Canada Or Bust

It seems that the Sox may be short one player on their trip to Toronto. Alexei Ramirez can get into Canada, but can't get out due to his defector status. The Sox have been working on the issue since Spring Training to no avail.

So far, there has been no indication of a call up for the Toronto series to take Alexei's place. If there is no call up, then the Sox are shorting themselves a player for the entire series. With all the extra inning games lately and with the offense playing catch up in the late innings, the Sox could be shooting themselves in the foot.

Jerry Owens is ready and doing very well at AAA. Alexei needs regular playing time to get used to this country's type of baseball game. He's not getting it at the major league level, but could replace Jerry Owens in AAA and get his regular at-bats to boot. What will the Sox do? It should be interesting this weekend.

Maybe Alexei could use the time to autograph some stickers for Topps? That would certainly be a productive use of his weekend off. Then we may finally see some cards of Alexei in the near future.