The Veterans' Committee player's ballot contains some interesting names:

Dick Allen, Bobby Bonds, Ken Boyer, Rocky Colavito, Wes Ferrell, Curt Flood, Joe Gordon, Gil Hodges, Elston Howard, Jim Kaat, Mickey Lolich, Sparky Lyle, Marty Marion, Roger Maris, Carl Mays, Minnie Minoso, Thurman Munson, Don Newcombe, Tony Oliva, Vada Pinson, Ron Santo, Luis Tiant, Joe Torre, Maury Wills, Smoky Joe Wood.

Since we last talked, Ismael Ramirez went to 5-0 for Oriente in the Venezuelan League, after allowing 2 earned runs on 4 hits and 2 walks with 3 strikeouts in 6 innings against Lara. He's now gone 34 innings, allowing 25 hits and 7 walks, while stiking out 27 and surrendering only 2 homers.

Box regular Paul D. has publicly begged in the current Hijack Central for another one of these hoops-oriented threads. He even apologized for hijacking a thread called "Hijack Central," so we'll give him a (fast) break, especially since we don't have weekend QOTD's, and pose his questions here ...

"The Raptors have just imploded and gone insane. Rafer Alston wants to quit, the coach won't start two of his starters, the players hate each other ..."

"What does it say about the Raptors that Butch Carter was the best coach they ever had?"

Since the old Hijack Central has rolled off the page, thus closing out comments (and making it damhard to hijack, natch), here's a new one.

And since Joe has added the new feature of kicking off new HC threads with movie quotes, here is an exceedingly easy one. It's only 2:25 a.m. in Toronto right now, so I'm guessing this won't take more than 10 minutes for someone to answer.

"Don't think, it can only hurt the ballclub."

A couple of interesting points suggested in threads yesterday lead to today's ...

Question of the Day: How has the frankly massive and out-of-nowhere explosion of the popularity of fantasy baseball changed the way fans view the value of individual player accomplishments in the last 20 years?

P.S. Cast your Andujar ballot today! Meet the candidates here. Voting concludes Dec. 23.

Following up on an idea raised by Coach in yesterday's QOTD ... There are lots of "what if?" stories in baseball. There are those that take the self-inflicted Doc Gooden route; there are those that take the simple inexplicable flameout route like Joe Charboneau; some fall prey to injury like Mark Fidrych or other health concerns like J.R. Richard; and of course, there are is the senseless tragedy route unfortunately followed by those like Lyman Bostock. So, as to Thursday's ..

Question of the day:Who are the most memorable players, to you, who had "greatness" stamped all over them, but who fell off the sports radar for one reason or another?

P.S. Cast your Andujar ballot today! Meet the candidates here. Voting concludes Dec. 23.

MLB.com's Spencer Fordin has reported that the Jays have made a couple of moves to solidify next year's infield. They are as follows:

1. "[A] trade that brought John McDonald from Cleveland, netting a utilityman for the price of a player to be named later."
   
   
2. "Frank Menechino agreed to a one-year deal worth $650,000, with an option for 2006, which means the Jays bring him back without going to arbitration."
   

Great idea from erstwhile Box GM Jordan Furlong ... with all this talk of great players and Hall of Fame standards, let's take just a moment for a related, tangential ...

Question of the Day: Who is the most underrated player of your lifetime? Be sure to include your definition of "underrated" and an explanation of why your answer fits.

With pitching coach Brad Arnsberg moving up to the big club from Triple-A and the departure of Rick Adair from Double-A New Hampshire to a position in the Rangers organization, the Jays had two important minor-league vacancies to fill. Once again, J.P. Ricciardi has attracted some talented individuals to his developmental team.

Chuck Kniffin, who takes over in Syracuse, has been working with the likes of Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson in Arizona the last two years. Here's a great 2002 profile of him by Paul Rubin of the Phoenix New Times.

The new Fisher Cats pitching coach is Dave LaRoche. The lefty, a two-time all-star in his 14-year major league career, is the father of Braves 1B Adam and Dodgers prospect Andy. He coached in the big leagues for five years with the Mets and White Sox, and has been at AAA Omaha in the Royals system the last three years. In 1987, Dave coached in Syracuse, so we welcome him back to the Toronto organization.

In other appointments, former D-backs hitting coach Dwayne Murphy, an OBP freak and graceful outfielder in his 12 big-league seasons, will be the new bench coach with the SkyChiefs, and veteran infielder John Valentin begins his coaching career as the new hitting instructor in Double-A. Best of luck to all of the new hires as they begin working with some outstanding prospects.

It's that time once again ... vote for your choice to win the 2004 Andujar, the annual Batter's Box award, selected by Box readers, named in honor of the legendary and quotable pitcher Joaquin Andujar, who won 127 games in 13 seasons with the Astros, Cardinals and Athletics -- and who once said, "There is one word in baseball that says it all, and that word is 'youneverknow.'"

Voting is scheduled to conclude at noon on Dec. 23. For technical reasons, the poll is posted in a separate thread and is available from the Batter's Box home page.

Read more about the Andujar award, see the semifinal round's ballot results and read profiles of each of the finalists ... and feel free to influence your fellow voters by posting an explanation of your own vote.

Cast your Andujar ballot today!

As you surely know by now (and as is being discussed on another thread, the new Hall of Fame ballot is out and the discussions have revved up around the usual suspects -- Blyleven, Sandberg, Trammell. Just one new name on the list: Wade Boggs.

Boggs, of course, made his name on stats -- seven straight 200-hit seasons, 3,010 career hits, .328 career batting average, etc. Do those numbers get him into the Hall of Fame, or if he had retired with 2,987 hits, would he be there anyway? We've looked at "number milestones and millstones" for Hall candidates before, such as in Mike Green's Hall Watch/1B: Fred McGriff thread. Which brings us to our Tuesday ...

Question of the Day: Are there any magic numbers left that "guarantee" Hall of Fame entry? Is 250 wins the new 300? Is 600 homers the new 500? Why isn't 3,000 strikeouts as sexy as 3,000 hits?(There are less than half as many pitchers with the former as hitters with the latter, 25-12). Do any career "counting stat" numbers punch the proverbial ticket to Cooperstown any more?

Over the U.S. Thanksgiving weekend, the Oakland A's traded pitchers Arthur Rhodes and Mark Redman, and cash, to the Pittsburgh Pirates for catcher Jason Kendall and some other cash. Who got the better deal?

Dave Studenmund has a terrific article up at The Hardball Times today entitled Making The Most of What You've Got". A great article that looks at two important factors in creating runs: getting your runners into scoring position, and getting hits when those runners are there. Also Studes links to Tangotiger's "How Runs Are Really Created" which is a seminal piece of research.

After a wide variety of topics have passed through QOTD territory recently, it's time to return to a tried and true classic. Well, "return" isn't quite right; believe it or not, according to a brief search, this topic has never been properly argued on Da Box. And given this site is hosted in an American League city but features an awful lot of so-called old-school thinkers where The Great Game is concerned, I really have no clue which direction we'll go with today's ...


Question of the Day: Designated Hitter: yes or no? Do you like the DH? Should it exist? (Note that these are two separate questions for many people.) And if it's not going anywhere, just what the flark should we do about the DH in interleague and World Series play, anyway?