No, I don't think that's what Brad Arnsberg is saying in today's photo of the day, but he could be saying it.

What else could he be saying?

Fresh off his recent Jamie Campbell-approved Trading Deadline Roundtable...once again, here's everyone's favourite Sicilian Cheer Clubber, Jobu.

I had a chance to talk with Dick Scott for a few minutes last Friday. Scott was in New Hampshire with the Fisher Cats, getting ready to head for Dunedin and Orlando where the Farm Directors are meeting this week. Scott had seen Casey Janssen pitch for the Fisher Cats the night before and that is where we started the conversation.

Rob Cosby had a big day as the Fisher Cats won. Auburn came from behind to also win. Otherwise three losses made it a 2-3 day. With just over three weeks left in the season, three teams are in the playoff hunt.

Ladies and gentleman, welcome to Leesburg, Virginia for tonight's game.

Currently being driven to the mound in the world-famous 1969 Dodge Charger from "The Dukes of Hazzard" The General Lee, to perform tonight's national anthem is the love-lee star of stage and screen, actress LeeLee Sobieski. She will be accompanied by noted musicians Tommy Lee and David Lee Roth followed by a special rendition of "God Bless the U.S.A." by Lee Greenwood.

Throwing out tonight's ceremonial first pitch is Lee Chaden, executive vice president of the Sara Lee Corporation.

You get the idea?

Ho hum, just another win.

Tuesday's Game Report will study the closers in the American League and how Batista stacks up. If you have some belief about Batista ("he sucks" or "he's good" or "he doesn't throw first pitch strikes") or about closers in general, post it in this thread so we can do one of two things on Tuesday:

Good pitching will always stop good hitting and vice-versa.
-- Casey Stengel

Unless you're a Jays fan, of course. Then you might want to forget him.

Orioles 1, Jays 0

The farm affiliates pulled out all the dramatic cliches en route to a 5-1 evening. Big leads almost blown in the nervous ninth. Walk-off homers. Walk-off baserunner kills. Let's hope the big boys were watching.

As we learned in the most recent All-Davis Hall of Names feature, we've now covered the six most common American surnames in our quest for the best baseball name ... now we move on to #7, and this, with all due respect to Geoffrey Chaucer, is truly "A Miller's Tale."

A total of 81 men named Miller have made it to the bigs as of this writing -- that actually well outpaces the 61 Davises, so I guess statistically you have a better chance of making the bigs if you're a Miller than a Davis, even though the latter is higher up on the most-common American names list -- ah, but no less than nine Davises have made major league All-Star teams, with another pre-All-Star-era player enshrined in Cooperstown, while the Millers have produced no Hall of Famers and just three All-Stars.

Five billion points to the Bauxite who can name all three of those All-Star Millers without clicking through to the full story first; you're on your honor here.

Well, let's clarify ... there's is, sort of anyway, one Miller in Cooperstown ...

Dave Bush was outstanding, not that it did him any good. He pitched his second complete game of the season, and lost this one as well.

The Jays couldn't get many people on base. When they did, they kept hitting into double plays. Rios, Johnson, and Hillenbrand were the rally-killers today. It actually hasn't been a team-wide problem. Only four men in the majors have hit into more DPs than Hillenbrand, but the team itself is middle of the pack.

Or they were before today's game....

I had slumps that lasted into the winter.
-- Bob Uecker

Baltimore loses 12-0. Bluefield loses 9-0. Oh well. At least David Newhan is out of Ottawa. A 4-2 Friday night for the affiliates.

The key to winning baseball games is pitching, fundamentals, and three run homers.
-- Earl Weaver

Josh Towers provided the pitching, throwing his first shutout as a Blue Jay and the second of his career. Alex Rios and Gregg Zaun hit the three-run homers. Zaun drove in five runs, Koskie and Hillenbrand also went deep... oh, it was brutal. And deeply, fundamentally satisfying.

Hall of Names Candidates in Review ...
... and Playing for the Davis Cup

Auld Will the Bard once noted, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." Though perhaps in baseball terms, we would simply say "That which we call a Rose by any other name would still be Pete."

Anyway, I recently found myself scanning the list of the most common surnames (family names, last names, whatever you want to call them) in the United States, birthplace not only of shloads of people with these names, but of the Great Game of baseball itself. According to the good folks over at InfoPlease, these are the most commone surnames in the U.S. right now: