It's been all over Da Box recently ... Mientkiewicz, Grudzielanek, Catalanotto, Menechino, now Schoeneweis, which by my count has been spelled nine hundred and four different ways on this site since yesterday.

It's time to see if we can't mix it up a bit, draw the right tiles and spell it out ... a full roster for the Batter's Box All-Scrabble team. (Today's Honourary Team Captain is Mike Denyszyn, also known as "3141 21141(10)41" who scores a 33!)

To post and read "Make Your own Roundup" news, please visit yesterday's old and now-ironically-named New for the sake of new QOTD thread, which was posted late in the day when the original thread asploded.

But first, play the game!

It's official: the Toronto Blue Jays have acquired Shea Hillenbrand from the Arizona Diamondbacks in exchange for Adam Peterson. Hillenbrand presumably becomes the Blue Jays' full-time DH, spelling Eric Hinske at 1B now and again. And except for a few million dollars that may or may not be spent in the next several weeks, that's your 2004-05 Blue Jays' off-season.

Baseball '05 seem painfully far off 'bout now? Well, did you realize that exactly six months from tomorrow, the All-Star squads from each league will gather in Detroit's CoPa cabana to determine whether the World Series home field will be in southern Ohio or in northeast Ohio (just kidding -- I think)? So, who will be representing Toronto in this festive gala? (Remember, your predictions will be here to link back to come July!) What about other team reps? Who will be the surprises? The annual returnees? That's right, it's today's mid-January ...

Question of the Day: Who will be playing in the 2005 All-Star Game, representing what teams? And keep in mind the annual difference between who should go and who actually goes!

And of course, please continue to ...
Make Your Own Roundup ....

Oscar Wilde would be proud. No, wait, that was art for art's sake. Close enough.

OK, so this is the new-and-improved QOTD/MYOR. Let the comment above be the LAST non-baseball comment on this thread.

New QOTD: Who leads the Jays in saves this year? I posed this last year, and I don't know if anyone guessed Jason Frasor, so let's see if we can do better.

Oscar Wilde would be proud. No, wait, that was art for art's sake. Close enough.

OK, so this is the new-and-improved QOTD/MYOR. Let the comment above be the LAST non-baseball comment on this thread.

New QOTD: Who leads the Jays in saves this year? I posed this last year, and I don't know if anyone guessed Jason Frasor, so let's see if we can do better.

Oscar Wilde would be proud. No, wait, that was art for art's sake. Close enough.

OK, so this is the new-and-improved QOTD/MYOR. Let the comment above be the LAST non-baseball comment on this thread.

New QOTD: Who leads the Jays in saves this year? I posed this last year, and I don't know if anyone guessed Jason Frasor, so let's see if we can do better.

According to one of Batter's Box's various Ryans earlier today, "It took [the Blue jays] until 2002 to finally have a Smith and there still hasn't been a Jones in the team's history." I can't resist a challenge (such as the one subsequently issued by Mike Green, so here goes with the All-Jones team proposed in today's main thread.

A few notes ... exactly 90 players named Jones have appeared in a big league uniform. And exactly one of those players, William Timothy Jones, caught one inning of one game for the Cardinals in 1989; and as far as I can tell, no other Jones has ever appeared behind the plate in a big league uniform.

So we're not exactly starting with a bedrock foundation; even the aforementioend W. Timothy's versatility -- primarily an infielder, he appeared in at least one game at every position, including pitcher -- goes to waste, since nobody else can catch. But we might have the greatest defensive outfield of all time.

So what is it with baseball and lawyers? I'm not talking about the Scott Boras types who defile the game each offseason or even the occasional Tony LaRussa or Bart Giamatti who are headed to the Hall of Fame; I mean, what is it with lawyers and baseball? For instance, I was reading the work of the incomparable Jamey Newberg, lawyer and online guru of all thing Texas Ranger, when I started thinking about the number of lawyers, law students and legal professionals who populate the Batter's Box Roster: Jordan, Craig, Mike D., Mike G., Leigh; Spicol even takes pains to label himself a "non-lawyer."

I'm not the first to notice this, either; for instance, Baseball Think Factory has an entire page dedicated to unveiling the number of BTFers in the legal field. There are many others; the late but truly great Doug Pappas comes to mind.

Forget the lawyer jokes; I am serious and curious here -- this is a real ...

Question of the Day: What is it about baseball that draws lawyers to write about it? ... and conversely, what is it about lawyers that draws them to baseball? You lawyers out there, step up and speak for yourselves (please, make it "brief" - HAR!); everyone else, please feel free to speculate.

Oh, and as per usual Make Your Own Roundup threads, if there's baseball news, shout it out and link to it. The first person making a Keith Law joke in response to the QOTD will be sued.

Barring major Delgado-to-the-Nippon-Ham-Fighters news, this thread will serve as the "Make Your Own Roundup" space for Saturday and Sunday; hence, "Let's Play Two." But given the speaker of that famous line, let's also toss out a perfunctory ...

