TRAVEL-WEARY TEAMS

Items of interest as you called your buddy Tiger to ask if he wants to go fishing tomorrow.

• Jays-Obsessed: Ty Taubenheim finally looks like a major-league pitcher, so naturally, the Jays couldn't get any runs for him in a 3-1 loss to the Marlins at that baseball palace known as Dolphin Stadium. Casey Janssen and Roy Halladay pitch the next two games, so better times should be ahead.
• One change that may come out of this Edmonton-Carolina Stanley Cup final is an end to the travel-heavy 2-2-1-1-1 format that means the teams may criss-cross North America four times during the series. Both Sports Illustrated's Michael Farber and the Toronto Star's Damien Cox have written about this within the past week. Farber's column mentions Dave Hodge's idea of a 2-3-1-1 format:
  
  

  This is how it would work. The team with the fewer points would open the series on the road, which many coaches would deem an advantage. That team would come home for three matches, play Game 6 on the road and still have home ice advantage in Game 7. Instead of the current four cross-continent trips, this system would max out at three.
  

  It seems Farber meant to say the team with the most points would open the series on the road and have home ice for Games 3, 4, 5 and 7. Regardless, you have to believe the idea of changing the format for the final has some traction among the powers-that-be.
  
  Doug Weight won't play for the 'Canes in Game 6 tonight, so it looks like Josef Vasicek will take his spot. Aaron Ward, who's also hurt, is going try to give it his best. (Toronto Star.)
• Bad Idea Blue Jeans has some purported correspondence between the Yankees and the late, great Mickey Mantle, whose answer to the question of what he considered his outstanding experience at Yankee Stadium isn't quite what you'd expect. (Via Deadspin.)

That's all for now. Happy Father's Day, Dad.