David Wells on Toronto sportswriters:

"No beat writers in any town I've ever played in are as ignorant, muckraking, or relentlessly negative as the guys in Toronto. In a region where baseball is just slightly less popular than hockey, football, basketball, curling, tobogganing, ice fishing and snowshoe racing, the local sports-hosers have absolutely no idea what they're talking about."

Boomer on Canadian baseball fans:

"Baseball fans in Canada simply do not understand what they're watching. Honest to God, there were nights where I just wanted to climb up in the seats at the SkyDome and start slapping."

Trouble is, there's just enough truth in both of those hyperbolic statements to make the Canadian reader a little uncomfortable. We're getting better at understanding and appreciating baseball here -- as prospects like Adam Loewen and Jeff Francis are making clear -- but still, 90% of the conversations I have with my countrymen and women about baseball rarely rise above "grown men in their pajamas getting paid millions to hit a ball with a stick." I can almost feel your pain, Boomer -- though I'm actually giving up all-night benders for Lent.

Gotta give credit to Richard Griffin for this line, too: "[Wells's] book might be the first unauthorized autobiography in publishing history."

Wouldn't it be a great idea for Batter's Box to run a contest where readers predict the final 2003 order of finish for MLB teams? Actually, it would be redundant; there are many opportunities on the Internet to test the accuracy of your statistical model or ouija board, and here are two I'm planning to enter.

Aaron's Baseball Blog has the more complicated rules and the smaller prize, so I can't resist. Just kidding; Aaron Gleeman is on my must-read list, and his great blog was instrumental in pointing me to the other contest, run by Lee Sinins. Bragging rights, and a book from A.G.'s personal library, would mean a great deal to me. My copy of Ball Four is getting dog-eared...

Sinins' grand prize is a free copy of the next edition of his sabermetric baseball encyclopedia, with the runnerup prize a free entry in the Legends of Baseball League, and monthly prizes provided by Baseball Prospectus. Here are his rules:

Putting his curmudgeon hat back on, Richard Griffin takes his best shot at the Jays' marketing campaign. It's inoffensive and mildly amusing -- the piece, that is. The campaign is clever and funny; the best baseball ads ever seen in these parts.

Rich still seems annoyed that J.P. prefers the "A's Way" to the mediocrity of the Belgian years in Toronto, but has yet to explain why emulating a winner is a bad thing. I know I promised to stop wasting 1's and 0's on correcting Griffin's lies and distortions, so I'll let this line speak for itself:

This column has always tried to be constructive rather than destructive.

The unbeaten Toronto Blue Jays allowed Hideki "Godzilla" Matsui to go 3-3 and hit his second HR of the young Grapefruit League season, but prevailed 9-8 over the New York Yankees this afternoon in Tampa. Here's the AP game report, and the box score from ESPN.

Vernon Wells was the hitting hero for the good guys; 2-for-3 with a bases-loaded triple and 4 RBI. Mike Colangelo got another hit; he's playing like a guy who knows he has an opportunity. The Jays left several regulars at home, but the Yanks started what looked like an opening day lineup. Starter Mark Hendrickson made it three Toronto hurlers in a row to hold the opposition scoreless through two innings, allowing just one hit. Several of the bullpen candidates got in some work today, and longshot Pasqual Coco, possibly in the trade showcase role, has two spring saves already. Tomorrow at 1:00, March Madness continues, as the Pirates visit Dunedin.

Baseball America has released its 100 Top Prospects list; it's available at their Website for those with subscriptions, and should also be on newsstands imminently. It's not telling tales out of school, however, to report that the Jays placed three prospects on the list: Dustin McGowan (36), Jayson Werth (94) and Jason Arnold (97). A few notes:

- Three placements is about middle-of-the-pack among major-league teams, though two prospects in the 90s isn't so hot.
- Neither Werth nor Arnold deserve their low ranking. Both Ja(y)sons likely will be solid contributors to the 2004 Jays, and Werth might well be in Toronto all season.
- McGowan is the only homegrown player on the list: the O's (Werth) and Yankees (Arnold) can take credit for the others.
- This shortage of homegrown talent will not last long. This time next year, look for these names on the list: Gabe Gross, Russ Adams, David Bush, Justin Maureau, Jason Perry.

