Imagine Shaun Marcum with a faster fastball and a lower homer rate.

Now, imagine that guy facing Marcum as the starting pitcher for the Dodgers tonight...

Remember when the A's "stole" Bradley from the Dodgers, giving up Grade B prospect Andre Ethier? Apparently they felt so guilty about their thievery they've decided to let other teams reap the enormous rewards of having Milton Bradley on their roster. How generous of the A's. Or maybe it was because Bradley missed 117 games in the last two years and was generally mediocre when he did play. You decide.

Question for Bauxites: Is Bradley worth a roster spot? Is Elijah Dukes? I've said this before, and so have others, but if you're going to have as many issues as Bradley -- in addition to his propensity to get hurt -- you'd better be Barry Bonds. And Bradley's not Barry Bonds.

Other opinions?

The phonetically similar first-rounders Ahrens and Arencibia had similar debuts, and Ricky Romero had a (reasonably successful) rehab start in Dunedin last night. The farm affiliates went 2-5.

Sometimes, stories write themselves. Today I was looking at the various men in baseball history named (first/middle name) Philip and (last/family name) Phillips and I ran across one Deacon Phillippe, a name I knew only in passing from reading about the Great Game's early years.

In scanning Phillippe's BaseballReference.com page, I noticed that he had been part of what I can only describe as The Biggest Trade in Baseball History. How did I not know about this trade before now? Consider ...

Dunedin scores their last two runs on bases loaded walks to defeat Lakeland.

The affiliates were 3-0 on the night, with 2 rainouts and an A Ball All Star Game.

In a column at Baseball Prospectus yesterday, Joe Sheehan was highly critical of Jays’ General Manager J.P. Ricciardi.

I am not here to “take sides” on this, save for one of Sheehan’s statements that I will present research on below.

Jesse Litsch gains revenge on the team that gave him a rude welcome back to AA ball from Toronto two weeks ago.  Meantime, a suspended game that was well in hand from last month helped the affiliates come away with a split of their 4 games.

Well, when you're behind Tampa Bay... no manager can survive. Ask Carlos Tosca.

Intrepid reporter Rob couldn't resist a Kitchener Panthers game featuring a Ferguson Jenkins personal appearance. These days "Fergie" and "64" in the same sentence would usually suggest a bad Black-Eyed Peas cover of a Beatles' tune, but not this time. Take it away, Rob.


So how many people spent their Sunday night
a) waiting an hour for the home team's #5 hitter to bat for the first time;
b) watching 23 runs cross the plate; and
c) meeting a Hall of Famer?

No changes in the division leads this week as the front runners all hang tough. In Alomar the Bashers had a chance to re-take the top spot as they only had to face my pitiful injured gang of no-hopers, but were only to pick up a game on the Magic 9 who edged Slippery Pete. Meanwhile in the Carter division the London Tigers are looking over their shoulders at the hard charging Trembling Wilburys.

It's the strangest thing. Some of us have suspected, over the years, that Josh Towers would be much better off if he left the AL East behind and took his act to the National League.

Syracuse scored five runs in the first inning, New Hampshire scored four in the first and both teams won.  Lansing did not score in the first and lost.  Ryan Klosterman hit a grand slam, Robinzon Diaz had four hits, Josh Banks gave up back to back jacks but otherwise pitched well.

John Thomson gets blown out, the Fisher Cats win, and Lansing splits.  In the second game of their doubleheader Lansing avoided a no hitter when Chris Emanuele singled with one out in the seventh.  David Purcey has a sore elbow and will miss another start.

It's Father's Day in the U.S. and Canada, and to reiterate a story I have related a number of times here on Da Box, it was my own father who more or less created this "Hall of Names" idea back in the 1970s when we dreamed up the All-Food team.

As such, he has himself been the inspiration for a number of teams of the more than 250 that now exist in Baseball's Hall of Names, including one for his own birthday and one we collaborated on called, unfortunately, The Bad Names Bears. We've also done an All-Fathers & Sons Hall of Names entry a while back, featuring Griffeys, Bondses, Alous and the like; but for today, it's simply Happy Father's Day as we break a long-standing Hall of Names rule and meet ...

The affiliates coordinated their schedules well, as just as one breaks for all-star weekend, the other schedules two double-headers, so those who follow the minors can still get their fair share of games. If that’s not enough to spark your interest, last night also featured two pitchers debuting at Double-A and New Hampshire putting on a fine ninth-inning rally. The only question is: did it succeed?