O Canada! – The Greatness of B.J.

The Houk’s tour of Midwest ballparks continues as we rolled into Rogers Centre to watch Roy Halladay and the Jays take on the Boston Red Sox. Vernon Wells started the Jays off with a two run blast in the third, followed by a titanic Lyle Overbay solo shot in the fourth and then rallying for 3 more runs to stake Halladay to a 6-0 lead. Even when Coco Crisp hit a solo shot in the 5th and Manny drove a 2 run HR out in the 6th, we still thought the game was well in hand.
It sometimes floors me that major league managers still do stupid things with their pitching moves. As Halladay tired, he was replaced in the 8th by Scott Downs. As he entered the game, I asked Jays fans around us “where is Justin Speier?” They told me he was hurt, but I didn’t remember him going on the DL. Downs promptly hit Mark Loretta on an 0-2 pitch and then walked Big Papi. Gibbons finally brought on Spier to face Manny as the tying run and struck him out and got Nixon to pop out to second. Before Nixon popped up, I commented “B.J. Ryan is warming up in the pen and appears close to being ready. Ryan has been lights out. The game is on the line right now. If he’s warming up in the 8th, why don’t they bring him in? What’s the difference between 4 outs and 3 if he is already warm in the 8th?” After Nixon popped up, I again reiterated, “Varitek is coming up, Ryan’s loose and only throwing a few pitches now. Why isn’t he in the game?” As Varitek teed off on a Spier fastball, arcing it over the right field wall, I asked the kids, “how can you get beat when your best reliever is warm and ready to go in the bullpen?” After the cow had left the barn, Gibbons brought in BJ and he quickly got out of the 8th inning – just 2 batters too late.

Fortunately for the Jays, the Red Sox setup men are equally bad. With Mike Timlin just placed on the DL, Terry Francona called on David Riske to keep it tied, but a double by Molina, a sacrifice bunt by Aaron Hill (Gibbons made the right call here, pinch running for Molina, who would have been dead at third, but pinch runner Eric Hinske did not draw a throw.) and a tie breaking single by Shea Hillenbrand put the Jays back on top. Ryan blew away Alex Gonzales (why didn’t they pinch hit?) and Youkilis before Loretta flied out to center to end the game.

Observations about Rogers Centre:
1) This place is massive – it occupies several city blocks. It is starting to show its age as one of the last great non-retro parks.
2) It has the best Jumbotron in the league – Even the outfield scoreboards are video screens
3) The attendance was dismal. The Jays are within 3 games of the Sox and they can only muster 24,000, some of whom came disguised as empty seats?
4) I love the Canadian people. They are so friendly and pleasant wherever I have encountered them. However, they still don’t get baseball. Here are my examples:

a) At the beginning of the game the announcer asked a fan to say those three important words “Let’s play ball” – Uh, sorry but what umpires really say is “Play Ball!” for the last hundred years or so.
b) The game was a stark contrast to the carnival atmosphere of Wrigley. Other then some loud Red Sox fans, the local Jays fan was neither vocal, nor that interested in the game. The faint cheers echoed through the half empty Skydome. We sat next to a fan with World Greatest Fan on the back of her jersey. While she has the best Blue Jay pin collection I have ever seen, she never made any noise or supported her team much. However, she might have been the world Best Jays fan that night because the rest of them were dead.
c) At the 7th inning stretch they played their local song “Let’s Play Ball” – OK, now I understand the game start, but the song was totally lame.
d) After that they played “Take Me Out to the Ballpark” and had the words on the Jumbotron. Unfortunately the words were wrong, substituting “never” for “ever”.
e) After the game, we saw a 30 something year old guy in a very expensive looking spider man shirt giving two (large) Red Sox fans grief about losing the game, shouting at them. First this shows no class, second, he could have been beaten to a pulp by them, and third how can a grown man wear a spider man shirt and talk any noise? While I not enamoured with Red Sox fans, these guys took the weak noise in stride. If I were the target of such abuse I would have probably asked him 1) “if he has the whole spider man comic book collection” 2) “does your spider sense tell you that you are about to get your b*tt kicked?” 3) and my favorite – “you’re ugly and your mother dresses you funny!”

Sorry we don’t have any new pictures today. We should have a bunch tomorrow. We had to use old fashioned film and the pitures are not ready yet.

Leave a comment