They are under way in Houston, with a leadoff double by Ichiro off Clemens.

Syracuse rested while Pulaski romped. In close contests, New Hampshire won and Charleston lost. Dunedin couldn’t walk their way to victory, not with flammable pitching. Auburn finished up a thrashing, and then didn’t bother with offence, just to make it interesting in their regularly scheduled game.

In this guest column, Thomas takes a closer look at three notable events from around baseball last week.

Robert and I caught up with Gabe Gross when we were in Buffalo last week. We had a very enjoyable conversation as Gabe was very accomodating and actually looked happy to be answering our questions. We interviewed Gabe in a corridor outside the dressing room and the lighting was bad. Robert took an in-game picture, it's long distance, but it is the best we could get. The Chiefs did not take batting practice the day we were there.

As I first mentioned in this thread, one of the things I want to do is collect little bits of information about Blue Jays of the past - things that we remarked on at the time, but may have forgotten now. For example: we all remember Tom Wilson's batting stance, in which he appeared to be hitting out of an invisible rocking chair. But will we remember this 10 years from now, or 20?

Curveball2 lives close to Charleston and attends many of their games. Some of you might remember Curveball2 broke the story of the promotion of Marcum, Roberts and James to Dunedin back in June. Curveball2 has recorded his impressions of the first half of Charleston's season. If you have questions ask, and hopefully Curveball2 will answer them.

Jamie Vermilyea returns to earth. A Chief hit a grand slam to turn a loss into a win. Syracuse had a winning week. Aaron Hill and Robinson Diaz each doubled in their only at-bat to represent the Blue Jays with distinction at yesterday's Futures Game.

It's a street in a strange world.
Maybe it's the Third World.
Maybe it's his first time around.
He doesn't speak the language,
He holds no currency.
He is a foreign man,

It's easy to forget, as real baseball begins its second half, that our league is about to pass the two-thirds point of the regular season. There's only eight weeks until the playoffs. Actually, it's more like seven and a half, with the MLB All-Star break making this "week" a mere four days, in which anything can happen. In fact, six teams (including the Jays) have Thursday off, so many of our fantasy wins and losses will be determined by just three games. Luck is a huge factor in Head-to-Head play at the best of times, even more so in Week 15.

Birds beware, expect me up there
me and air are feeling light today
jets should hide, I'll fly alongisde
me and pride are bolted tight today

It certainly seems that in every second thread the conversation invariably turns to whether or not Carlos Delgado and Miguel Batista will be traded. This is my attempt to keep all the discussion in one place.

Here's my thoughts. Everything that follows is 100% speculation; I have absolutely no idea what the Jays will do.

Today, it's former World Series hero John Lackey against reliable pro Miguel Batista, but that's not what we're going to talk about. In honour of the Double Infinity Game (turn the 8s on their sides), we're going to look yonder into the future and predict: how many of the Blue Jays on today's 25-man roster will still be with the club on Opening Day 2005? (That's next April, for those scoring at home). The correct guess will be awarded nothing, since I'll probably have forgotten all about this contest by next spring.

Closing in on me
I'm packing up and running away
To where nobody picks on me

A long afternoon for the Jays as Kelvim Escobar defeats his former team with nine strikeouts and plenty of offensive support. Ted Lilly's ERA jumps to 4.27 in advance of his first All-Star appearance and Kerry Ligtenberg's ERA begins to resemble Orson Wells in Touch of Evil.

Oh, what a Saturday. We welcomed Tom Cheek back to the radio booth, and enjoyed meeting Rob Bradford at Alice Fazooli's to chat about his fine new book Chasing Steinbrenner. While the big boys couldn't contribute a win to help us with our celebrations, the farm affiliates went 4-2 to inspire us to keep the faith.

It was supposed to be an opportunity to meet the author of the new book about the Jays' 2003 season and talk a little baseball. Rob Bradford, nearing the end of a long road trip of promotional appearances, with a solo drive home to Massachusetts ahead of him, had graciously agreed to join about 20 Bauxites for lunch at Alice Fazooli's. Few authors are willing to upstage themselves at a book signing, but Rob had arranged a very special treat for us — a guest appearance by J.P. Ricciardi.