It's Pinch-Hit day again at Batter's Box, and we're happy to provide you with another special guest report from one of our regulars -- or in this case, two of them. My instructions from Rook Rob are to introduce this one as follows: "Today's Pinch-Hit comes to us from regular Bauxite Jobu, with an assist from his loser friend Rick." Enjoy.
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I feel it necessary to preface this Game Report with a warning of sorts, for a number of reasons, the first being you don’t even know who I am. I am the one whom some of you may know as Jobu’s "loser friend Rick." Jobu was supposed to write this Game Report, and as usual, he was gracious enough to allow me to help.
Now let me assure you, he had a real fancy-dancy idea for this one, complete with pyrotechnics, dance numbers and lion tamers, but the whole operation was done in by technical difficulties. As such, the two of us started something of a running commentary through the game as we tried to brainstorm a suitable replacement idea.
Unfortunately, as the game progressed, Jobu started falling prey to some sort of awful sickness that brought forth increasingly alarming fits of delirium (seriously, he looked awful), leaving me to transcribe my thoughts and his throughout most of the rest of the game. At the end of the game, with him babbling in some obsolete vernacular, I was left to sift through odd streams of consciousness and indecipherable rants, not to mention whatever he had to say. The end result is the following, for which I have nothing left to say except that I hope you enjoy it.
1:35 "The Jays face a tough test in Bruce Chen." Remember when that was a joke?
1:40 "Brought to you by Swiss Chalet, where honey garlic’s back ... SWEEEEEET." (That there is the sound of Jamie Campbell being handed a sack with a dollar sign).
1:42 Mickey Brantley: Token '80s police chief or token character actor in an '80s science fiction movie? You decide.
1:44 "Bruce Chen is in the zone".... I’d buy that album. And that’s a 1-2-3 inning.
1:48 OVER the head of Hudson? Don’t you have to hit a home run to hit it over the head of O-Dog?
1:48 Castro is so tiny ... I don’t know how he ever took over a whole country.
1:51 Strikeouts are fascist. Castro is Communist. Castro struck out. Morpheus doesn’t even bother trying to sort that one out.
1:55 Bruce Chen throwing a NO-HITTER after one.
1:59 Let me take this time to mention once again how much I hate Eric Byrnes ("the inept henchman"). Why must my reports feature this roving error?
2:01 2nd and 3rd no out. The death scenario for the Blue Jays. Please stop... you’re making me cry.
2:03 A RUN! A RUN! BALL IN PLAY!! Oh ... we’ve broken the curse! Thank you, Willow!
2:03 Hey, it’s Chris Gomez. Look at his eyes. You know he misses the Hammer.
At this point, Jobu’s continued descent into delirium becomes evident in his increasingly cryptic messages
2:11 I made a new list for Nixon: Eric Byrnes, Curt Schilling, Boomer Wells, Derek Jeter, Mike Mussina, Roger Clemens, Phil Cuzzi, Loaiza, Bobby Holik, Phil Mickelson, and Mike Peca.
In the next 20 minutes, during his descent into madness, Jobu filled 5 pages with unintelligible nonsense, much of it in a language he seems to have made up)
2:32 At this point in the afternoon, Jobu began stroking his beard and calmly threatened to not go on stage unless he was given 1,000 brown M & M’s in a brandy glass. I thought it best to take the computer from him and let him deal with his demons.
2:34 Zaun comes up. I think he’s been teaching Hill how to grow that sweet mullet of his. Even Jamie and Candy are commenting on Zaun’s sweet hair. "Rockstar Hair" is what they call it. As it is, it may have already won the Jays one game when he tried to call time against Tampa because it was blowing in his face.
2:41 Jobu has been screaming the lyrics to Duran Duran’s "A View to a Kill" for the past ten minutes. Without warning, he stops abruptly, stays absolutely still for a minute, whispers, "Why is runners on and no outs such a disadvantage to us?" then jumps right in to "Hungry Like The Wolf."