Question of the Weekend: Ernie Banks was known as "Mr. Cub." We may have done something like this a long time ago (I can't remember, frankly), but let's see if we can agree on a "Mr. Franchise" for each and every major league team. This is NOT necessarily "the greatest player" (DiMaggio probably outstrips Ruth as "Mr. Yankee) and it's definitely not necessarily a current player (sorry, Derek, it's still Joe D.).

But for the most part, this is your space to float news and rumors and discussion. For instance, this ESPN.com roundup reports that Millwood to Cleveland is a done deal -- and this could be a steal, almost surely scuttling any Soriano-to-Flushing rumours, Miguel Cairo is a Met. But not Mr. Met!

That's "BCS," get it? In Tuesday's What the Hall? thread, Grandmaster Gizzi hit on an interesting notion, which leads to today's ...

Question of the Day: What if Major League Baseball chose a champion the same way U.S. NCAA Division I football does? You know, part computer rankings, part votes from the coaches (managers), part from the writers, only certain conferences are guaranteed playoff spots, others have to "win to get in," undefeated teams don't always get a spot in the championship ... the whole deal. How would that turn out? Who would have won last year? Who would win next year? Who would have ... {{gasp}} ... won in 1992 and 1993? How would fans of various teams react? The most creative responses will win a No-Prize.

As for the MYOR, since I brought up his name a few days ago and yesterday someone else suggested this option for a possible cheap, bounceback acquisition for the Jays, let's start today's E-clips with Rusty Greer: Taking a Beating, a special online report from the Dallas Morning News (DallasNews.com, requires free registration). And let's not fret, rather wish him well, if the rumours suggesting his imminent minor league signing with the Twins turn out to be accurate. What else is going on?

Today, we have revenge of the big guys. Sure, Cecil Fielder, Ernie Lombardi and John Kruk would never make the cover of GQ, but they could hit. Compare them to their vertically endowed counterparts like Enos Cabell, who at 6'5", 180 barely caused a ripple when he stepped on the scale. Enos was a "we" ballplayer (you might be too if there was so little "I" to you), but didn't hit much. So,
today's question is:

"Which thin guys were truly in (could hit or pitch well)?"

We'll start the roundup with a Spencer Fordin piece on the Jay catching situation. Unconfirmed reports suggest that Gregg Zaun may indeed have re-signed with the club.

The recent and ongoing Box debate about whether or not the Jays should make a run at Calvin Pickering call to mind the stature, if not necessarily status, of another former Jay, Cecil "Big Daddy" Fielder, who really earned that "Big" part of the nickname. And certainly you all remember a not-so-little lefty named Wells who used to pitch in TO who was about twice the size of Vernon.

Maybe you recall David Letterman once famously referring to LA reliever Terry Forster as a "Big Tub of Goo" on his show. When I get around to the inevitable "All-Mick" Baseball Hall of Names roster, you know the starting pitcher is likely to be lefthanded Round Mound of Balls Hit on the Ground, Mickey Lolich. Grab a doughnut, break open the Doritos, knock back a case of Jolt Cola and hit the road for Steak-n-Shake -- it's all part of today's ...

Question of the Day: Who's on the Freakishly Anti-Thin (F.A.T.) Team? Having actually seen them play takes precedence over just knowing their reputation, but either will do. Remember, we're looking for actual talent!

In unsurprising news Wade Boggs and Ryne Sandberg were elected to the Hall of Fame today.

Okay, it's HOF Day, finally, but we've had like eight hundred HOF-related threads in the past several weeks, so no QOTD on that topic. From along those lines in the MYOR world, see if you can struggle through another Jayson Stark opus extolling the virtues of eight candidates (hint: don't invite him and Neyer to the same party). But much more exciting for Yankee fans is the fact that the Bombers finally reached agreement with that pitcher they've been wanting. (Heh.) What, yout still want a QOTD? What am I machine? Okay, fine, I mean why the ... Hall ... not? Today's ...

Question of the Day: What is your favourite colour?

Forty million points to the first person to both (a) identify the reference and (b) correctly answer the question. Seventy thousand billion points to the first Bauxite to post a link to the HOF announcement. Oh, and I guess, eleven points to anyone who correctly forecasts (before the link is posted!) the entire class of inductees.

Here's a question to start the year, as the long winter vacations at universities across North America come to a close ...

Question of the Day: What's the best possible team your once or future college's alumni rolls could field? If you didn't go to college or went to Southeastern Podunk Polytechnic Institute for the Little Sisters of the Poor with no baseball team (or at least no alumni that made it to The Show), pick the school you think could form the best or most interesting all-alumni team(s) and go from there.

My own proud alma mater has one borderline HOF pitcher, a rock-solid back of the bullpen and a "lineup" that Kerry Ligtenberg could no-hit ...