Roy Halladay and Shea Hillenbrand will represent the Blue Jays at the All Star game next week.

With a 27-43 start under their belts and sitting a mere 18.5 games out of first, the Cincinnati Reds have axed manager Dave Miley, along with fan favourite and pitcher's scrap pile saviour extraordinaire Don Gullett, Miley's pitching coach and once the most dominant LHSP in the game.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to formally retract the proclamations made in my 2005 Reds Preview, The Hunt For a Reds October, in which I concluded that the Reds would capture the NL Wild Card and meet the Yankees in the World Series.

I offer you the only explanation I can for those earlier guarantees: it was a typographical error.

TSN reports that the Jays have agreed to terms with Ricky Romero, and that he'll sign a contract tomorrow.

According to Lee Sinins' ATM Reports (BBRRS: titanium), the Phillies have traded 2B Placido Polanco to the Tigers for RHRP Ugueth Urbina and INF Ramon Martinez.

In a wholly unrelated incident, and as I posted earlier in another thread, Jamey Newberg (BBRRS: diamond) reports that the Rangers have designated their 2005 Opening Day starter, Ryan Drese, for assignment. Late Add: The Dallas Morning News has confirmed this move.

News comes in threes, right? So what's the next transaction to hit the wire? And what do you think of these two?

The CNW has reported that Aaron Hill will be called up from AAA Syracuse to replace Corey Koskie who heads to the DL after breaking a finger in today's 4-0 loss to the Twins.

According to this press release the Blue Jays have given manager John Gibbons a two year contract extension.

TSN reports that the Jays have dismissed hitting coach Mike Barnett.

His replacement will be current first base coach Mickey Brantley, who did such a fine job as interim hitting coach when Barney was unable to join the team in the season's early going.

Can the enthusiastic, passionate Brantley coax more power and more production out of the Jays' currently slap-happy lineup? What do you think?

Okay, it's not exactly "breaking news," but every once in awhile, something nice about Batter's Box is randomly discovered somewhere on the Web, and every once in a while of those aforementioned every once in a whiles, the PR guy in me can't stand not saying something.

According to the self-decsribed "general purpose search engine" FindAnISP.com, Batter's Box is the #49 Sports Web site on the Internet.

Paul Beeston gained a degree of baseball immortality when he famously (or infamously, depending on your point of view) said: "Under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, I can turn a $4 million profit into a $2 million loss, and I can get every accounting firm in the country to agree with me."

Which is to say, and the MLBPA would certainly agree, we oughtn't put a lot of faith in major-league baseball's financial statements. That said, here are some interesting figures from the current online edition of Forbes magazine.

Roster member Craig B is going to be talking on Dave Weekley's show tonight before the Reds-Cards game on 580 WCHS-AM in Charleston, West Virginia. If you're within transmitter range, don't miss it - I'll be on the air around 7:30.