Double Switching

Two years, two more stadiums

Tue, 21 May 2013 21:41:19 -0400

May 1st was my second ‘baseballiversary,’ or more comprehensibly, the second anniversary of the day I inexplicably sat down and started watching this strange and beautiful game. It seems like a weird thing to commemorate, but I’ve realized that’s partially because nobody really knows when they started watching a sport; It’s just something that’s always there. I guess if I wanted to I could theoretically come up with the date I started watching hockey—if my parents told me the date they brought me home from the hospital, and I found the date of the Calgary Flames’ first game after that. You know?

So it’s fascinating to be able to pinpoint the exact date and time and say “This is where it started.” For me, it started with the Blue Jays at Yankee Stadium, Litsch vs Nova, a 5-2 loss for the visitors but nevertheless remarkably thrilling for someone who had no idea what was going on. The first Blue Jays home run I ever saw was off the bat of Adam Lind. So it goes.

This is especially interesting to me this month, because merely days before that odd milestone I visited Yankee Stadium for the first time—to see the Blue Jays. The Jays lost that one, too; still, the coincidence of the date was not lost on me.

Yankee Stadium felt oddly like an atrium, with a great deal of concrete and glass. Sun poured in everywhere in the entryway and along the field level concourse, which was a welcome change from my home park, the concrete box north of the border. Our friend Amanda Rykoff pointed out to us in the Great Hall that looking in one direction, the banners are sepia-toned and of historical stars; if you look at them from the other side, they’re in colour and of stars of the present day. I’d never have registered that little detail on my own, but I loved it.

Though we were high up, the view was fantastic:

The Blue Jays fell 3-2, in one of the most excruciating losses I’d seen all season—after dropping the first three games of the four-game series, they briefly came back from a 1-0 deficit to lead 2-1 until (former Blue Jay) Lyle Overbay hit a two-run homer off R.A. Dickey to seal it. David Robertson and Mariano Rivera pitched the 8th and 9th, respectively, so you can imagine how much hope I had for a comeback. Instead the Jays suffered their first sweep of the year at the hands of their divisional rivals. It was a dark time, but the company (my boyfriend Joel and twitter friends Mike, Becky and Stacey) was terrific.

The day before that we’d gone to Citi Field to see the Mets play the Phillies, and man… I loved it there. I’ve been to four ballparks now, and Citi Field is narrowly in second place because nothing can quite beat the experience of Wrigley. It’s everything I’d hope for in a ballpark, but with even more awesome food, great standing views (seriously, there are cupholders along the railings in the field level concourse! They want you there!), and … Shake Shack.

Being a Canuck, I’d never experienced Shake Shack before, so we waited in the (hilariously long) line before the game. The food area back there (behind the center field screen) is amazing, all kinds of offerings and table space with screens so you can see the action. The burgers and shakes were pretty damn delicious.

The rotunda upon entering Citi is beautiful with all the sunlight streaming in (reminiscent of the entryway at Yankee Stadium, too, but less concrete), and walking the concourse isn’t nearly so soulless as it is at the Rogers Centre. Add that to the gorgeous spring weather we had and I could have come back every day for a week. That’s one nice park.

Visiting other parks is such an amazing way to experience a game—it’s like rediscovering the game of baseball and everything that makes it great. I’ve still got another one on my list this year, the gorgeous AT&T Park in San Francisco; the Blue Jays will be visiting the World Series champs for two games in early June, and if the series in Toronto is any indication—the Jays outscored the Giants 21-9!—it’ll be an adventure. I can’t wait for year three.

Blue Jays 10, Giants 6

Tue, 14 May 2013 23:41:00 -0400

Boy, we needed that.

I was faced with the world’s most wonderful scoring conundrum in the first inning when the Blue Jays sent eleven batters to the plate against floundering Barry Zito, scoring six runs—Melky Cabrera and Jose Bautista had two at-bats each in the frame, which had me frantically scrambling to figure out what to do. No one at the ballpark could quite believe what was happening. Six! Runs! In the first! (Yelling!)

In the end I used the boxes in the second inning—sure feels nice to be on the happy side of a card like this for once.

When Zito finally got Bautista to line out to Sandoval for the third out of the inning, the Rogers Centre was on their feet applauding the team’s ridiculous first (or perhaps standing for Zito?), something I don’t think I’ve ever seen. In the end, the Blue Jays scored ten runs for a second game in a row but without hitting a single home run, which is easily the weirdest part of this whole wild night. Ten runs on eighteen hits, all in the ballpark!

Maybe things are getting better.

Dickey: 6.0 IP 6H 2ER 2BB 10K!
Zito: 5.2 IP 12H 8R/5ER 2BB 2K

Dickey, might I add, got Buster Posey to strike out swinging twice.

And first star Melky Cabrera went 4 for 5 with a double, scoring twice and reaching base the fifth time on an error by Pablo Sandoval. Can he get a ring every day?

Guys, I forgot what winning decisively was like and the Blue Jays have done it twice in a row against teams doing much better than they are. This is actually fun. I haven’t been so relaxed at a Blue Jays game in ages.

Tomorrow, Ramon Ortiz vs Ryan Vogelsong … a duel for the ages.

Did not edit this much. Sorry for the errant tooltips and so...

Mon, 13 May 2013 23:52:56 -0400

Did not edit this much. Sorry for the errant tooltips and so on.

This is (a sample of) Twitter when Patrice Bergeron scored the tying goal to force overtime in Game 7 against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Hockey is crazy.