The Toronto Star does it again. "Abrams makes Tosca's day with big plays" -- so sez a headline in the "Baseball Buzz" sidebar this morning. The story, written by someone who knows nothing about the Blue Jays, refers to "first-round pick Russ Abrams" and gets young Mr. Adams' name wrong a third time. It's not like the kid's name is Mientkiewicz and they transposed a vowel; this is inexcusably sloppy writing and pathetic editing. If the Star wants to hire me, I'm available. If not, I suggest they start reading Batter's Box to learn the basics about the team they're supposedly covering. By any name, "Abrams" impressed, and let's not be too hasty to pigeonhole him as a 2B.

Today it's the home opener against the Phillies, at 1:00 pm, available on The FAN 590. Cory Lidle gets the first couple of innings, with Woodward (tender hamstring), Huckaby (bruised right hand) and Wilson (10 stellar innings at 1B yesterday) unlikely to play. In what we sincerely hope is the team's worst injury of the spring, Mike Moriarty was hit in the face by a 95-mph heater, and has fractures to his cheek and orbital bone, so his remote chances of making the 25-man roster have become nil, but he should be back in the Syracuse infield in about a month.

I hope everyone enjoys our new home. Let the games begin.

There's a new Web site devoted to intelligent analysis of the Blue Jays. They're just getting started, but it looks promising. One of the authors, Jim Turner, has linked to Batter's Box as a Jays resource, and I will reciprocate the next time I update the sidebar.

Here's a link to one of their recent roundtable discussions, about a subject that some of us find irresistible and others insignificant -- the Batting Order. Is it just my impression, or do the Toronto Baseball Guys admire Prospectus the way BB pays homage to Primer?

Jim quotes noted baseball authority Montgomery Burns in another fine piece in which he dubs Mark Hendrickson "The Slightly Smaller Unit" and says Aquilino Lopez will soon (unfortunately, IMO) be known as "A-Lo". The Toronto Baseball Guys are invited to comment here any time, and they're worth reading.

ESPN's Jayson Stark asked five GMs to assemble the best possible 25-man roster from the free agents who signed this winter. There was a $2 million limit per player, and here's the catch -- the entire team couldn't cost more than $30 million.

One of the participants (who are all anonymous, but you get the impression one or two may be from the AL East) wanted to spend less than $20 million for 24 players and sign Pudge Rodriguez, but that was against the rules.

"You know what?" said one of our GMs. "I bet you'd have a better shot at .500 doing it this way than Detroit, Kansas City, Milwaukee or Tampa Bay."

The headline on Spencer Fordin's latest MLB.com update reads "Jays Ready for Spring Opener". It's an appropriate day to be stepping into the all-new Batter's Box.

Roy Halladay will take the mound against Tampa Bay, and manager Carlos Tosca also plans to look at Pete Walker, Trever Miller, Evan Thomas, Mike Smith and Brian Bowles in the opener.

Can you believe it? They played baseball yesterday! (The Jays open their Grapefruit League campaign tomorrow vs. Tampa). The importance of spring box scores isn't "who's hot and who's not" -- that part's meaningless -- but "who's playing and who's not". Nice to see guys like Alex Sanchez and Geoff Jenkins returning from serious injuries, and I notice Randy Johnson is still pretty good.

Here's the ESPN Scoreboard -- it's a good place to check all the scores, even while games are in progress. There's a link to each box score and/or game story, and the "sidebar" in the middle is handy for stats and schedules; during the regular season it's also as accurate as any for pitching probables.

