A.J. GRANT-ED CLEMENCY

Today's Kingston Whig-Standard had a story on a young ballplayer named Keli Grant, who recently got to meet his favourite Blue Jay as a reward for being selected Ontario's bantam-age player of the month. This rates a mention since (a) Grant and his ballplaying twin brother Kris hail from Odessa, Ont., the town where four of the five members of the Sager clan graduated high school; (b) he was born around the time the Kingston Frontenacs lineup included a centre named Keli Corpse, so there's a good chance his name derives somewhat from a fairly decent junior player who never played a regular-season game in the NHL; and (c) of all the Jays luminaries Keli Grant could have met -- Roy Halladay, Alex Rios, Jason Phillips — he chose to meet the pariah, A.J. Burnett.

This illustrates that the young youth today have their heads screwed on right. Keli Grant, at the ripe old age of 14, can block out all the folderol about The Career .500 Pitcher -- keep saying it, a-holes, doesn't mean that it means anything to someone with a brain -- and realize A.J. Burnett is a quality pitcher and quality human being.

There's hope for the younger generation yet, so excelsior to Keli Grant and his baseball career. If he's planning to matriculate at Ernestown Secondary, here's hoping he works some basketball and volleyball (but preferably basketball) into his athletic CV.