This is fun. Ted Lilly takes the hill to face the Rangers' Ryan Drese at 8:05 p.m.

Here is some Texas trivia. In the Rangers' first three seasons in the Metroplex, 1972-4, they opened the seasons respectively with Ted Williams, Whitey Herzog and Billy Martin as managers.

Off to Texas after a series win over the A's, the Jays and Roy Halladay face the Rangers and Pedro Astacio. This game is on TSN at 8:05pm, which is good, because I don't get TSN and I really need to study.

Two fine young pitchers in this one, Dave Bush (0-1) for Toronto takes on Joe Blanton (0-0) of the A's.

Springtime in Oakland
Josh Towers, Danny Haren
A 10:05 start

In their first roadtrip to the West Coast of the season the Jays debut against the Oakland A's, looking to extend their division lead.

Today's 1:05PM matchup features Blue Jay lefty Ted Lilly vs. coulda/woulda/shouldabeen Blue Jay but now a Red Sock Matt Clement.

I'm coming to you this afternoon from the press box, gang. It's my season opener! YAY!

Which means I'll be a little busy during the course of today's action, but I'll check in between ininngs and try to pass along any juicy inside info.

Especially anything that could cause Dr Prison Fence to call his lawyer...

I tried to think up a clever title that tied into Rogers Centre somehow, but I couldn't come up with one. It's just not a name that lends itself to flights of wordplay ... which is a shame, because there's plenty of competition out there among sports stadia.

The Air Canada Centre is the ACC or The Hangar. The Molson Centre in Montreal is The Keg. Minute Maid Park in Houston is the Juice Box, while Pac Bell Park in San Francisco was all too briefly The Phone Booth. Bobby Higginson gave Detroit's spacious stadium the moniker Comerica National Park. Even debt-ridden Olympic Stadium was known for ages as The Big Owe. The list goes on.

Theoretically, a team with a 1.000 winning percentage should beat a team with a .000 winning percentage exactly 100% of the time.

Okay, I don't know if Gustavo Chacin and Scott Kazmir faced each other in Manchester or Binghamton in 2004, but they'll do so in St. Petersburg in 2005. You can catch the game on TSN today, as your undefeated world heavyweight champion Toronto Blue Jays play the pitiful, destined-for-162-losses Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

The long winter is finally over. It's Opening Day 2005, and the Toronto Blue Jays are back. Roy Halladay opposes the Devil Rays and Dewon Brazelton in Tampa in an unusual 4:15 pm Opening Day start. Few openers will be watched as closely by Blue Jay fandom as this one.

Spring training is finally over, as the Blue Jays (and most other teams) start the regular season today. And there was much rejoicing.

Spring training at Batter’s Box is over, too. We’ve worked out the kinks in the new Box 3.0, and we’re ready to start a brand new regular season with higher-quality content than ever before. To that end, today we’re releasing and implementing new Guidelines for our Game Threads.

This is the last pretend game. Next time, it's for real.

And about time, say all of us.

Today, let us amuse ourselves in the following manner. Let us make sure everyone on the team has a nickname worthy of them. Something worth cheering and yelling about.

The Jays and Reds face off at 6:05 p.m. It's available on internet radio, for those with Gameday audio.

Why did I think yesterday's game was the final tilt of the season against the Phillies? Obviously, I wasn't reading the schedule carefully, because here we are again.

Today there are no radio, TV or internet broadcasts from either side, so we'll be hitting refresh on the Yahoo box score over and over again if we want to know what's going on. In the meantime, let's talk about Beer Club!