Baseball has been good to me since I quit trying to play it.
-- Whitey Herzog

Can't anybody here play this game?
-- Casey Stengel

Evidently not.

Five wins for the affiliates, with the only loss coming on a balk. There was a cornucopia of excellent performances last night. New Hampshire scored four runs in the first inning which might be a bigger surprise than Auburn scoring 14 or Lansing scoring 16. Two minor leaguers, Justin Singleton and Ryan Klosterman, each went 4-4. Guillermo Quiroz hit two home runs. Francisco Rosario pitched 2.1 hitless innings for his first save of the year. The best pitchers on the three lowest teams, Chi-Hung Cheng, Robert Ray and Jesse Litsch all won as they had a combined 38 runs scored for them. Both Lansing and Pulaski defeated Burlington.

I can see Earl Weaver smiling, and saying, "that is why I like the 3-run homer so much". The Jays did a masterful job of controlling the strike zone, and outplayed the Sox in most phases of the game, but some days that just isn't enough. Two Sox longballs and missed Jay opportunities were the story of this game.

Gregg Zaun and Russ Adams were great, but an 8th inning Iguchi homer off Speier was the difference. Dustin Hermansen blew away the Jays in the ninth for the save. Any thoughts to help ease the pain?

One of the most under-represented Blue Jays in photo of the day so far has been Orlando Hudson, but not because I haven't been trying: he just moves so damned fast. I "just can't win for losing", as Rod Black would say.

Here he is, warming up prior to a game:

Have you ever thrown a ball 100 miles an hour? Everything hurts. Even your ass hurts.
-- Bob Gibson

Iowa and North Carolina, at least. The only noteworthy event in Burlington, Ontario yesterday was the announcement of Gordon Currie's intention to join Gennum.

Anyway, instead of going over every game as per usual, I'll just update you all on the noteworthy events and prospect happenings of the five games played last night.

Despite losing two in a row to the Blue Jays, the White Sox look to be headed to the postseason. The Pale Hose haven't been there since waaayyy back in 2000 (that's the turn of the millennium, for those youngsters out there). They also starred in the postseason in 1993 (and we all know how that turned out) and 1983, but you have to go all the way back to 1959 to find the White Sox' last World Series appearance.

Before even 1959, and this is a time that only Magpie would remember, the White Sox starred against the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series that nearly destroyed baseball.

It's time to knock off another alphabetic character and assemble an all-letter team for the Hall of Names; this is the 13th letter we've written (har!) meaning we're exactly halfway through the alphabet -- only we're not doing anything so wacky as, say, going alphabetically, so today let's just say we're sailing the high C's.

Would you be surprised to learn that there are thirty men in the Hall of Fame whose last or family name begins with the letter "C"?

Of course, they're not all players -- but we do have a nice starting point with the purported inventor of the game itself in Alexander Cartwright and the man who invented the box score, Henry Chadwick. Need a commissioner? Don't worry, be Happy Chandler. An umpire? Choose among Nestor Chylak, Jocko Conlon and Tom Connolly. Then, before we get to the 23 C-players, there's Charlie Comiskey ...

Four first inning runs hold up as the Jays take their second straight game over the White Sox.

Does this mean Chicago isn't the Jays toughest opponent this year anymore?

Hello, I must be going: a busy month in New Hampshire saw about a dozen players move on and off the roster, including top pitching prospects like Dustin McGowan, David Purcey, Zach Jackson and Shaun Marcum. The Fisher Cats didn’t really benefit from all this player movement, losing ten straight games at one point and falling to third place, 6 ½ games out of the division lead. A little more personnel consistency and some revived hitting (the F-Cats are dead-last in EL batting with a .245/.303/.372 mark) might help spark a turnaround for the defending champions.

I've said it before: Gregg Zaun's career turnaround has the makings of a great and inspirational book or movie. I know that if he decided to write (or co-write, as is often the case) The Gregg Zaun Story, I would be there on the first day of sale to buy a copy.

Here's a thousand words for it:

Show me a guy who can't pitch inside and I'll show you a loser.
-- Sandy Koufax

Tough night on the farm as only Auburn could scrape up a win while Ricky Romero was roughed up in his home debut in Dunedin.