Alexandre Giroux 10-11: Absolutely Sweet Marie

I think it must be tough to be Alexandre Giroux. I don't mean "Tiny Tim" tough but tough all the same: gifted with soft hands and reasonable size, his feet of clay got him to the outskirts of the NHL. And there he stays, waiting for the chance given to many lesser or equal men. At Giroux's level, there's one helluva lot of luck involved in deciding who makes the grade and who spends a decade knocking on the door.Many years ago, the Montreal Expos had prospects named Raines and Shines (I'm not making this up). Raines had enormous talent, you could see excellence in everything he did; once he made the majors as a rookie, it was obvious that no baseball reason would keep him from a long career. Shines? He was a "tweener" talent: good bat but not good enough for first base and he was a little shy with the leather when moved up the defensive (third base, catching) spectrum. And so it was that Raines played 2500 big league games over a 23-year career an...