As the November comes to a close, and the U.S. holiday weekend bleeds into the Yule time, it's that time again ... we have just enough November left to squeeze in the Batter's Box All-November team, a squad made up entirely of players born in the month of November.

If you're waiting for the obvious choice of Hall of Famer Turkey Stearnes for this squad's mascot, forget it ...

The Results

Very few new developments. The A's may get Kendall (thanks to faithful reader and Blue Jays Cheer Club drummer bird droppings); additionally, our very own Craig B has written a preview of the Canadian and Venezuelan World Cup teams at THT.

This thread's quote is probably pretty easy.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that the Mariners wish to sign Carlos Delgado and Troy Glaus or Richie Sexson to be their 3-4 hitters next year. Our question today is a simple one. "Can you describe Mariner mangement in the post-Gillick era in 3 adjectives/adverbs or less?" After the pithy description, any longer comment will be welcomed.

Order obviously matters- "insanely ambitious" and "ambitiously insane" qualify as two separate answers.

As our friends south of the border celebrate Thanksgiving, several clubs have plenty for which to be thankful. The Minnesota Twins organization, having won three straight division crowns on a limited budget, likely offers thanks on a daily basis for the rapid development of its young, inexpensive stars -- and foremost among them is surely the winner of the 2004 AL Cy Young Award, Johan Santana.

Question Of The Day: With the benefit of hindsight, who was right in the Great Johan Santana Debate? Before I remind you of the dispute, consider these numbers:

Blogger, Hardball Times impresario and occasional Batter's Box contributor Aaron Gleeman has a must-read piece today about the intersection of the blogosphere with the sporting press.

An open thread to discuss various and sundry basketball matters.

Trivia question : the Baseball Hall of Fame doesn't have anyone who is best-known as a statistician, but the Basketball Hall of Fame does. Who is he?

Box regular Marc pinch-hits and offers us his view of some of the prospects available in next month's Rule 5 draft. Thanks, and take it away, Marc.

Just for fun, I decided to create a generic "interview with an ex-Jay" article. It's inspired by Al Jaffee's old "Snappy Answers To Stupid Questions", which used to appear in MAD magazine back when I was a kid (which, let's face it, was a heck of a long time ago). Enjoy!

You may have noticed news reports commemorating yesterday's 20th anniversary of the Hail Flutie touchdown pass. So that raises this related ...

Question of the Day: What's the single most "miraculous" thing to occur on a MLB diamond? Not over the course of a full season -- sorry, '69 Mets -- or even over the course of a short series -- sorry, '04 Red Sox -- but in a single game? The (on one side) joy-inducing, elation-producing (and on the other side) gut-wrenching, sucker-punching event that equals the Flutie-to-Phelan pass in 1984?

Yeah, yeah, "touch 'em all Joe, you'll never hit a bigger one" ... what else?

Let’s move on to the current Hall 2nd base contenders.

Forget the strains of "Welcome Back" streaming from MLB loudspeakers next year ... muscle mag cover boy Gabe "Kotter" Kaplan has left the Red Sox and signed with the Giants ... the Yomiuri Giants, that is. We all know the story of former Jay farmhand Cecil Fielder, who left Toronto, ate up Japan, and returned to hit 51 homers for the Tigers in his inaugural season back in the states. That leads us to the multiple ...

Question(s) of the Day: What are the best U.S.-to-Japan and Japan-to-U.S. baseball stories? Does this topic interest you? Why or why not? Who's over there now that you want to see in a Jays uniform (U.S. expatriates and otherwise)? And most importantly, for Kapler anyway, how will the Gabe fare in the breaking-ball-first environment that awaits him?

As all three of the second base contenders for the Hall of Fame are into their late 30s, I decided to explore the question of which second baseman have been admitted to the Hall a bit before talking about each of them.

An annual tradition continues this year as we invite you (and all baseball fans) to vote on the Batter's Box Blue Jay Players of the Year.

Here is the place for Winter League news.

Battersbox regular Jabonoso brought to our attention good news on Ismael Ramirez. He's pitching very well in Venezuela- 23.1 innings, 14 hits, 1 homer, 3 earned runs, 5 walks and 22 strikeouts. He made front page news on the league's website. Check out the photo of him!