Okay, not "Notes from Nowhere" but rather "Notes from Northwest Ohio via Dallas/Fort Worth ..."

Excerpted from an e-mail from my mother this morning: "We are off again on one of our adventures. This weekend (beginning tomorrow) we will drive to Windsor and take the train to Toronto. We hope to see the CN Tower, the Eaton Centre, the Cathedral in Toronto, the Edwards Gardens, possibly a museum as well, perhaps a play also, and an Irish pub or two during our stay there. We will be staying for two days at the Hilton Toronto Hotel (145 Richmond Street W.) We will be home again on Sunday night. It will be a celebration of our 51st Anniversary."

So, help a Bauxite (and his family) out ... what's can't-miss in TO these days? Top quality, surprisingly inexpensive restaturants? Off-the-beaten-path kewl stuff? Be nice, I am sending the URL for this thread to my whole family! ...

As a Batter's Box Official Minor League Guy or something, that is an extremely un-PC thing to say. But Vegas, New Hampshire and Dunedin all won, while the rest of the affiliates lost. I'm allowed to be a fair-weather minor league updater, right? No? Okay, fine, here are all 6 recaps.

I apologize for the lateness of today's report.  I was in Wisconsin over the weekend for a Coldplay concert and speaking of cold play (see what I did there?), I managed to catch a Brewers game on the way back where Jeff Suppan got whacked by the Nationals, or more specifically Josh Willingham, 14-6.  With family in the Cheesehead State, I've been a fairly regular visitor to Milwaukee but Milwaukee has certainly had its share of visitors.  The French missionaries and explorers began visiting there in the late 16th century.  In fact, Milwaukee is an Indian name.  It's pronounced "Meel-wah-kay" which is Algonquin for "the good land".

Anyways, it was a busy day for the affiliates as they posted a 5-and-3 mark.  The teams that don't rhyme with Jays had a very good night while the ones that do didn't, save for one game.  Make sense?  Good!  Read on and rock on, my peeps!

Great question recently from Bauxite Ron: "This just in, Ichiro is a good hitter. On a 0-2 count, he was able to hit a ball out of the strike zone to win the game. Despite being 35, I wouldn't rule out Ichiro getting 3000 hits Stateside. Has he done enough to be a Hall Of Famer?"

My initial reaction was "Oh my God, yes, of course! Why even ask the question?" But on closer look, there is an argument to be made ...

"The only constant factor to be found in my thinking over the years has been opposition to accepted opinions."
  -  Pierre Trudeau

Bill James, who hasn't had much to say about the subject over the years, offered up some provocative thoughts about how the Steroid Era will look down the road.

Fabio Castro had a fantastic outing, and there were great individual offensive performances on each team (edit: except Dunedin. Yuck.), despite some lousy team performances.

What's the difference between these two teams anyway?

Everybody's got an opinion. I, however, have the Truth.

Another ugly day on the farm included just one win, all the way down in Low-A ball while two pitchers, including a rehabbing righty, left their starts early.  Happy Monday!

Portland played New Hampshire a few weeks ago so they thought they knew how to run on Darin Mastroianni's arm.  After Mastroianni threw a runner out at the plate the third base coach/manager might have reconsidered.  After the second out at the plate they might have stopped running.  The third assist for Mastroianni was at third base so that one could be blamed on the runner.  But the fourth Mastroianni assist, at home, should have caused the Portland manager to reconsider his opinion.

The GCL Jays beat up the two Indian reality show winners.  Scott Richmond pitched well in his final rehab start.  Overall the affiliates went 4-2 with the top two teams losing.

TAM (54-44)        000 001    422 001  10  17  1
TOR (47-51)        222 201    000 000   9  16  0
Price, Cormier (4), Thayer (6), Balfour (7),  Choate (8), Wheeler (8), Howell (6-2) (10), Nelson (12)
Tallet, League (7), Accardo (8), Downs (9), Frasor (10), Camp (0-5) (11)

And what did I think of today's game?

It was a three-win night for the affiliates, which is an excellent result given their past performances this season on the same night of the week. The wins came as the result of some nice pitching performances. Dunedin also received some offense with four players going yard for five homers in total.

The six minor league contests yesterday included four shutouts, a bullpen and fielding meltdown and an outburst at the plate for a struggling affiliate. Two Toronto affiliates threw shutouts while two others were held off the scoresheet, as the Fisher Cats were on the wrong end of a one hitter. Dunedin held Sarasota off the scoreboard through 7 innings but ended up losing 5-3 in part due to three errors. Meanwhile, Auburn had their biggest scoring day of the year with 13 runs in a blowout win over Williamsport. Three strong pitching performances meant all the stars of the evening went to starting pitchers and none were awarded to hitters.

ChiSox ace Mark Buehrle threw just the 17th regular-season perfect game in MLB history today. He's also just the 24th pitcher in MLB history to toss multiple no-hitters, as this is his second.

Thanks to Bauxite Forkball for the heads up.

Randy Ruiz hit a three run walk-off home run to lead Vegas to victory.  Auburn won a doubleheader 6-5, that was the score in both games.  Henderson Alvarez retired the first 13 hitters he faced as Lansing won.  Carlos Perez led the GCL Jays to a win.  Dunedin scored eight on their way to a win, only New Hampshire spoiled the organizational sweep.

The highlights - a rain-out and a scheduled day off.