Jordan Bastian reports that the Blue Jays have signed Ben Weber to a minor league contract and have invited him to spring training.

The Mets signed 1st round pick Mike Pelfrey yesterday to a major league contract with a large bonus. My question for the day is: "do the escalating salaries at the major league level affect the reasonable bonuses for first round picks, and if so, should that change draft strategy?".

The story of Bert Blyleven's career has been told many times in the last few years. So, we will give it a brief re-telling. With his greater than 50% share in this year, there is still the possibility that the writers will eventually choose him.

Bruce Sutter was elected to the Hall of Fame on this year's ballot. Sutter's fame began with his superb 1977 season, and continued with another fine one in 1979 which landed him a Cy Young award.

When Batter's Box first issued what Craig Burley has taken to calling the "Hall of Place Names" challenge, to be honest, I expected a bunch of U.S. states (some are upcoming, incidentally) and some major cities (we've already seen Brooklyn, Mobile and San Francisco, with more on the way) to dominate the submissions. Barring that, perhaps a series of foreign countries similar to the All-Canadian team that started it all.

Wouldn't you know, the very first two teams received (from Bauxites Matthew Elmslie and Greg Williams, in that order, respectively) were for the same non-North American city? And if you think hard enough, you can probably guess that it's ... well, let's turn that description over to Elmslie:

On Friday afternoon, we were discussing major league transaction rules and puzzling over exactly what was meant by "option years."

To make a long story short... Paul D was right, I was wrong.

Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa

One of the greatest baseball cities of them all, St. Louis has produced a little bit of playing talent along the way. Does your city need a catcher? How about a broadcaster? Plenty to spare here...

Hey, what's this? A photo of the week?

Don't get too excited -- the thing I was up in my ears to has now progressed so that it envelopes my whole head, and I'm not really off of my photo of the week hiatus yet. But it does mean that I need some Bauxite assistance (and if you can help me out, there's actual money involved!), so read on...

Apologies to the home of the Athletics, and Oakland has produced a number of fine diamond men, but today faithful Bauxite Anders Whist brings us this Hall of Names team composed entirely of San Francisco natives.

How good is this team? Here's a hint: Joe DiMaggio didn't make the roster. Let's see what that's all about as we meet a team that, even without Jim or Sam Rice, could only be called ...

The 2006 Hall of Fame ballot has been announced. We will take a look at three of the starting pitching candidates- Tommy John, Bert Blyleven and Jack Morris.

If you ask a casual baseball fan under the age of 25 about Tommy John, you're likely to get a 2 word answer: "elbow surgery". If you ask someone over the age of 25 about him, you will probably hear about his eminently hittable stuff and his unimposing stature. How many will say "always good and sometimes great"?

At last, at long last, the Lobby of Numbers is back. We're changing leagues, we're changing coasts. Yes, it's time for the NL West. That means we have a couple of quick, light appetizers to get us back up to speed.

The Jays have a full 25 man roster, a payroll of about $70 million and a budget of about $75 million.

So following a year when the World Championship finally came to the Windy City, though much to Cub fans' dismay, across the city for the team Bill Veeck once dressed in shorts, it's a Hall of Names Second City display based primarily on work submitted by Bauxite Chuck Barkman, That's right, it's time to meet ...

The Blue Jays have ended weeks of speculation by trading Corey Koskie to the Milwaukee Brewers for a minor league pitcher.

136 wins, 116 losses. 1,230 runs scored, 1,056 runs allowed, representing a 144-108 pythagorean record. A win in the All Star Game. A four game sweep in the World Series. That is how the American League dominated the National League in 2005. What about 2006?