Sometimes you need a view from an outsider

Well, they aren't really outsiders anymore, but the Bowling Green Hot Rods will be in the Midwest League in 2010. They are introducing their fans to the new teams -- for them -- in a weekly series.

It looks like they started with the Midwest League in general.

They moved on to Dayton, the team that is geographically closest to them.

Next was another Eastern Division rival...and the reigning MWL Champions...the Fort Wayne TinCaps.

Before we end, there are two other points to mention. One of the first lighted baseball games was played in Fort Wayne on June 2, 1883, as Fort Wayne hosted the Quincy Professionals. And Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez hit his first professional home run in Fort Wayne as a member of the Appleton Foxes on April 24, 1994.

Then, Quad Cities got the treatment.

Now, as we do every week, we tie the story into Kentucky and the Tampa Bay Rays. In 1999, current Rays' reliever Grant Balfour donned a River Bandits uniform as a member of the Twins organization. But perhaps the most famous alum from Davenport never actually played in the Midwest League. In 1951, Southgate, Kentucky, native Jim Bunning pitched for the Davenport Tigers. He was 8-10 with a 2.88 that season, sparking a career that eventually landed him in the baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, in 1996. Bunning finished his big league career with 224 wins and a 3.27 ERA with the Tigers, Dodgers, Phillies, and Pirates. Upon retiring after the '71 season, he was second all-time on the strikeout list, trailing only Walter Johnson. That's when Senator Bunning began his new career in politics. He is currently serving his second term as United States Senator for Kentucky.

This week it was Kane County.

But, the greatest Cougar of them all, at least in South Central Kentucky, is none other than Joe Blanton. After being drafted in 2002, the Edmonson County native pitched in Kane County in '03, remarkably his only full season in the minor leagues. Blanton led the Cougars to the playoffs with a modest 8-7 record, but sterling 2.57 ERA. He averaged more than six innings per start while striking out 144 batters, a 9.7 strikeouts-per-nine-innings ratio. A year later, on September 21, 2004, Blanton made his major league debut with Oakland, never to return to the minors again.

The Peoria Chiefs are up next Wednesday.