Put up your feet, click here and relax. (There are about 24 photos in total [use the "Next" button in the upper right hand corner])

If any team is going to hand the Lynx a loss, it doesn’t upset Zak as much when it’s Syracuse; Zak is a HUGE Toronto Blue Jays fan. As I’ve noted before, the kid has completely dissected the 1993 World Series win - how many kids can tell you how many times Mitch Williams “shook off” Daulton’s sign for “anything but a slider” before serving up Joe Carter’s homerun ball? It’s impressive and troubling all at the same time.

I’ve started to look at some of the other MLB clubs with minor league affiliates in the IL to see which former Lynx players may be coming back through Ottawa, but sitting in the first base dugout this time ’round. As I was leafing through Toronto’s stuff (can you “leaf” through a web page?), I found this on the recent Zambrano signing:

Should Zambrano bounce back, it would be to the Blue Jays’ great benefit and provide further insurance for a rotation that has plenty of health question marks.

”We’re trying to keep McGowan, Janssen and those guys in triple-A,” said Ricciardi. ”What we’re trying to do is have lots of veterans around to carry the load and make the kids force our hand.”

(c/o TSN

Not former Lynx players, but any time “the boy” gets to see MLB players, it becomes added incentive to get to the yard early - not that he needs much encouragement.

Or, stuff for a “kajillion degrees below zero” day. -24C - that’s really uncalled for. Every once in a while I’ll come across something which I don’t have time to blog, but don’t want to lose track of. This article falls into that category. I held off for a couple of reasons - first and foremost, I just didn’t have time to blog about it when I found it. Second, it went down the proverbial road which I didn’t want to go; the article is about the realignment of major league affiliations. In case you weren’t sure of what the author’s premise was, the title of the piece gives a bit away: Major League Baseball Affiliation Realignment rearranges deck chairs on the Hindenburg.

Money quote (edited for length):

“The Norfolk Tides, who had been the Triple-A affiliate of the New York Mets since 1969, dumped what was always considered one of the premiere affiliations in minor league baseball, to take on the Baltimore Orioles. It raised a few eyebrows in conventional baseball circles. Why the O’s?

Being an Orioles affiliate looks a might more appealing when the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN), which reaches from the Southern portion of Pennsylvania to the Northern part of South Carolina, may put some of your games on television. More important, can you afford to be a Mets affiliate in a marketplace where the television is dominated by Orioles and Nationals baseball and their affiliates?

Stacking the Deck Chairs on the Hindenburg

While all of this may fill the major and minor league owners coffers up another year or two with tube cash, it still is missing the point: Baseball, along with the rest of America, is decentralizing.

Internet power and overnight delivery. You do the math. You can be anywhere in America and do business. The prosperity of minor league baseball isn’t due to the shiny new parks. It’s due to the demand for a “major” experience in any town where fans with big-city expectations relocate, or just spring up.“

And this:

“Instead of embracing and adapting to decentralization, MLB owners with these networks are trying to harness it into their decades-old model for big broadcast professional baseball, major market-centric sport.”

{Bold facing is mine}

It’s tough sledding, but I recommend reading the entire article. Does a MiLB franchise have to be located within an hour of it’s parent? I suppose the better question is: Is it better to have the MiLB team located closer to it’s parent, or in a town with “big city” expectations?

I’m going to have to finish this up later, but I wanted to get something out this morning. Read the article; a short test will take place after 1 p.m.

*** UPDATE ***

And we’re back. It’s been a tough evening/morning - Doris has gone to Toronto on business and I’m home with the kids. I know “why” single parents do it, I’m just not sure “how”. I was woken up this morning by my little girl (3 yrs old) tearfully announcing to me that she didn’t make it to the bathroom in time - unfortunately, she had crawled into bed with me around 3 a.m. Memo to me: Do laundry tonight.

Back to the matter at hand. Given the current situation, my bringing Ottawa into the equation may not have strengthened the author’s point - although I think his argument is valid: Concentration of franchises may not serve the longer term interests of MLB. With MLB’s new deal with DirecTV the alienation of fans may accelerate.

Another “money” quote on the DirecTV deal:

“Say you’re a transplanted Washingtonian living in Miami and you want to see your hometown Mariners every night. You can do it with Extra Innings. Say you just want to spend a few evenings a week poring over six or seven games between teams you’d rarely get to see otherwise. Go for it. You can hear Jerry Remy do the Red Sox on NESN, pop over to take in a little Hawk Harrelson with the White Sox (if you can take him) and finish up with Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow calling a Giants game — all in one dizzying, bleary-eyed evening. Then you can do it again the next night.