This is the LAST DAY for Batter's Box at this address. The move is going so well, I'm inviting you to take a sneak preview of our new home, where the blog will be "live" by early Saturday morning. Our location should be easy to remember -- http://www.battersbox.ca -- and we'll be adding more features at the new site as time permits. You will see a test message there, plus the full BB archives up to Feb. 18, entry #250. Feel free to comment on the test message, though it will be deleted overnight. Or come back here and let us know what you think. Oh, and thanks for pushing us past 25,000 hits this week -- these milestones always remind me how grateful I am for everyone's participation.

It's no surprise to the learned baseball fan that a major league baseball entity based in Canada is relocating before the 2003 season ... but it's not the Montreal Expos.

As The Batter's Box, the erstwhile blog you're reading even now, moves to a new address (you only thought "URL" stood for "Uniform Resource Locator" ... it's actually "Unable to Remain Long-Term") please look for the following special new features in the new park.

In the BB opener, veteran hurler Kent Williams is expected to get the Opening Day nod ahead of steady Jordan Furlong and big-play Sean Whittaker.

O Canada, in both English and French, will be performed by breakout Latino-Hip-Hop-Country-and-Western star Dave Till (accompanied by Canadian greats Anne Murray and Gordon Lightfoot with the Barenaked Ladies singing harmony) while grizzled foreign correspondent John Gizzi will provide his own special a capella rendition of the American anthem, which he's rewritten as The Marred, Mangled Banner.

I am honored -- oops, honoured to have been selected to throw the ceremonial first bitch. Er, pitch.

Ground rules in the park remain the same with the exception of the bizarre decision to ban any mention of retired veteran lefty and former Detroit Tiger Frank Tanana.

The true measure of how bad things had gotten in Toronto the last couple of seasons can be found in the startling admission by Vernon Wells that the minor-leaguers riding the Syracuse-Toronto shuttle preferred to stay in Triple-A. "Guys that had been up and down hated it so much in the big-league clubhouse that they would rather go back to Syracuse," he told the Toronto Sun.

Now, I've been to Syracuse, and I certainly don't intend any offence to that upstanding burg, home of the Carrier Dome and, probably, other things. But I can think of about 50 places I'd rather spend a summer, including downtown Saskatoon and many parts of Kitchener/Waterloo. I'm sure it's a marvellous place to pass through and perhaps even to be from, but when you find yourself saying, "Ahh, finally I'm back in Syracuse," something ain't quite right. And that's not even counting the switch from Greyhound/Super Eight to chartered jet/Hilton Hotel.

Scott Fiesthumel posted a wonderful story on the SABR-L list that I thought was worth relaying.

Everyone's reporting on a couple of close calls (the narrow escape kind, there aren't any umpires involved) down in Florida. I'm glad nobody's seriously hurt, but more than fluky accident reports and haunted sprinkler systems, this caught my attention:

Frank Catalanotto recently underwent successful Lasix eye surgery to improve his sight.

One of the reasons I could hit a little, back in the day, was the gift of 20-15 eyesight; I was able to pick up the spin on the ball as soon as it left the pitcher's hand. (Now I peer over the top of my reading glasses, and my distance vision is beginning to deteriorate; we'll find out if I can still hit high-schoolers when practice begins next week). Unless you're Alfonso Soriano or Vladimir Guerrero, there's a lot of physics calculatations in 0.4 seconds, including location ("is that in my ear?") and speed, so if you get a clue whether it's fastball, curve or slider a few milliseconds earlier, that's a big advantage.

Recently, I was talking to someone about Jays farmhand Jim Deschaine, who had always been a contact hitter before his terrible 2002 at AA Tennessee, and suggested the team should take him to an optometrist. Your eyes change over time, rarely for the better. If Cat, who can already hit -- .331/.390/.499 vs. RH in 2001 -- sees the ball a bit better, that's great news, especially if he can avoid being killed by fly balls.