"Blue Jays Spank Twins," the ESPN headline, was surpassed in luridness only by the Globe and Mail's "Blue Jays Thump Twins in Opener." What a night, though. The on-field ceremony for Pat Gillick and Roberto Alomar, who now have Hall of Fame banners hanging next to the World Series pennants, was pretty neat. Alomar talked about how pleased he was to be headed to the Hall of Fame as a member of the "Blue Yays," which is actually the preferred pronunciation, and Gillick gets full marks for referencing Halifax ("from Halifax to Vancouver" has to be understood as a deliberate slight against Victoria and St. John's, though, right?). They even brought out Baseball Feelings-favourite Bert Blyleven, which was a nice touch. And Jose Bautista was awarded the pretty baller Silver Slugger trophy. All good things.
And then the Blue Yays hit everything, and it ruled, and they made Carl Pavano (was anyone dissed harder in The Yankee Years?) look awful. Well, he kind of did that to himself: his breaking stuff didn't exactly break, he left balls out over the plate, and he even got rattled and balked. These things happen, and when they do, it is awesome. J. P. Arencibia hit two home runs and a triple, Lind and Bautista went back to back, Davis and Escobar pulled off a double steal in the first, Romero pitched well into the seventh and totally would have gotten out of the inning had E5 not committed an egregious Edwin Encarnacion on a potential double play ball, and Casey Janssen made a ridiculous diving play and little scoop toss to first to end the eighth. Awesome. Just . . . awesome.
The crowd was as dumb as ever on Opening Day, with fights breaking out in the 500s and an endless stream of shit hitting the field and delaying the game. Opening Day almost always devolves into amateur hour in Toronto, and I'm not trying to be all "gentlemen, please, come now, etc." and wearing a monocle about it (OK maybe a really little one); I just hated when you'd be watching the game and then all of a sudden a couple of seats over there'd be a fight and then everybody's up and you can't see the field, and the fight itself is never even interesting because the guy whose sitting in the higher row always wins because he's punching downhill. Frankly, it's not sporting.
But baseball is! Let's play like at least 161 more games of it!
KS
I can get behind the Blue Jays crucifying the Twins. Yes sir.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Kendall, you know there is always a ... gentle solution when it comes to dealing with drunken hooligans, a gentle solution that is like second nature to you. Hitler had his Final Solution and you have your Gentle Solution. His involved throwing Jews into ovens and yours involves throwing fools by their clothes ... possibly into ovens. Now I'm not comparing you to Hitler here, Kendall - that would be OUTRAGEOUS - but if you began to put the theory of the Gentle Solution into play, I'd bet you'd experience far less hooliganism in your life. Just something to think about, noble friend.
It is sometimes said that it's wrong to compare people to Hitler, but to the extent that almost everybody ever comes out ahead in that comparison, I think we should probably compare people to Hitler more often, if for no other reason than to make people feel better about themselves. "That dude said I'm like Hitler, and I grant you I am no saint, but I know that I am a way better person than Hitler, and that's something I like about myself."
ReplyDeleteSee?
You make a lot of sense, friend.
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