But now, if this deal between MLB and DirecTV goes through as expected, you won’t be able to get Extra Innings through your local cable TV outfit

Business-wise, short-term, you can see baseball’s side in this, if you forget about the fans. A thirtieth of a $700 million deal will pay a good-sized piece of any team’s over-inflated payroll. And a lot of the money that baseball sees from the DirecTV deal could go toward seeding the game’s next big money-making venture, the MLB Channel, coming to a television near you around the 2009 season.

But the shame — and isn’t this always the problem? — is that it’s the fans who ultimately end up taking it in the Canseco once again. The deal with DirecTV will make it more difficult for many baseball fans to get what they want, how they want. It’s really as simple as that. And that’s no way to treat the customer.”

Taking it in the “Canseco”. That is classic - if not a little graphic. Final word (unless someone cares to comment) goes to the first article.

The malaise of the national pastime is clear. The power base is shifting. Baseball recognizes it, but wants to channel it back to a broken model. Without making some changes to capitalize on the trend that is lofting the minors and college sports into the stratosphere of attendance numbers, baseball will soar into the future like the Hindenburg.

Greetings. The celebrated Mister K was kind enough to invite me to report within this, his nifty Ottawa Lynx web log. Thanks CK! You are top drawer. Now, where to start? Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Patrick. I live in Ottawa and have been a fan of Lynx baseball for many years now, been a fan of baseball my whole life.

I have lived here in Ottawa for over a decade now. Many of my summer seasons have been spent out on Coventry Road, where all the action is. I have many hobbies and baseball is only one of them but as a citizen of Ottawa I feel very fortunate to be able to walk, bus or ride my bicycle to the ball park and watch excellent contests between two teams, watching the players perform their weird acrobatics on dirt and grass, players who are hoping to find their way to the huge American cathedrals, players who are striving to go up to major metropolises and not down to smaller towns than Ottawa.

So I go to Lynx baseball games and I have a whale of a time. I enjoy the heck out of it. I bring my camera and stadium blanket and I sit on the first base side. I root for the umpires as much as I do the players. Someone has to, right? I enjoy that for the past few seasons our boys have been uniformly wearing their socks pulled up high and I hope it continues this season, now that we have changed affiliations from the Orioles to the Phillies. I enjoy it especially when the stands are full of fans and I am not the only one cheering from my section. I hope that this coming season finds my voice drowned out, or at least blended in with the restless throng like it was just a few years ago.

It is winter now and there is not much for me to write about our Lynx. Mister K seems to be taking care of reporting all the wheelings and dealings, the signings and the potential line-ups expected this spring. He is doing a dandy job and I will leave him to it. Expect to hear more from me, and to view my photographs once April is in full swing. Get it? Full swing? Ha ha.

Joey Hammond will hopefully be back next season. And Pedro Swann. And Ron Calloway and Lou Collier too. Good fellows all. It is always great to have familiar faces returning to the yard. I hope to see you there as well. Stop by and say hello. I will be just behind the visitors on-deck circle sporting red hair and a big honkin’’ camera. We can cheer for the boys (and the umpires) while we feast on junk food. Sounds cool? Yeah. You bet! Now back to you CK……

Another former Lynx player who’s been given a non-roster invite to the Phillies spring training camp is Ron Calloway.

Ron Calloway’s Baseball career would have been unique if he had never made it past college ball, but the fact that he not only was drafted, but cracked the Majors in 2003, makes Calloway’s story truly amazing. What makes him such an interesting story is that he did not play baseball in high school, nor was it even an interest of his at the time. In his own words, he really did not become a “baseball player” until he entered college. Calloway put his feelings towards baseball when he was a youth bluntly, saying “Baseball certainly wasn’t a first love for me.”

After a solid year at High A in 2000, Calloway was promoted to AA Harrisburg in 2001, where he had a career year, hitting .330/.386/.534 with 9 home in half a season. He was then promoted to AAA Ottawa for the second half of the year, where he put up solid numbers in his first taste of AAA ball. Calloway also added 9 more home runs at Ottawa, giving him a career high 19 on the season. In 2002 Calloway hit .357 in spring training (he was a minor leaguer who was called up for several games during the spring) but did not make the Expos Major League Roster, and spent the entire season at AAA. Calloway continued to put up solid numbers, belting 14 home runs, despite battling injuries (including rotator cuff surgery). His solid play earned Calloway his first official spring training invite before the 2003 season. While Calloway did not equal his spring training numbers of the previous season offensively, the countless hours he spent improving his defense and base-running helped Calloway make his first major league roster. To top it off, Calloway started in Right field on Opening Day.

The rest of his story can be found at minorleaguebeat - it includes his stats and links to some video.

