Toskala serves up a turkey for Thanksgiving.

I think if you asked the Toronto Maple Leafs players what they have to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, they would say their glad an NHL game is only sixty minutes.  If you asked their coach he might say he's thankful to have a 4 year contract after coaching the team to it's worst start in history.  If you asked Sean Avery he would say he's thankful Brian Burke is stubborn enough to think Vesa Toskala is an NHL goalie, let alone a NUMBER ONE!

Nice job guys.  You even made Avery look good, and that's no easy feat.  The Leafs lost their 5th straight game against the New York Rangers Monday night.  7 - 2 was the final score.  Another stellar performance by the Finnnish Sieve, Vesa Toskala.  They have never started a season this bad.  How could this be?  We have have Brian Burke calling the shots now.  We're going to make the play-offs this year.  Hmm, don't you actually need to accumulate points in the regular season to make the play-offs.  That's how it used to work.  Maybe Burkie had the rules changed.  Maybe we just have show up.  Well based on their play this year that won't even get them in.

When Burke took over last year he told us he would make big changes.  He said we would be tougher to play against.  He said we would be better defensively and be one of those teams others would hate to play against.  Well, 5 games in we have the worst home record, the worst road record, a terrible goals against average, a terrible power play, embarrassing penalty kill,  and oh ya, our starting goaltender couldn't stop a beach ball if they tossed it to him.  Tough to play against?  I doubt it.  I can just imagine the opposition scouting report.  If you lose the puck, don't worry, they'll give it back.  When you get over the blue line just shoot at the net, the defense will screen the goalie and if he does happen to see it he'll move out of the way anyway.

Burke did make some big changes.  He traded our best defenseman of last year, Pavel Kubina, for Garnet Exelby.  I think he wishes he could have that one back considering Exelby can't even crack this pathetic line up.  He also invested big bucks in two other big name defensemen, Mike Komisarek and Francois Beauchemin.   Both have been great at helping Toskala pull the puck out of the back of the net.  Well maybe Komisarek hasn't been on the ice for that many goals, actually he's been in the penalty box for most of them.

If the Leafs are going to have any success this year they need a solid organized defensive system.  This means Beauchemin has to wake up and start playing that great positional play he's been known for his entire career.  Mike Komisarek needs to be less selfish and stop taking needless penalties.  Garnet Exelby needs to actually make the team and when he does, he has to stop handing the puck to the guys in the other colored jerseys.  Most importantly, their goalie needs to stop the puck.   That's it, nothing fancy or philosophical ... JUST STOP THE PUCK.

Good News, Bad News, for Jays fans.

The Goods news is J.P. Ricciardi has finally been dismissed as G.M. of The Toronto Blue Jays.  The bads news is, he's been replaced with his second in charge, Alex Anthopoulis.  We still don't know if he's to be the permanent or interim Gm, but if you heard him on the Fan 590 radio station this morning, he seems to think he'll be with us for a while.  If the Jays follow true to from we should receive word on his true position by Christmas of 2011.

Why so pessimistic?  I thought I was being quite optimistic actually.  We are talking about our Toronto Blue Jays.  Consider the record of the man it took eight years to decide on.  J.P. was hired eight years ago to trim the payroll while keeping the Jays competitive until they were ready to contend again.  When he took over he inherited an inflated payroll and a losing record.  He was to reshape the team using the Oakland Athletics model of money ball, invented by his mentor, Billy Beane.  He was to use his keen eye for talent and knack for finding those diamonds in the rough Oakland had become famous for.  Our team was going to win with speed, great defense,  hard-nosed old fashioned baseball.  We were going to hit-and-run, steal bases, bunt when you least expected it.  We were going to out-hustle and out-smart anyone they threw against us.

Build through the draft he said.  Keep the payroll low and build a farm system other teams would envy.  I guess he meant to say this would all start in his ninth year as Gm, because he sure didn't do it in the previous eight.  Granted, he did draft Aaron Hill, but lets look at some of the other canny moves he's made.

When J.P. came on the scene Roy  Halladay was already here.  Today he's by far our best player and one of the best in the league.  Oh ya, he's not feeling too good about the nonsense he's endured and will probably leave after next year if not sooner.  We had a pretty good prospect by the name of Orlando Hudson.  J.P.'s keen eye for talent told him otherwise so he hoodwinked Arizona into thinking he was better than Troy Glaus and made the trade. Who needs a three time gold glove contact hitter with speed anyway.  We play MONEY BALL... (you know, hit and run, steal, good defense, bunting).  Whoops.  Glaus lasted 2 years and was one of 5 starting 3rd basemen in eight years by the way.

Well, maybe he thought it more important to build up the middle.  Aaron hill worked nicely.  Not bad, one good middle infielder in eight years. At least we had strength at shortstop.  Who can argue with great names like Gomez, Adams, MacDonald and Scutaro.  Only Adams was drafted by Toronto.   He was a first rounder and was outplayed by everyone else named here.  MacDonald was a 12th round pick by Cleveland and Scutaro wasn't even drafted.  We had a guy named Michael Young but this perennial All-Star and one time Gold Glover wasn't good enough to compete with those guys.  J.P. traded  his ragedy ass butt for, wait for it, Esteban Loaiza.  Shrew, very shrewd.  Build through the draft eh ... whose draft?  Maybe they drafted well at first base.  Nope. Catcher?  Nope.  Outfield?  Maybe.  We'll give him Lind and Snyder, but so far that's only 3 position players in eight years and Hill is the only one able to field at the position he was drafted at.  Actually Hill was drafted as a shortstop.  Money Ball eh.

You can't have enough pitching.  Maybe J.P. can redeem himself here.  He did great drafting here.  And what a job his coaches and trainers did with this wealth of young arms.  Janssen, Marcum and McGowan may never live up to their potential because of various injuries.  But it's not our fault they'll say.  We can't do anything about injuries. Maybe not but when almost every significant pitcher you have in your entire organization is injured at the same time, maybe you should look at how your handling them.  Just a thought, but who am I.  J.P.'s the baseball genius.

Almost forgot.  We could have had Adam Dunn but J.P. said he lacked passion.  He even berated fans when they suggested it.  You wouldn't like Dunn he said.  He told us he knew better. You were right J.P.  That bum only had four, hundred RBI seasons in his last six and only hit 239 homer runs over that time.  That's 40 a year give or take.  Phew!  Glad we dodged that bullet.  Thanks J.P.   We had Vernon Wells, Alex Rios, and Frank Thomas.  Nice move.

Suffice it to say the guy who mentored Anthopolis was a bit of a disappointed. Should the 32 year old Gm in training even be considered anything but an interim.  Why not?  Interim in Toronto means permanent anyway.  Gaston was interim his second time around.  Even the President is interim.  He's been interim for more than a full season.  It's pretty tough to say anything bad about Paul Beeston but come on.  If you don't want the job hire a replacement already.  It's been over a year.  Consider this for a moment.  Recent reports suggested a player revolt in the Jays clubhouse.  If this had happened even two weeks ago, Cito Gaston may have been fired.  This would have meant an interim manager as well.  Wow, enough said.