Sometimes, I like to take notes when I go to a game on my own. Here are my notes from Thursday night's game.
Pregame Warmup
There's nothing like a trip to the SkyDome to make you feel older. Everything seems a little shabbier than this time last year: the ticket scalpers are a little hoarser, the rickshaw drivers ($3 per block per person!) are a little more desperate, and the Dome itself is a little more rundown. The Gate 14 ramp to the 500 level is dotted with stepped-on gum, and covered in cracks that look like they've been filled in with a combination of glue and Polyfilla. The billboards are all dark, and many of the lights are out.
By the way, if you happen to be an international star, and are desperate for a place to get away from it all, I recommend the fifth deck hallway in the neighbourhood of section 535. As I walk to my seat, there's not a soul around.
Hint to ticket purchasers in the fifth deck: choose your seat carefully. In certain seats, the speakers are so loud as to be almost painful. I can handle loud music, but Murray Eldon's amplified and echoed voice is too much for me. It seems to vary on an almost seat-by-seat basis. Maybe I'm just getting old, though - the younger fans don't seem to mind the noise.
The pregame feature is on Carlos Beltran, who apparently can do it all. He's likely to be in pinstripes next year, I assume. Grrr.
The usher in my section looks to be in her sixties, but is vigorous and spry (if those terms aren't too condescending to use). She's also one of the hardest-working people on the planet: before the game, she cleans off all the dirty seats, and helps lost souls to their destinations. During the game, she hands out All-Star ballots, and travels all over the left field upper deck retrieving people who have wandered too far or too high. I think she clocked several miles' worth of travel back and forth over nine innings. And she's probably being paid dirt too.
Total population of section 529 and 530 half an hour before game time: four fans, two ushers, one policeman.
The Jumbotron is broadcasting an ad for Aruba. (In June?) And, if you visit the booths near section 116, 127, or 525, you can sign up for your Garfield MBNA Mastercard. (This is a one-day only offer!) And an awkward typo results in an ad offering the "Playball game night prograsm".
When they play the anthems, they now ask you to remove your cap as well as stand. I guess we are becoming more like America.
First Inning
CB Bucknor is the home plate ump today - I seem to recall that he has a very tight strike zone. This doesn't bode well for Josh Towers, whose MO is to try to hit the edges of the strike zone to keep from getting clobbered.
Dave Roberts is the first man up, and he does all the little-ball stuff: he reaches base on a bunt single, steals second on a pitchout, reaches third on a botched pickoff move, and scores on a single. Izturis then steals second, and reaches third on a throwing error. So far, that's two baserunners and two errors. Not good. Shawn Green then drives him in. He's still got the sideburns and the skinny legs, but I seem to think that he's filled out a little bit since his salad days in Toronto. I may be wrong.
Ishii, the Dodgers' starter, is one of those pitchers who approaches the pitching rubber from the back. After seeing that, I was hoping that he would have all sorts of mound eccentricities and an unusual pitching motion to boot. Alas, his motion is rather ordinary.
Frank Menechino does look like Reed Johnson, but more like an older, sadder version of Sparky.
Dave Roberts takes L patterns to fly balls. I'd love to see him and Shannon Stewart in the same outfield: they'd catch just about everything, but they'd look like the Keystone Cops out there.
Second Inning
Chris Gomez cheerfully waves at Juan Encarnacion's ball down the line. (To be fair, it was a tough ball.) Robin Ventura then mashes a ball into right-center to drive him in. It looks like a good day to scout Dodger hitters, as it looks like we'll see a lot of them.
A good rule for going to the Dome when the roof is open - carry one extra warm sweater, as you'll need it.
Fascinating Milton Bradley fact: on April 16, he got three RBI's without collecting a base hit. He's the 23rd player since 1969 to do this. (By the way, I'm not surprised that Bradley has anger issues, given his name. What on earth were Mr. and Mrs. Bradley thinking?)
The crowd has started to fill out; the crowds are better than they were during the Ash era. And, attention marketers: there are a lot of teenagers in the fifth deck. It makes sense to try to attract more of them to the park, as most of us grumpy oldsters are watching the game on TV and spending our spare time complaining.
Some guy in the fifth deck has one of those plastic horns, and when the Jays are batting, takes to blowing it at the exact moment Ishii throws. Won't this distract the Jays' hitters? Isn't this a bad idea?
Third Inning
Towers starts a session of extended batting practice, giving up a double to Lo Duca, a home run to Beltre, a home run to Encarnacion, a hit batsman to Cora, and the ball to Carlos Tosca. Come home, Justin Miller; all is forgiven. Bob File, Towers' replacement, gives up a single to Roberts, but then restores order.
The Jumbotron wishes Bob Kelly a Happy Retirement.
Chris Gomez has 138 at-bats already this season. Sob. (That's not a knock on Gomez; it's just that he's been needed more than intended.)