Earlier in January I blogged about the signing of Karim Garcia. Sometime last week, Garcia passed his physical and was invited to spring training. I haven’t been able to confirm it, but beerleauger is reporting that he hasn’t made it onto their 40 man roster - yet. If he does make it, I would expect we will get a chance to see Michael Bourn for at least a few games this season.

Eagle-eyed, regular readers of this blog will note that a minor change has taken place - in the right hand corner, you will now see a section titled “Contributors”. Contributors are Lynxfan (yours truly) and “Patrick”. Patrick is a long time reader/frequent commenter on the blog and I’ve asked him to blog along with me this season - I’m genuinely pleased that he’s taken me up on the offer. Patrick plans to keep his “powder” dry until the season begins, but don’t be surprised if he throws a post or two in in advance of Opening Day.

In my opinion, blogs are where it’s at - the mainstream media, like newspapers and television news, is seeing it’s readership and/or viewers numbers decline. Blogs, once considered to be a fringe form of media and a fad, are now shaping the “new media”. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I will say that I’m confident that between Patrick and I, we will be able to bring the internet savvy Lynx fan coverage that will rival anything you’ll find in the local media. I can virtually guarantee that this blog will have more pictures and video than you will find anywhere else (with the possible exception of the Lynx website itself). I can absolutely guarantee you that it will be more positive and posts will not be prefaced with qualifiers about next season (i.e. 200 - We’re here, we’re now, and this is still Ottawa’s baseball team.

The blog numbers have been fantastic - not that I set any goals last September; I was happy if five or six people a day showed up, and I was posting once every couple of days for the first month or so. As the traffic increased, I felt an obligation to provide more posts and information. We’re now at 2,270 hits and growing - and January’s been an exceptional month:

I’m starting to believe that the trend will continue - as we get closer and closer to Opening Day more people are turning their attention to baseball. We won’t disappoint them.

Thanks for dropping by! And my thanks to Patrick for helping to pick up the work load - it’ll be a great 2007!

I suspect readers from the Toronto area are more familiar with this name:

Cameron Gray was known as simply one of the best Canadian prospects in the 2007 draft class, but after an impressive summer he has been tabbed by scouts as one of the top pitchers available this upcoming June.

From scout.com (subscriber only)

Scout.com: First of all, it was a summer of showcases for you. How you do you feel your summer went and what were you able to get out of it?

Cameron Gray: The exposure has not really bothered me. I just go out thinking it’s great but I just love to play. It’s a big relief having already chosen a school [Chipola Junior College].

And there’s a little more over at teamontariobaseball.com, notably:

Baseball America has also taken note of Cameron’s successes. He was ranked as the 102nd best high school prospect on Baseball America’s Top 250 list. This is an exceptional ranking for a Canadian, and he is 42nd among the top 85 high school pitchers.

Get it? Missing Lynx? It’s what we bloggers call a “play on words”. Oh come on. You know it’s funny….

A couple/few days ago, Cliff Floyd was picked up by the Chicago Cubs - but did you know that his hometown is Chicago, or that his boyhood hero was Harold Baines?

An excerpt from his bio:

The Senators, meanwhile, were running away with the Eastern League pennant. With nothing left to accomplish at the Class-AA level, Cliff was promoted to the Ottawa Lynx of the Class-AAA International league. There his stats leveled off, but not enough to diminish his growing reputation. Based on his tremendous year at Harrisburg, Cliff was named Minor League Player of the Year by The Sporting News. And when rosters expanded in September the Expos still called him up to Montreal.

Fans at Olympic Stadium, eager to get a look at their young slugger, arrived at games carrying banners that read “We Want Floyd”—in English and French. They must have wondered what all the fuss was about, however, when Cliff struck out his first five times to the plate. After overcoming his initial jitters, he wound up at 7-31, including his first home run, off Dave Telgheder of the New York Mets. The blast made Cliff (at 20 years, nine months and 21 days) the second youngest Expo ever to go deep—Gary Carter (at 20 years, five months and 10 days) still holds the franchise mark.

The rest of the story is here.

Over on the west coast, Fernando Tatis was signed by the Los Angeles Dodgers to a minor league contract. I remember the buzz about Fernando last year was that he was a former Expo and that he’d been playing in Japan for a few seasons. Zak also discovered that he was the only player in MLB history to hit two Grand Slams in the same inning

No, not that Fernando!!

From brazertime, comes this report of a meeting between a boy with some pretty serious challenges and Adam Eaton and Chris Coste:

“In a world where unpleasant stories seem to dominate the news, it’s nice to hear a heart-warming story of someone overcoming challenges through a simple act of kindness from others. In this case, those lending a helping hand were a Phillies pitcher and catcher.”

It’s a really nice story for a cold day in January - the rest of the post is here.