The Southpaw

An update of sorts on the crazy Shannon Stewart rumour from yesterday. Blair says JP says he made an offer "weeks ago", never heard anything back, and isn't saying whether it still stands. Blair goes on to note that the Jays already have about four guys vying for playing time out in LF (Sparky, Stairsy, Lindy, and sometimes Scooter), but doesn't editorialize in the slightest on whether bringing Stew in is a) worth it, or b) probable. Bastian cautiously chimed in "adding Stewart may or may not be out of the question, it seems an unlikely scenario."

I'm willing to bet this thing just dies a slow natural death, which is why I advised you all not to get your knickers in a twist yesterday.

UPDATE: Zwolinski clarifies that this whole thing was made up on the blogosphere. Woops.

A rumour spread on the internet last night that the Jays were on the verge of bringing back former outfielder Shannon Stewart. Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi confirmed that Toronto offered Stewart a contract over the winter, but that the deal has since been taken off the table.

Wilner was pretty gutted that Tom Cheek was overlooked again for the Ford C. Frick Award for Broadcast Excellence. He makes a passionate case for a local broadcasting great and all-around decent human being; take two minutes to give it read. There's a temptation for me here to start on about how players are punished for playing in Canada come award time, but I'll leave that for another day.

Zwolinski has a piece on Scott Rolen's arrival in camp. It's going to be nice after he's established himself with the Jays beat over the few more months so we don't have to hear any more speculation over whether he and Gibby will have a bare-knuckle boxing match at some point this season. His managers in Philly and St. Louis, Larry Bowa and Tony LaRussa, are both well-known as prima donna a-holes. Gibby's two dust-ups came with petulant, spoiled little brats Shea Hillenbrand and Ted Lilly. Had either of them pulled the shit they did while playing for Billy Martin they'd have ended up stabbed in the heart and floating face down in the Hudson River.

There is a zero percent chance of any trouble from Rolen this year.

Also from the Star is Griffin's new mailbag. They've got a new format up for this year and Uncle Griff has apparently traded in his typewriter for a computer. I was skimming this thing just to get a sense of it and was about to write "nothing too too egregious this week" until I saw reference to "manufacturing runs" and "when Reed Johnson's hitting second." And then there's the typical JP bash in the next question. Twiiiiiiiitchy! Hit this m'f'er, stat!

Interestingly (sort of), Griff's bio notes that he went to Concordia, which is pretty much grounds for a rendition to the second worst military prison in Egypt these days. Let's hope no customs misfortune befalls him while he's travelling around the States this year.

--Johnny Was