LATE NIGHT SIX PACK

• So far as the publicity fallout from the John Gibbons/Ted Lilly dust-up goes, the Blue Jays drew 2,000 more fans for last night's 4-3 win over Oakland than they did for the now-infamous brawlgame on Monday. (Actually, you shouldn't read anything to it... it was probably the Twoonie Tuesday promotion.)
  
  Anyways, A.J. Burnett's decent outing (three earned runs over 6 2/3 innings) shepherded the Jays through the valley of darkness, yadda yadda yadda. The Jays' streak of consecutive games without a player-manager fight now stands at one.
• If Cool Standings is spot-on, the AL playoff matchups will be Tigers-A's and Yankees-Twins. As for the NL, Cincinnati-New York and Los Angeles-St. Louis. The Phillies are given a 30% chance of winning the wild-card compared to Cincy's 23%, but this takes into account that the Reds could end up winning their division.
• Vikings stuff: The offence of my favourite NFL team is looking pretty dodgy, especially the right side of the offensive line and the depth at running back. (The versatile Mewelde Moore is out with an injured knee; Ciatrick Fason will likely see the ball a lot against Baltimore as he makes a bid to nail down the No. 2 tailback spot after Chester Taylor.)
• There hasn't been a Book Club update in a while. (Yours truly has vowed to read 50 books in 2006; with August flying by fast the count is stalled at 28 with Nos. 29 and 30 about half-read.) There was a funny moment out of this though. My mom, who's visiting, recommended a novel I would like tonight and promptly pulled out Miriam Toews' A Complicated Kindness. Whereupon I pointed to a shelf in my living room where two novels bought four weeks ago and as yet unopened sat, including ... Miriam Toews' A Complicated Kindness.
• The Rogue Agent is facing some pretty serious criminal charges. (Posted earlier.)
• My friend Jay Pinkerton will forever be known as the man who served as editor for the first issue of the reborn Cracked magazine. Well done, sir.