Over the weekend, John Northey and I had a chance to sit down and talk about the NL West. After our ghostwriter had condensed the multi-day rambling into a manageable chunk and thrown out the words that don't exist, it sort of resembled English. So we translated it into several dead languages, back into English, and the result, which may or may not be an NL West Preview, is shown below.

Season previews have been a popular staple here on Batter's Box for the past several years, and given that it's March 20, some Bauxites are starting to ask, "Hey, where the *&^% are the team-by-team season previews?"

Well, we're doing things a little differently this year, but it all starts on Monday. And we come to you now with an invitation to help. Updated (again) 3/30.

Casey Janssen's quest for freedom from the injury bug has hit a snag.  If Philip Gerard was a pain and Richard Kimble was a shoulder, Gerard forced Kimble to get Janssen to leave Thursday night's game against the Yankees.  Jordan Bastian of bluejays.com says Janssen left due to shoulder tightness caused by muscle fatigue.

Pronounced EE-muss, I figured that's close enough to "enormous" prospect.  I did pull a side muscle reaching for that one, thanks for asking.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, O'Bauxite Nation!  Ireland - the home of Guinness Beer where an occasional pint will probably be consumed today.  Where U2, Padraig Harrington, and Pierce Brosnan hail from.  Where sports like hurling, gaelic football, rugby and soccer dominate the sports landscape.  Ireland is not known as a baseball power yet but the sport has been picking up momentum as detailed in the DVD "The Emerald Diamond".

Time for a little story-telling, debate and meanderings down memory lane. In another thread this week, there was some mention of Roy Halladay's dominant nature (oh hell, that's been true every week this site has existed, hasn't it?) with sidebar mentions of Steve Carlton's 1972 season and others of that ilk. Which got me to thinking -- and now, gets me to asking, all ye loyal readers and posters in Bauxite Nation -- what's the most dominant pitcher season you recall ever seeing?

For the record, now -- screw the "records," now. Nobody say anything about statistical dominance or best ERA+ or anything of that nature. No mentions of Christy Mathewson or Ed Walsh unless there are truly elderly Bauxites out there who actually saw Addie Joss and Pete Alexander pitch. For me, there are four names that come immediately to mind ...

On the heels of the release of Vegas' over/unders, I got to thinking: Bauxites are pretty smart, think you can out-predict the oddsmakers?

Update: contest entry closes Monday, so get your picks in!

Update 2: Contest closed! Thanks for all the entries everybody!

The good folks in Vegas have come out with the Win total Over/Unders for 2009.

Canada has been eliminated from the World Baseball Classic thanks to a disappointing, disheartening, and soul-crushing 6-2 setback to Frank Catalanotto and the Italians Monday night at Rogers Centre.   That means two things.  One, Italy will take on Venezuela at 5:00 p.m. EDT today to determine who will join the U.S. in advancing to Round 2 and two, Scott Richmond doesn't get to throw a pitch for Canada for the second straight tournament.

No fancy headline today.  Italy must go down in baseball flames tonight when they play Canada at the Rogers Centre.  First pitch is 6:30 p.m. EDT.

Are you watching the World Baseball Classic? There's actually quite a bit of earnest early competition.

• Adam Dunn, not the most popular player in these parts, came to Toronto as a late addition to the U.S. team and homered to provide the American margin of victory in a 7-6 win over the hometown Team Canada.
• It was (har!) a "Dutch treat" as The Netherlands -- The Netherlands! -- nipped the heavily-favored Dominican Republic, 3-2 as Sidney Ponson outdueled Edinson Volquez.
• In a few somewhat less competitive games, Venezuela beat Italy 7-0; Puerto Rico knocked off Panama, also 7-0; China beat Chinese Taipei, 4-1; and Japan blew out Korea, 14-2.

Your thoughts, Bauxites?

After seeing the Dustin Pedroia commercial that's running for an MLB video game for the seventy thousandth time this week, I decided to see if we could build a Hall of Names team built entirely of players named "Dustin." And though there are nine men who have had that given first or middle name who've reached the big leagues to date -- and nine is a nice baseball number -- the simple answer is "no, we can't."

Just at a glance, we can see at least three -- McGowan, Hermanson and Nippert -- are pitchers, so there would not be a full eight on defense to fill out the lineup card.

Ah, but what if we include all those guys nicknamed "Dusty" or named "Dustan," etc.? Yes, if we expand our parameters a little ...

Translation:  Brad Mills and Matt Clement pitched pretty well yesterday and Brian Dopirak supplied the shizzle with the swizzle stick as the Jays crushed the U.S. team with a 6-5 victory Wednesday in Dunedin.

Canada might have a shot of beating the United States in the World Baseball Classic if the game is close in the late innings.  As John Northey pointed out in an earlier thread, the American bullpen will be without Jays closer B.J. Ryan and Twins relief ace Joe Nathan as they have pulled out of the World Baseball Classic.  Ryan says he needs to work on his mechanics while Nathan has a sore shoulder. 

Spring is almost here, which means it’s not only time for a new Blue Jay season, but it’s also time for another Toronto Bauxite Baseball League season. This year will mark TBBL’s fourth season and I am pleased to bring you this message from league organizer Mike K. As a former (and hopefully future) TBBL participant I can thoroughly vouch for the league and the work done by the various individuals behind the scenes, as I’m sure many other Bauxites can.