2:44 I need some statistics on how many portable phones V-Tech has given out over the years. Haven’t they supplied everyone in the GTA with one by now? How do they stay in business like this? Then again, I’ve never won one. Maybe it's just the same five people who keep entering and just have stockpiles of portable phones in their house. Jobu wakes up and yells “Bastards!” at that comment.
2:48 Nice play by Koskie. Jobu rises from his delirium long enough to say, "He is so good at making those plays on the slower hits to his left."
2:49 Really, I know this has been said before, but what is with those puppets? I don’t get it. The movie commercials idea was a good one, even if the execution is disappointing, but I have no idea -- none -- what the puppets have to do with anything. "The Call" is already atrocious without them, but they ruin Vernon’s quality acting job (even if they still could have done more with that one). In conclusion: no more puppets.
2:56 One of those Murphy’s Law moments happen when the illustrious Mr. Campbell commends Chacin’s effort in not allowing a hit since the opening batter Brian Roberts, and Javy "I’m funnier than George" Lopez lines a single.
2:59 What can I say but beauty pitch to strike out Friere. He’s a crafty one, that Morpheus.
3:03 At this point, while mistaking a bag of Cheetos for someone willing to listen, Jobu recounted his trip to Sightlines. More on this later, but the following seemed topical: "I know they aren’t a power team, but the Jays have really seemingly forgotten how to hit home runs lately. Last week, when I went to Sightlines, the guy at the front told me that I get a free piece of cake for every Jays home run. Needless to say, I never got to have any cake."
3:07 Have I mentioned how cool John Gibbons looks with those stylish glasses?
3:09 Chen just made Rios look foolish with a high "fastball" that he just blows by him. It's really scary that I’m tipping my hat to Bruce Chen. Is this the first sign of the apocalypse?
3:21 I just missed a few batters due to a phone call. Woe is me, and my lack of Rogers TV On Demand, where I can pause and rewind live TV at the press of a button. Or so I am told. Jobu just physically threatened me because "somewhere, somehow, Corey Feldman is on TV, and I’m missing it due to your lack of Rogers TV On Demand."
3:25 Well, I did not miss that lovely pitching to Tejada, who might just dislocate every bone in his body if he continues to make ridiculously hard swings like that. I half expected his body to become separated at the torso on that one.
3:29 Couldn’t Ray’s first name be Ricky, so I could make a CFL reference? How much more Canadian can you get than a CFL reference? That's it, I’m forcing in more Canadiana into this.
3:33 Koskie just struck out looking. That's not what I meant.
3:40 So the Jays haven’t been two games under .500 since some "Black Day in July." (That's what I meant).
3:42 A meeting with Arnsberg and the infielders commences at the pitcher's mound. How can I not think of Bull Durham at moments like these? Too bad Batista isn’t pitching -- otherwise, the boys would have gotten a dissertation on the difference between justice and law. He may not be the best closer in the world, but I love his eccentric and quirky nature. Does he recite poetry to his teammates? I imagine him wearing a toga, sitting the younger guys around him, and lecturing on the true nature of their existence.
3:44 John Gibbons gives us a look at that distinctive saunter of his as he comes out to remove Chacin. No argument from Chacin, but then again, how can you argue with someone who looks as cool as Gibbons with those glasses of his? You don’t mess with someone who looks like that. Then again, Chacin can give anyone a run for their money in the cool sunglasses department.
3:47 By the way, did I mention Chacin pitched wonderfully? Hopefully, this is the first step on his way to wresting control of the Rookie of the Year award from the rest of the pack. Then again, good old Russell might have something to say about that. Maybe even Aaron.
3:55 The dreaded Two On and Nobody Out situation again, and The Dude is up to bat as well. I expect only disappointment, but The Dude, contemptuous of my lack of faith, comes through with a single.
3:59 Kline puts up quite the fight before being pulled by Perlozzo. He’s not happy about being pulled, because he clearly brought his A-game today. After all, he managed to load the bases and bring in a run while only getting one out. Magnificent performance. Then again, Perlozzo doesn’t have sweet sunglasses.
