At the 2005 game no one was at the box office because I didn’t get there until the 3rd inning.
First game: Thursday, August 5, 2004. I flew to Toronto to watch Kara race in the Canadian Henley Regatta in St. Catharines, Ontario. She was rowing for Community Rowing on the Charles River in Boston. Love that dirty water…which isn’t anywhere near as dirty as it was when the Standells sung about it in 1966. A year later Kara was rowing Varsity for Harvard.
My Air Canada flight landed at 12:35, just as an afternoon game was starting at Skydome. I drove there from the airport and got to the game in the 3rd inning. That’s why there’s no one at the ticket window in the shot above. Got a great seat in the 26th row right behind home plate.
The Blue Jays hosted the Indians. Cleveland scored in the first, the Blue Jays tied it, Cleveland went ahead on a homer by John McDonald, a Cape Cod League player who was in the last class at Providence College that had baseball. Later played 6 seasons for the Blue Jays and 6 for the Indians. He was on the 2013 Red Sox Championship team. Toronto tied it up again, then went ahead, but Cleveland tied it up again in the 6th. In the 10th the Indians scored three times to win it 6-3. It was a partly sunny day and the roof was open. They say the experience is very different when it’s closed. It’s been open both times I’ve been there.
At the concession stand, I asked for a hot dog and handed the guy an American $20 bill. He gave me a hot dog and $20.50 in Canadian money. Labatt’s is the only beer sold at Skydome. Not a problem. The fans are Canadian friendly but fairly lackluster.
In 2012 Kara and I flew up on Air Canada to catch a Red Sox away game on my birthday. It was my 64th and as we headed to Logan my wife Kathy played “When I’m 64” – one of my father’s favorite songs – over the speakerphone. A fitting sendoff to Toronto.
We got there pretty early and getting through customs was a breeze. I rented a car at the airport in Missisagua and we headed downtown where I parked and we had breakfast at a local diner. Then we took the subway to the Rogers Centre. The subway has consecutive stops named Wellesley and College. I took a pic inside the train because Wellesley College is in Wellesley, MA, our home town.
Second Game: Saturday. September 15th, 2012. Supposedly 27,000 were on hand but it didn’t look like it. Probably because Rogers Centre holds twice that much. Also because this was mid-September and the Blue Jays and Red Sox were duking it out for last place in the AL East and Boston was victorious, if you want to look at it that way. Toronto finished 4th, 22 games out. Boston was last, 26 games out. Remember, this was the Bobby Valentine year.
The Blue Jays started Carlos Villanueva who went 7 and was relieved by Aaron Loup (great name). The DH was Edwin Encarnacion, he of the famous playoff bat flip. When Encarnacion was later with the Yankees and he hit a homer, play-by-play guy John Sterling would say “Encarnacion has a cele-BRAY-ci-ohn!” Shut up, John. Catching for the Jays was Yorvit Torrealba, who we’d seen as a Rockie in the 2007 World Series. That team had all these unusual names, like Torrealba, Tulowitzi and Spillborghs.
Clay Buchholz started for Boston. There were several position players who are trivia questions now. As in “Who wore #7 after JD Drew and before Stephen Drew?” It was Cody Ross, who homered in the game. At 1st was James Loney, who came to the Sox from the Dodgers in the Adrian Gonzalez-Carl Crawford-Josh Beckett salary dump. Here’s a trivia question for you: Name the only MLB game – I mean the only one ever – where the winning pitcher was a Yale graduate and was throwing to a catcher who also was a Yale graduate? Why, it was this game…which the Red Sox won, 3-2. Craig Breslow was the closer and Ryan Lavarnway was behind the plate wearing the “tools of ignorance.” Not much ignorance in that battery.
On the way back to the airport traffic was a snail trail everywhere. Kara was trying to check Google Maps to see if there was a better route to the airport in Missisagua, but no. And the data minutes she rang up were international, so we were eventually shut off by AT&T. We missed the flight and had to stay over…which we were completely unprepared for. But it was a great 64th birthday.
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