There have been 29 major league players with the surname "Martin" -- just four of them have been All-Stars, and one of those four -- the one you've probably thought of already -- will both start at 2B and manage the team, at least until an impatient owner fires him ...

Of course Martin, the 16th-most common North American surname, is literally only 75 percent of the name that Martinez is (the first six of eight letters is three-quarters, or 75 percent, natch) and Martinez is the 19th-most popular North American surname (though there have actually been more big league Martinezes, 33, than Martins), so we'll visit Hall of Names team for both ...

The Blue Jays announced that Frank Menechino and Ken Huckaby have elected to become a free agents after declining assignments to Triple-A Syracuse.

Additionally, the Jays have outrighted Jason Arnold and Raul Tablado to Syracuse.

Hey, all you Bauxites who are sure you could do it better than JP, are smarter than that Harvard guy Keith Law, pine for the days of Stand Pat Gillick ...

Look what's posted over at MLB.com:

OK, OK, I'll drag myself away from the Data Table I'm working on...

The Angels win the first one, behind Paul Byrd.

No truth to the rumours that Chuck Finley is starting the second game.

The fifteenth most-common North American surname is "Harris." Honestly, it's not a sexy baseball name. Now, if we were talking gridiron, as in the NFL, we'd have a running back named Franco and a defensive back named Cliff in our Hall of Fame and All-Pro coffers, with one of the first black quarterbacks, James, also a Pro Bowler, along for the ride.

But for baseball? Well, the biggest name is that of a Hall of Famer, sure, but a manager -- Bucky. Actually, like his (Sparky) Anderson predecessor, Bucky Harris was also a starting 2B in the big leagues, but where the Andersons had Garrett and Brady and a few other guys to populate the lineup, the case can be made that Bucky, at .274 over parts of 12 seasons, is actually the best hitter -- even the best player -- on an All-Harris team.

And then there were four...

As pointed out by King Ryan, Baseball Reference now has 2005 stats available. Yes, I'm excited by this. Yes, I am a geek.

So does anyone still want to replace Miguel Batista with Kyle Farnsworth?

Lewis and Clark .... because these two names, while not quite adjacent on the list of most common North American surnames (Clark is at #21, while Lewis lags a bit at #23), are so indelibly tied together historically, here we present BOTH the All-Lewis and All-Clark Hall of Names teams.

Alternate spellings are not eligible; so the 18 Clarkes, including HOF manager Fred Clarke, are right out. However, the Acting Commissioner should these teams ever play each other, of course, would be HOF OF Louis Clark Brock. Sure, he spells his given name differently than the surname in question, but close enough!

"Close enough"? Boy, good thing those explorer guys named Lewis and Clark didn't say that before finishing their cross-country trek.

As always ...

This is the first of three articles that attempts to discuss -- and rank -- the greatest hits in post-season history. Not the greatest games, per se, but the most important individual hits that were the most pivotal in baseball playoff history.

This installment covers the Division Series, which occurred on a one-time basis in 1981 and has been a permanent part of the baseball landscape from 1995 through the present.

Comments -- and debate -- are most welcome!

On Sunday morning, Tom Cheek lost his long struggle with cancer.

There are places I'll remember
All my life
Though some have changed

Well, that was lively.

The twelfth most common surname in North America is "Thomas." That's as a last/family name. The thing about "Thomas" is that it's also the tenth most common male first (given) name, and as such, also a pretty damn common middle name, though there aren't any obvious and relaiable statistics on that last point.

Speaking of points, the point here is that while there have been 38 big-league ballplayers -- the same number of instances the #11 name Anderson had, just as the #9 and #10 names, Moore and Taylor, each had exactly 47 apiece -- there have been far more with that appellation as a first or middle name.

In fact, even if you count only players who have been inducted into the Hall of Fame or made an All-Star team (thus ignoring virtually every first/middle-named Thomas who played before 1933), there have been 26 with the first name Thomas and 21 more with that middle name.

Perhaps here we should engage in a bit of, er, Thomistic clarification ...