen ...

Jordan Furlong postulated the following in the April 27 Game Thread:

Hey, here's a project for anyone interested in doing the legwork -- rank the Blue Jays' best and worst 5th starters in franchise history...I'll bet you'll find Josh Towers has been one of the best the Jays have sent out there.

Legwork and pitchers in the same sentence? A rapier-like wit, this one. Let’s get right to it.

In view of the powerful and potent mojo conjured up by the Photo of the Day, we have had Named For Hank looking high and low for a suitable picture of Dave Bush, in order to get today's action off to a good start.

...is to throw yourself at the ground and miss.

Two wins and two losses for the farm teams last night. One of the things I've always found hardest to understand about introductions to Minor-League Updates is their habit of continuously stating and repeating the very very obvious, as in, It's a nice day, or You're very tall, or Oh dear, you seem to have fallen down a thirty-foot well, are you all right?

If you're just tuning in now, too bad. You needed to see this one.

A magnificent ball game, and I don't know what I could achieve by discussing it. What can I possibly add to that, without diminishing it somehow?

The Jays and Roy Halladay go for four in a row as they face the Yankees and the Big Unit at 7:05 p.m. Halladay is kept on his regular 5 day rotation, while Dave Bush will pitch with extra rest tomorrow.

I wonder if tall hitters do better than short hitters against tall pitchers. So, our little prizeless contest for the day- what will Alex Rios' line for today be?

Flush from their confidence-boosting sweep of Tampa Bay, the Jays cruise into the Bronx to take on the struggling Yankees.

Of course, the Yankees remain a dangerous club with a ferocious lineup and two tough starting pitchers sandwiched around a Taiwanese rookie making his big-league debut. Can the Jays put the ball in play and pressure the Bombers' suspect defence?

This week's Scout features a scuffling Godzilla, a surging superstar and some trade talk in the bullpen. It's a critical sink-or-swim weekend for the 12-11 Jays.

On to the Advance Scout!

Sometimes I like to show my age.

The line it is drawn, the curse it is cast
The slow one now will later be fast
As the present now will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.

Look who's on top in the NL West.

In honor of what I'm hoping will be a terrific matchup tonight between Roy Halladay and the man who makes my baby cry, today's photograph is of the Doctor giving some poor batter the glare:

Chiefs and D'Jays waxed, Dayton hands win to Lansing. Janssen's unlucky thirteenth.

That's more like it. Yesterday's game brought a win, and interesting developments in the bullpen. But, first off, let us praise Josh Towers, who hung in yesterday for the win after a tough first inning.

Back in 1993, the New York Yankees ended a very un-Bronx-like skein of four straight losing seasons to burst back onto the scene of baseball's winning franchises with an 88-74 mark, good for second place just seven games behind the eventual World Champion Blue Jays.

It had also been 12 years since a playoff appearance for the pinstriped crew, but that year the torch was passed from Toronto and after a cruising to a division-best 70-43 mark in the strike-shortened 1994 season, the Yanks have been in the playoffs each season since, capturing six pennants and four titles.

Corey Koskie had a much better night at the plate yesterday than he's had in a little while; in honor of that, and to hopefully let some of that Picture of the Day mojo keep him hot (and if you don't believe that it works, our most recent Photos of the Day have been Chacin, Brantley and Rios), here's Mister Wheat, the Kid from Anola, Corey Koskie: