A Day At The Ballpark

June 5th, 2010

        It was a warm, sunny day in Southern Ontario. The skies were clear and spirits were high as the Toronto Blue Jays were riding high on the previous day's victory over the New York Yankees. Today would be the perfect day for a big game. Taking the mound, for the Jays, was the immaculate Ricky Romero, ready to Rick Roll the Bronx Bombers and give the Jays a chance to take the series win ahead of Sunday's finale.

        After slowly rolling through an hour and a half of construction-induced traffic, we pull up to our regular parking lot... full. The game must be packed, I pronounce this a good sign... my girlfriend says she's getting a headache.

        Getting to the box office around the bottom of the first inning, I meet my sister and her boyfriend, who thank me thoroughly for my lateness and tell me that the entire outfield is sold-out and they are unwilling to sit in Outer Mongolia (see: the 500s). I bid farewell to my beer money as I pay $60 for a 3rd base-line 100 seat, I'm broke but excited, cause if the outfield is completely sold-out, then man, this joint is gonna be jumping.

        We make our way inside the stadium, just in time for the top of the 2nd, and the score is 0-0, obviously waiting for my attendance before the real action starts. Taking our seats, I notice there are only a few vacant spots in the lower bowl and outfield stands, probably the biggest crowd I have seen all season. Despite the large attendance, the crowd is murmuring quietly, with only a few breaks in the silence from a couple loud smack-talkers one section over. Little did I know, these two gentleman would soon change the course of my life for hours to come.

        The Jays didn't wait long to get a hit, with Vernon leading off the bottom of the 2nd with a typical Jays hit; a just-over-the-wall solo home-run. Ok, I was now officially ready for a blood-bath, I'm talking a bombs away, no-holds barred, Ken Griffey Jr's Slugfest... Griffey, Griffey, Griffey! Today, I would be disappointed.

        Around the 4th inning there was a disturbance in the next section over as the two heckle buddies in the next section over, were informed that they had mistakenly sat in seats for which they did not have tickets and would have to therefore move. They scanned their surrounding area, and their eyes locked on two empty seats a couple rows ahead of me. As everyone in our section groaned, the two squawkers moved into the seats, asking everyone they passed if they were Yankees fans, because they were Jays fans and would not be willing to sit with Yankees fans. I was tempted to take off my Jays hat and announce that I was Jeter and A-Rod's forbidden love child, but I resisted the urge.

        Besides, I was interested to see what these two guys were going to pull out in their jeers, maybe tap into the fact that A-Rod gets a lot of money or did steroids, you know, the old classics. Or how about the fact that Jeter is old and over-rated? Those have been good for the last 4 or 5 years now. Alas, no, their material consisted of one line "HEY A-ROD!", two minutes of silence, "HEY A-ROD!" and this went on and on. I'm all for heckling, but these guys were obviously not on their game... unless their game was enforcing public misery

        To compound matters there was a group of 4 or 5 Yankees fans sitting a few more rows ahead with a Jeter-jersey-clad ringleader constantly attempting to start "Let's Go Yankees!" chants, to which the two Toronto fans had no response, no witty repartee, just "HEY A-ROD!" whenever the feeling struck them. Actually the best response we had was from an old, bigoted hillbilly behind me, telling one of them to "Shut up, Bin Laden!"... yes, very classy, sir.

        Just as I was beginning to feel like these Yankees fans were getting too cocky, they were put in their place by a guy in a backwards Red Sox hat, who walked a good 10 rows down to stand across from the Yankees fans and simply said "Yankees suck!" and flipped them off, to great applause from the entire section. I guess we really do hate New York more than Boston.

        The game progressed with Jeter hitting an effeminate home-run and then shaving and sweating in reverse I assume, and Alex Gonzalez doing his thing in the 7th... striking out constantly but hitting a dinger to make up for it.

        The 9th inning was stressful (Downs), and the 10th mortifying (Gregg). By this time the "Hey A-Rod!" twins had drunken themselves to sleep, so the entertainment had turned to other fans trying to bribe the middle-aged man behind them to slap, pinch or somehow physically wake them. I turned to my girlfriend to ask her for waking ideas to find she had followed their lead and was looking like she had gone into the clubhouse to grab a jacket.

        Knowing my time left at the park was now growing short, I promised one more inning and we would leave. After breaking and re-making that promise at the end of the 11th, I was praying for some kind of offense. I wouldn't be so lucky and had to leave before the game was decided, a shameful situation for sure, but some things are more important than staying at the SkyDome for 4 hours... and alright, I was getting pretty freakin' bored myself.

        As we drove back into the traffic over the horizon, I thought to myself how it would be great to go to a Yankees game in New York and see what kind of heckling I could get away with, but I then remembered that I valued my legs, and switched to contemplating how the Jays could win a battle of the bullpens. The baseball gods answered by presenting Chad Gaudin, the vulnerable exhaust vent on the Yankees Death Star. Game: Blue Jays.

Gotta love a nice day at the park...