Park #13

August 28, 2005: Toronto, Canada
Those Canadians aren’t very good at being baseball fans, but they sure can build a stadium. First off, I went with Mike Holender, and if you know him, you should be aware that he is quite the tour guide, he knows his stuff. If you don’t know him, you should, he is lord of Badassery. Now, the Toronto Blue Jays stadium was called the Skydome, but I guess sometime in the recent past, they changed to the name to the Rogers Centre. I had no idea they changed the name until I arrived at the park, and this bothers me for two reasons. First, I have no idea what this Rogers company does, and Second, they spell Centre, C-E-N-T-R-E, and not the typical C-E-N-T-E-R way. The way they do it just seems snooty, and I will not stand for that.
For those of you who have never been to Toronto, they have this thing called the CN Tower, which is just a giant tower and it makes Seattle’s Skyneedle look like a toothpick. This CN Tower is HUGE, and it sits right next to the stadium. This is cool because when you are in the stadium, you see the CN Tower right overhead, glaring down on you. As you walk around the stadium, there really is nothing to make you even remotely aware that there is a baseball game played inside. There isn’t a single banner or statue, or anything to indicate who plays there, or even what sport is played inside the stadium. Now, I know I’ve complained about this for a few other stadiums (Oakland, the Dodgers), but this was even worse. You didn’t see the word “Blue Jays” or “Baseball” anywhere on the outside of the stadium, it was as if these were obscene words that could only be uttered once you were inside the safe harbor confines of the stadium. As you continue to walk around the stadium, you can see various parts of the city, which is nice, because Toronto does have quite an impressive downtown. Also, they some street performers, including people walking on stilts. It kind of reminded me a circus, but a little better because they didn’t have any clowns. For those of you don’t know, I have a slight phobia about clowns, and that phobia is that they scare the bejesus out of me. So, no clowns were a good thing. They also had a bunch of guys selling hot dogs on a grill outside the stadium, which looked extra tasty, but I could not have my token hot dog outside the stadium, that would just be stupid.
So, as you get into the stadium, you see some magic and wonder. First of all, the field is turf, and not the modern turf-grass that most places use, this is the old school turf, I mean, it looks like a living room carpet. Because of all this carpet, there is very little dirt used on the baseball field. In fact, the only place the field has dirt is like a 5 foot radius around each of the bases and home plate. It was very weird, compared to all of the other stadium which have their infields composed of mostly dirt. Mike and I did a lap around the stadium, and I saw one of the coolest things. They had a vending machine which dispensed baseball cards; not only packs of cards, but also individual players’ cards. It was very cool, I wish I was 7 again so I could have a reason to use it. Also, did you know that they have a Hard Rock Café IN the stadium, I liked that. They also have a Renaissance Hotel connected to the stadium, and in center field there are a number of hotel rooms which overlook the stadium. Now, just picture this: you’re in town on business, and you go to your hotel window, open the blinds, and BAM, there is a baseball game being played right outside your window. I mean, that is so impressive, if Jesus had seen that, he would’ve said “Oh my Dad!”
So before the game started, they had some dude stand in center field and announce the J-Squad, which was a group of 10 cheerleaders (both male and female). Holy crap, did they suck. And the Jays’ mascot, some giant bird named Ace came out to dance too. The worst thing was that one of the male cheerleaders had the sole job of holding the mascot’s cape while he danced (it must suck to be that guy).
On to the foooooooood. The hot dog was weird. IT was very juicy and was the right color, but it had a weird aftertaste to it. It kind of tasted like it was soaked in relish for a little while before they served it. It tasted good at first, but then like five seconds after each bite, I would get this crazy aftertaste in my mouth, quite the anomaly. Also, the nachos were crap on a cracker. They served the chips in a vacuum sealed plastic container, and then they give you a plastic pouch on nacho cheese. So, its pretty much make-your-own-nachos. You have to open the chips and pour the cheese onto the plastic container, this was way too much work. And OF COURSE there was not nearly enough cheese per chip, it was atrocious.
It was good to see that the Jays were playing a quality ballclub, that’s right, THE INDIANS. It was Jake Westbrook who started, and he did GRIZZEAT. He got off to a rocky start, throwing 40 pitches in the first two innings, but a well-executed double play made it so the Jays only got one run. After that, Westbrook was on fire, he pitched the next 4 1/3 innings only giving up two hits and no runs. The offense was on top of things too. Both Blake and Boone hit home runs (which were of course solo shots). Also, have you noticed this: all of the Tribe’s first six hitters are hitting .285 or above, I mean, that’s really impressive. These guys are friggin sweet. The bullpen came in and pitched 2 1/3 innings, only giving up two hits (I think). Wickman surprisingly looked good, he had a ton of movement on his pitches. In the end, the Tribe was victorious 4-1.
Overall, the architecture of the stadium itself and its placement around the city is phenomenal. However, some of the crap that went on at the game was ridiculous, and the lack of baseball enthusiasm both by the fans, and in the baseball theme (or lack therof) was pretty bad. The food was not good, but the game itself was exciting. I’m gonna give the Rogers Centre a B.
Next stop is Boston. 13 down, 7 to go.
Laz