4:03 I’ve never seen such a nice catch ruined like that. I mean, what was that? I never went from "AH DAMN" to "AH YEAH!" so quickly in a baseball game. Not sure why Newhan got the error on that one, since it was the brain cramp of the first baseman, who for some reason thought it was a good idea to go to the pitcher's mound to prepare for the cutoff to home when there was no chance for a play there.
At this point in the commentary, I was drawn away due to some unexpected circumstances, and I felt comfortable with leaving Jobu to finish off, since his delusions were seemingly becoming less obtrusive. When I returned, I found a page titled “An Ode to Vinnie Chulk”, but I was able to gather the following from his rants.
4:16 Apparently, SS LOOGY managed to pick off Roberts, who was trying to steal 2nd at the time. This allowed a runner to score, but no matter, Jobu was pleased. He actually used the phrase "Mucho Gusto." 4 - 2 Jays.
4:28 Jays tacking on runs in the 9th. I love David Wright.
As promised earlier, I will now elaborate on the story Jobu was recounting to the Cheetos bag. Here it is, in an e-mail he sent to NFH, as he felt said experience was necessary to add here.
Wanna hear a cool story? Yesterday was a special day for Lady Jobu and I, seeing as how it was like the last day we both had off before school started. So I made reservations for Sightlines (we'd both never been) and we were going to go to Casa Loma before the game because she loves that stuff. So the reservations were for 6:30, and we get to Loma around 4:30 and the parking guy says Loma closes at 4:00. We're slightly bummed, so I ask, "Can we just park and walk around the outside?" and the guy says "Sure," but with like that "Why would you want to?" voice. So we give him $2.75 and start to walk around the back and we see that it's all fenced off, so you can't actually walk around the exterior. But I was wearing my glasses that day and I say, "Hello ... looks like that lock isn’t locked." Sure enough, we moved the lock, opened the gate, and were in the large garden paths in the back.
So we stroll around the gardens taking pictures, and we come up the path to the back patio, but there's a wedding party posing for photos that I accidently get in the background of. So we double back and come up to the patio a different way. Then we see some cool-looking doors, so she poses beside them for a photo op, but this worker comes by and says, "Those doors are closed, you have to exit through the main hall where the wedding is," so he points us over and we walk into the hall with all the reception tables nicely covered, and this waiter comes by to offer us champagne, which we of course accept before I sample some shimp-kebobs. I write our names in the guestbook under "Mr. Orlando Hudson and Mrs. Shea Hillenbrand," and we notice the stairway up and of course take it.
So now we're just wandering amongst all the rooms of Casa Loma after hours, completely unsupervised. Had we been lesser people, the amount of things we could have stolen was appalling. We made our way up both towers, climbed over barricades into rooms we shouldn’t have been in, hopped over velvet ropes for classy photo ops on expensive linens. So after hanging out in the round room for a while, we notice it's time to make our way to the RC. As we're walking down the stairs marked "Exit," we notice the stairs are boarded up and wonder just how we'll get out of there. Then a lady who works there sees us and says, "Hey! What are you doing!? You're not allowed to be up there! Are you touring!?" to which Lady Jobu replies, "No, we're the photographers' assistants. The idiot sent us up to get an overhead shot, but we can't see anything. Do you know where he is?" She replies "Oh.... no, hold on, let me get a walkie." So she leaves, we make for the grand exit (I grab another shrimp-kebob), we jump in the van and we're off to the game.
At first I'm worried that I'm underdressed for Sightlines, but as I'm waiting in line to say, "Jobu, party of 2," the guy in front of us says "Buffet? We just want to sit and have some beers," To which the hostess pauses and says, "....Okay...." So suddenly, I’m not so concerned about the swankiness of the place. The views at Sightlines are just fantastic. I love watching the game from there. The food was only okay, but if I were rich, I'd watch a lot of games there just for the view. I was staring down at 518 but there didn't look to be any activity. I wonder what Windows is like.
For those of you have actually read the above in its entirety, I commend your patience, especially considering how verbose I can be, and I thank you. As it is, this Game Report is akin to giving Sancho Panza his own novel. Scratch that, as that would be awesome. I’m no Sancho; at best, I am a mere Burt Ward. Now I return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20050906083756195