Filled out my all-star ballot. Accidentally voted for Jim Thome instead of Albert Pujols. Am mortified. In a fit of sentimentality, vote for Greg Myers for AL catcher.
Innings 4-6
Vernon Wells takes the first pitch he sees and deposits it in the second deck at great speed. V-Dub is likely to be the only Jays representative at the All-Star game this year (despite my vote for Myers).
Gregg Zaun has a baseball face. I don't know why I think so, but I do. Perhaps it's his baseball beard, which describes a circle from his upper lip to his lower chin, leaving out the area immediately under his lower lip. Unfortunately, his ground balls are finding fielders now. The magic pixie dust is wearing off.
A nice gesture by Woody: he will make a donation to the Jays Care foundation for each of his base hits. Josh Phelps, on the other hand, is only donating every time he hits a home run. (Of course, he might be contributing more per donation.) Phelps seems to be stuck in the 1970's: for one at-bat, he strides to the plate to the Doobie Brothers' "Listen to the Music", and later goes up there to Led Zeppelin's "When The Levee Breaks". I feel like I'm back in junior high school again.
In the fifth, Dave Roberts tries a bunt with his team up 6-1. In the old days, he would have been low-bridged for that.
A domestic bottle of beer is $6.50! Yagh!
I hate Garfield.
Tonight's Mr. Sub hat switch promotion is in section 529. The basic idea is that one fan - preferably young and cute - is chosen at random to watch the JumboTron as a ball is hidden under one of three hats displayed on the screen. Her job is to follow the hats as they are switched back and forth, and guess which hat is hiding the ball. If she guesses successfully, everyone in her row (which has suddenly filled up) wins a free Mr. Sub; if she guesses wrong, the row behind her gets the subs. There is always a 0% chance that the lucky fan will get it wrong, as everybody around her is following along, and is more than willing to shout the correct answer to her. (I didn't see whether the people in the row behind her were deliberately shouting the wrong answer. I don't know whether anyone has figured out that trick yet.)
Jason Kershner, the third Jays pitcher into the barrel, makes a donation to the Jays Care Foundation for each strikeout. He faces Juan Encarnacion, who tonight has doubled to left, homered to left, and flied to left. Alex Rios might as well catch up on his sleep.
The upper deck is populated by solitary middle-aged men writing in scorecards or notebooks. I start to feel sorry for them, until I realize that I am one. Jamie Campbell, the Sportsnet guy, is also in the stands, presumably on a working assignment; he is keeping score and presumably doing research.
Innings 7-9
The seventh-inning stretch is still the Pizza Pizza Seventh-Inning Stretch (which makes more sense than the Revlon Seventh-Inning Stretch, which we had a few years back). There's a new discofied version of "OK Blue Jays"; call me a curmudgeon, but I prefer the old version. Ace, the Jays' mascot, leads the crowd in the ritual stretching. Whatever happened to Diamond, by the way?
In the eighth inning, Dave Berg attempts to field a ground ball to first. The usual approach is to:
1) Field the ball
2) Step on the bag
Berg's approach is somewhat more innovative:
1) Reach for the ball
2) Move to the bag
3) Forget to grab the ball
4) Reach back for the ball
5) Drop the ball
6) Watch the runner cross first base
7) Brace oneself for inevitable booing
Terry Adams, the latest Jay on the mound, reacts by bearing down more forcefully. Dave Roberts steals another base, despite the 6-1 lead; Bob Gibson would have drilled him in the skull for that. (I'm not saying that this is a good thing.)
In the ninth, the Dodgers send in Eric Gagne to close, which, given the score, is like going out to kill an ant with an elephant gun. Gagne gets a nice round of applause from the crowd, since he's a good Canadian boy. I can see why he's so good: he can choose to zip a fastball by the hitter, fool him with a curve, or throw a change-up and cause him to fly out of his shoes. Gagne's at-bat against Chris Woodward is a lot of fun, as Woody likes to run up the pitch count. Here are the results:
1) 94 mph fastball. Taken for strike.
2) Off-speed pitch. Swung on and missed.
3) Really slow off-speed pitch. Fouled off.
4) Curve ball. Low.
5) Fastball. Barely fouled off.
6) Fastball. Whiffo. Oh well.
With two out, Catalanotto is sent up to pinch-hit. Man, that's a tough assignment. The expected result happens, and we all go home.
Cat, by the way, makes a donation to the Vascular Birthmark Society after every hit. I assume that he has a relative with a disfiguring birthmark. (I am grateful that I do not have a disfiguring birthmark, among many other things.)
Conclusion: while the Jays aren't likely to win all that much until all of the walking wounded are back in battle, the atmosphere at the Dome is far less funereal than it was, say, three years ago. And this was on a night when the Cheer Club was not in attendance, and the team was behind from the git-go (as Tom Cheek would say). There's lots worse places to spend an evening than at the SkyDome, watching the Jays. I had fun, and will go back soon.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20040611012059999