I wondered what happened to Aaron Ledesma.

I went to college with Jim Crowell. It's been a steady downward path since he blew out his shoulder a few years back. There was a time when the Indians and later the Reds had high hopes for him. Thus is the life of a pitching prospect though.

Bart

I foresee trouble for the Road Warriors this upcoming season. Not enough MLVP (Major League Veteran Presence).

Team motto: "Two teams enter, one team leaves ... on a chartered bus for the postgame meal at McDonald's."

Pork Chop!!!!!!

Wow, Will Pennyfeather AND Wes Chamberlain! It's the Pirates' outfield of the future, circa 1990.

While we're on the subject of retro futures, I'm still waiting for my ####### hovercar.

Here's an addition: the Bears just picked up Jack Armstrong again.

There's a player you probably forgot to mention: Jason Ryan, who pitched for the Twins 2 years ago, is also pitching for the Long Island Ducks of the Atlantic League.

The PA Road Warriors are the Lehigh Valley Black Diamonds. In 1999 they were going to have a new stadium (in Easton, I think). In 2000, their owner went bankrupt. The Diamonds, without a stadium, were playing day games on an American Legion field (the American Legion played at night) in front of crowds that often numbered in the double digits (Really.)

In 2001 all efforts to revive ownership had failed and, they would have folded, but then there would have been an odd number of teams. So they were taken over by the league and put on the road. They were, consequently, the worst team in the league, which wasn't really a bad thing, since it actually helped everyone else's home/ road splits and gave the league teams more home dates without having the increase the length of the schedule.

By 2002, it seemed silly to call them the Lehigh Valley Black Diamonds, as they no longer had any affiliation with Lehigh Valley. There name was therefore wisely changed to the Pennsylvania Road Warriors to capitalize on their all-Road status, conveniently forgetting that they now actually never go to Pennsylvania.

This is a glimpse into the hellish future of the Montreal Expos in some alternate universe. I mean, they've already been taken over by the league. If Minnesota gets a stadium, they can't contract them too without having an odd number of teams (as it is, they'd have an odd number in each league.) Montreal is a drag on revenues. Wouldn't it make sense to just make them the Canada Road Warriors and add 8 more home dates for the Mets, Braves, etc. that will sell over 10,000 per game. Actually, I'm suprised that the idea of putting Les Expos on the road didn't get more play last off-season.

ESPN did an interest story on the road with the ultimate road team last year.

http://espn.go.com/page2/s/caple/lehigh/010806.html

I go to the Camden Riversharks games pretty often because (1) It's the closest ballpark to Philadelphia with grass; (2) it's easiest to get there by ferry, which is pretty fun; and (3) last year, it was my best chance to see who was better -- Kim Batiste, Bobby Abreu's brother Nelson, or (for the visiting Nashua Pride) Sam Horn.

FREE PATRICK LENNON!!!

Pat Lennon is now at least *relatively* free. The Devil Rays signed him and he's playing (horribly so far) at Durham.

The interesting team on the list is usually Long Island, the "St. Paul" of the 21st century for Independent baseball, post-Canseco. Here some more people who have been referred to as "Ducks" this year.

John DeSilva