The Drubbing

The festivities outside Toronto's Rogers Centre

Saturday, June 6th Rodney, Nate and myself all took in a Blue Jays vs. Royals game at the lovely Rogers Centre (formerly the SkyDome).  Yes, that is Centre with an “re” not an “er”.  Let me first say that for the most part, Canadians are very nice.  Throw in a french accent and its downright joyful to talk to the locals.  The stadium itself is right downtown near the lake.  There were a lot of festivities going on outside, and since the weather was in the mid 80′s and sunny, we got to enjoy the dome roof being open.  All and all a great day to catch a game (would have been better if we were not so hung over, but that is for another post).

The stadium itself is very nice, and extremely clean.  Since the Royals and Jays do not exactly have a huge following we were able to get tickets the day of, and sat about 20 rows directly back of home plate.  Good times all around.  I purchased an old school Blue Jays hat to add to my collection of hats from stadiums visited (its up to 9 stadiums and 8 hats.  Sorry old Yankee stadium, i think an NYY hat will burn in my hands if i purchase it) and we then hit up the food vendors.

Since i am showing my age and was still recovering from the previous night i did not sample as much of the local stadium cuisine.  Instead, i handed that duty over to Rodney.  While Nate, Rodney and myself thoroughly enjoyed the hot dogs, Rodney went the extra effort and raved about the nachos.  The beer on tap was the local brew of Rickards, which is sort of like Blue Moon.  Prices were on par with typical US stadiums, about $7 per beer.

Salty.

To make the game a bit more interesting, we decided to play the “hat game”.  I actually have no idea what the game is called, but for the purpose of reference that is what i am referring it as.  The game is simple.  To start, everyone puts a dollar into a hat.  One person holds the hat throughout the entire at bat.  If a run occurs during the at bat (the run can happen by any means; balk, home run, error, etc.) the person with the hat in their hands gets all the money, and every one re-antes $1.  If there is no run during the at bat, the person gives the hat and money to the next person over.  Now, at the beginning of every inning, everyone has to put in another dollar.  So, the longer the game goes without a run the larger the pot.  Again, simple game, but fun if you have no rooting interest in the game with the exception of your fantasy baseball players doing well.  Good times all around, i think i ended up about $10, while Rodney went through some excruciating moments.

Unfortunately for us, we missed seeing Roy Holladay pitch by one friggin day.  He was due to pitch Sunday and we had to all catch flights back to the States of America.  So our starting pitchers on Saturday were Luke Hochevar versus Scott Richmond.  Lots of scoring, mostly by Kansas City, made the normally polite locals a bit on edge.  I don’t know whether it is the sudden drop in the standings, or Rodney’s saltyness behavior spreading to those around him, but by the end of the 6-2 loss the fans were giving it out.  Their focus of attention was to the one and only Vernon Wells.  At the time of the game, Vernon was hitting .254 with 5 home runs.  The home fans greeted him with a chorus of “boo’s” each and every at bat, and he did not disappoint them going 0-4 at the plate.  The economy was the main focus for the Canadians, as the guy behind us constantly reminded Vernon that he was making $111,000 during this game and he expected more than weak hit balls.

While you shouldn’t boo your own team, i’d rather hear that than cheering for other teams (see the Nats and O’s).  Its good to see a team without a very strong fan base at least become emotional over their team.  If Shaun Marcum and Dustin McGowen ever come back healthy, the Blue Jays could actually do some damage in the tough AL East.