Busy day at the office - blogging’s taking a back seat today. One thing I should note: A few posts back, I expressed my envy of another blog’s “Google” search function. Clearly, I’m an idiot - or I’ve had a stroke; in the upper left corner of MY blog, Blogger already provides a search function…..

I was just looking at the Lynx roster on their website to see if there’d been any changes since I was last there. All the former (Baltimore) Lynx players are gone, except for Andy Tracy. I took a quick look at a few websites and Googled to see if I’d missed an FA signing, but came up empty. Did I miss something or is this an error on the website?

Mr. Tracy’s a bit of an enigma for Lynx fans. Some days he’d toss every ball into the stands on his way back to the dugout (after recording the last out) - other days he wouldn’t throw any. Just when you were starting to think he was a jer…., er…. aloof, he’d stand around after the game ended, signing autographs until the Sharpie ran dry.

Will he be returning to Ottawa in April? I’ll keep checking and let you know.

Our friends in Philadelphia are justifiably proud of Ryan Howard winning the NL MVP award. Reading was also very proud of their alumnus.

More blog reaction to the win can be found here, here, and here.

Over at the Baron’s Corner, Larry Shenk, the VP of Public Relations for the Phillies explains how they prepared for the win they weren’t sure was coming.

In Canada, for the most part, Canadian Justin Morneau’s AL MVP win was overshadowed by hockey news. Too bad.

Please permit me to be the proud owner of this blog for a moment. I’m not computer illiterate, but I have no experience working with HTML. Having said that, I’ve been able to pilfer the 15th Anniversary logo off the Lynx’s website and add it over in the right hand column where it will always stay visible near the top of the blog. I’ll add 15th Anniversary items over there when they come up.

I had a request for information on a former Lynx player, Joey Hammond. It turns out he’s in the Phillies farm system, playing at AA Reading. Here’s their review of his performance in 06:

Hammond, Joey (IF/OF): Spent the entire season with Reading (EL-AA) … Won Reading’s Commonwealth Orthopedic Iron Man Award … Led Reading in G (129), AB (469), H (125), BB (57) … Established career-highs in G (129), AB (469), H (125) and RBI (55) … Appeared at 1B (4), 2B (1), 3B (76), LF (34), CF (2), RF (22) … Hit .423 (11-26) and was named Phillies Minor League Player of the Week 5/29-6/4 (4 R, 3 2B, 2 RBI, 4 BB) … Hit .348 (32-92) in July … Hit .299 W/RISP (41-137) … Hit .412 (21-51) during 13-game hitting streak 5/25-6/7 with 3 2B, 2 RBI (Tied for longest on team, Gary Burnham) … Hit .425 (17-40) during 10-game hitting streak 7/6-7/18 with 5 R, 2 2B, 2 HR, 7 RBI … Had two 4-hit games, 5/26 vs. Connecticut (SF) and 6/12 vs. Altoona (PIT) … Reached base safely in 20 consecutive games 7/2-26 (.403, 31-77, 14 BB) … Reached base safely in 16 consecutive home games 7/30-8/28 (.321, 18-56, 10 BB).

He sounds like a true “all-rounder” - he plays most infield positions and has had a few stints as a relief pitcher.
Here’s an older bio from the Reading Phillies website.

Here’s a very short video showing the end of the AFL championship game (Phoenix over the Grand Canyon Rafters). None of the Phillies prospects made it to the final game, but Jason Jaramillo was named to the “All Prospects Team”.

I had no idea this was coming. Go to the Lynx website for all the news on the 15th anniversary season.

** UPDATE **:

There’s more to the story than just a special anniversary logo. The Lynx are kicking the 15th year off with the “Salute to 15″. Everyone’s invited to complete the survey, tell the team about some of your fondest memories and submit photos - some stories/photos may get highlighted in the 2007 collector’s edition program.

Here were my Top 10 from last year. I may save some time and instead of gathering all my stories, pictures and video, I’ll just submit the blog!

I’m certain that everyone who has kids has one of these - a cardboard box where things that just don’t ‘fit’ anywhere else get chucked. My daughter’s Cinderella wand that flashes and makes what has to be the most annoying noise known to man, Zak’s plastic farm animals from when he was three - you get the picture. So now I’ve got one for the blog as well.

First CB item - I’ve pulled the link to my email address out of the “My Profile” section and just included it in the little “About Me” section (after removing the “@” symbol) - I was getting way too much spam.

Second - there’s still no word on “Cat’s Pride”, the Lynx booster club. I fired off an email to them, but there’s been no reply. Through archive.org I was able to salvage some material from their website, which I may post here as next season gets closer.

Finally, I’m still waiting for a reply to my question that I left on the larryformayor website. I guess I’ll have to put it in writing and fire it off direct to City Hall once he takes office (next week?), although I may have a bit of an inside track…. I’m also still waiting for the operating agreement.

P.S. The internet never ceases to amaze me - can you believe there’s an image with a baseball flying into a cardboard box out there?

There’s an interesting article posted here discussing the progression of players through the minor leagues - the issue being batted around is “Which promotion is toughest”. Initially, like many others I’m sure, I believed that for the most part, a player’s progression was linear - i.e. low A, A, AA, AAA and finally to the major league. There were a few players who would skip a level, or as in the case of John Olerud, not have a single AB in the minor leagues. For many players, the linear projection does occur, but the jump between divisions is not (at least according to the panel discussing it) always equal.

Here’s one ‘take’ on the subject:

Bobby Vangelatos, InsidetheDome.com:

“For me, the jump between High-A to Double-A is by far the hardest jump for a player to make in the minor leagues. The talent levels between players in Double-A and players in Triple-A are not that far off. The talent change from High-A to Double-A, however, is drastic. You can simply get away with a lot more in High-A. If a pitcher throws a bad pitch, the opposing batter might simply foul it off, or even miss it completely. A lot of hitters at the High-A level will simply look for one single pitch, and if they don’t get it, they have no shot of getting a hit.”

If you’ve got the time, it’s worth a look.

Joseph Bisenius is another pitcher we might get a look at next season. I found this article about him in The Reading Eagle . Bisenius played in the recently ended AFL, but didn’t see much action. His first outing skewed his era (a whopping 162) as he gave up 6 runs, before recording only 1 out. He spent most of last year in Clearwater, where he went 4-1 with a 1.93 ERA as a reliever over 35 games. He also appeared in 16 games at Double-A Reading, compiling a 3.09 ERA. Here are his stats at AA Reading.