With five weeks left the BBFL is coming down to the wire. Although the Austin Senators seem to be cruising to the Alomar title, things are not so clear cut in the other divisions. In Barfield, the eastern Shore Birds are being chased by Schroendinger's Bat and Baseball North, while the Carter leading Trembling WIlburys are still trying to shake off the Garth Iorg Gremlins.

Three wins, one loss and two days off.  The Chiefs won with good pitching and the Fisher Cats won by scoring ten runs.  Lansing won by shutting out the opposition.  Auburn took the only loss but had two runners thrown out at home.  Adam Lind hit a home run but left the game.

Free Anonymous Reliever!

John-Ford Griffin had five RBI's and Lee Gronkiewicz had six strikeouts in three shutout innings to lead Syracuse to victory.  Gustavo Chacin struggled.  The Fisher Cats dropped a doubleheader, The GCL Jays lost in 13 innings.  Dunedin and Lansing emerged victorious.

I'll be honest -- I'm not much of a fisherman. Been out maybe four or five times in my life, mostly for perch on Lake Erie when I was much younger. So when the idea came to do an All-Fish Hall of Names team, I had some misgivings. Most of what I know about fish comes from the menus of fine seafood restaurants.

And did you realize ...

I'm back online, and the winning streak ends. My fault. I should have known.

Never mess with a winning streak.

I'm sorry.

We couldn't really do the 13th installment of the minor league summary on Friday, least of all for pitchers, unless we wanted to give extra work to Dr. Andrews. So, it was postponed until Saturday.

The minor league affiliates went 4-2 yesterday, with nice performances from Joel Collins and Brett Cecil setting the tone.

The White Sox find themselves buried in fourth place in the AL Central, a mere 1.5 games ahead of Kansas City. Their starting pitching isn't the problem: they've received ERAs of 3.23, 3.71 and 4.15 from their top three starters, who coincidentally are the three men the Jays have to deal with this weekend.

With the trading deadline coming up, I thought that I would take a closer look at the most lopsided trades of my lifetime. Not all of them occurred at or near the deadline, but they did share a common theme of "present for future", at least from the perception of the trade partners. I am interested not in the how deals ended up, as the facts are pretty well known in all five cases. Rather, I am interested in how the deals looked objectively at the time that they were made.

Mike Green’s minor league report will run tomorrow. In the meantime, prepare to be enthralled with the accounts of four one-run games and 5 victories on the farm.

Syracuse was the only winner among the farm affiliates who went 1-4.

The Internet? I remember!

A 2-4 night in the minors.

Craig Biggio will retire at the end of this season.  It has been a long and interesting ride for Biggio, which will now almost certainly end with a trip to Cooperstown. His career is an example of what can be done with a player with adaptability and a broad range of skills.  Paul Molitor, Pete Rose and Biggio come to mind quickly as examples.  The list of the greatest leadoff hitters ever is fascinating: Henderson, Raines, Biggio, Billy Hamilton, Boggs, Rose, Molitor, and Ichiro. Not all of them were likeable, but all had some qualities that one could admire.  Biggio certainly fits in.

"Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."
-- Richard P. Feynman

Feynman was a great man, a brilliant physicist and one of the leading thinkers of the 20th century. But, at least as far as this chapter in Baseball's Hall of Names is concerned, when it came to PR, he didn't know jack.

Or, more appropriately, he didn't know Pete -- as in Rose (Sr. or Jr.) or Reiser or Runnels, just a few of the many players in big league history with a name that bore the initials "P.R."

But given my own chosen profession -- make that PRofession -- of corporate communications, maybe by invoking the help of baseball's marketing godhead Bill Veeck, we can formualate a decent roster of players from these PR (take your) "hacks." Maybe not.

Let's find out as we meet ...