Rays 5, Blue Jays 4 (10)

Thu, 09 May 2013 22:44:03 -0400

Rays 5, Blue Jays 4 (10)

April.

Wed, 01 May 2013 07:59:42 -0400

April.

Decent view. (at Yankee Stadium)

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 20:51:06 -0400

Decent view. (at Yankee Stadium)

Happy blogday to me.

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:42:00 -0400

Double Switching is a year old!

(Well, a year and a few days—true to form, I forgot to write a post on the actual day. Of course.)

I started writing here on April 19th, 2012 on a total whim, after having watched baseball for just shy of a year. It’s been fun collecting all my longer baseball thoughts in one place, supplemented by Twitter, and I’m pretty happy you have stuck around to read them. So thank you.

Here’s some of my favourites from the past twelve months:

Eight Thousand And Twenty, about the Mets’ first no-hitter ever. (June 1)
Writing About Writing About Baseball, thoughts about playing catch-up. (August 12)
Rest in Peace, for the fan who passed away after a heart attack at the Rogers Centre. (August 16)
This game which matters least matters most, on the last day of the Jays’ season. (October 3)
Bandwagon in the Ditch, on not judging new fans. (April 8)

On top of those, there’s also While the Men Watch: Sports Sexism At Its Worst about the CBC’s Hockey Night alternative broadcast, and a guest post for Infield Fly called Baseball Is Boring, Baseball Is Not Boring.

Baseball’s the best! And so are you. Thanks for being the best. This is a lot of fun.

Bandwagon in the Ditch

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 18:17:00 -0400

Things seen yesterday at the Rogers Centre:

A fan running onto the field and sliding (rather well) into second base.
Another fan running onto the field and immediately getting tackled.
Paper airplanes flying down from the stands to land on the field.
R.A. Dickey surrendering seven earned runs, eight total.
Dave Bush surrendering four home runs.
Jon Lester pitching seven shutout innings.

Things not seen:

A Blue Jay baserunner advancing past second base.

It was a rough day at the yard. R.A. Dickey had none of his usual mystifying stuff, instead allowing five earned runs before the first Red Sox out. (I can imagine some jovial Jays fans walked in with their beers in the middle of the first inning, laughed at the scoreboard error, and then realized with horror what was actually happening.) Dickey ended up lasting 4.2 innings, surrendering eight runs (seven earned) on 10 hits and a pair of walks. He struck out five. Lester, on the other hand, gave up only five hits while striking out six, and neither he nor Clayton Mortensen gave up a run. The Blue Jays didn’t put up much of a fight in trying to bail out their starter, and the crowd started chanting “Go Leafs Go” in late innings … it was a mess.

I’ve seen some people contemplate whether the humidity and stuffiness of a closed dome with upwards of 40,000 people in it affected Dickey’s knuckleball. Word on the street is the knuckler moves more in warm and humid environments, but I’m not sure if that includes a closed dome, where the air circulation is pretty terrible. Whatever it was, Dickey sure didn’t have it yesterday and got knocked around in what ended up being a pretty ugly afternoon.

After the game, the internet was ripe with accusations and shouting from plenty of people who apparently have forgotten how sports work. On one side we have the “this is a catastrophe” fan base, and on the other the whiners crying about “bandwagon fans,” neither of whom are doing a particularly great job convincing me they’re right.

We’re six games into a 162-game regular season; if less than five percent of the season is indicative of total catastrophe, then I’d be happy to take your seat at the ballpark until the fall. Baseball comes with tremendous ups and downs, and even the best teams get blown out sometimes. It’s wise to temper our expectations, but certainly not to the point of giving up—especially now. Every game is a tiny fraction of the whole season, and you don’t really see any kind of trend for a long, long stretch.

This business about “bandwagon fans,” though, bothers me at least as much. It’s been addressed much better by Stacey May Fowles for The Barnstormer (with a stronger focus on gendered sports fandom) but truly, this exclusivity—this assertion that some people at the ballpark have more of a right to enjoy the spectacle than others, or that they have a stronger claim—is ridiculous. Seeing a team through the highest highs and the lowest lows is absolutely worth talking about, and as many of us who have done that will know, it makes you fiercely loyal. But I don’t support the disdain for bandwagon jumpers a single bit, even the obnoxious ones who are crying apocalypse over the 2-4 homestand (though I will, obviously, try to reason through that). The expectations and hype for the Jays this season are high—of course it breeds interest in casual fans. Casual fans are necessary. They buy tickets and fill the park and pay for cable packages just as we do, but if you do things right, they come in even larger numbers. And if given the chance, instead of driven away from the ballpark by sneering snobs, many will become diehard, loyal, knowledgeable fans. And if they do not, what’s it to you?

No, I’ll never rail against bandwagon jumpers. I pick teams to enjoy rooting for in the playoffs, with no actual commitment, because emotional investment is what makes sports so exciting for me. I’ve been a Blue Jays fan for less than three years (Jose Bautista’s breakout season happened before I started watching) so to a great many, I am part of the bandwagon, even though I attended over 30 games last season. I don’t want anyone to have to prove themselves when they go to a game; I want to talk to them about how great Jose Reyes was when he hit that triple.

Bring me the loud, shouting fans, because that means a Tuesday night game might have 35,000 fans instead of 13,000. Bring me the confused questions in the stands, because maybe we’ll be able to answer them. Bring me the R.A. Dickey and Josh Johnson and Jose Reyes jerseys bought by people who haven’t gone to a baseball game in twenty years. If you’re giving up on the team early, I can’t help you. But if you’re here for the long haul even though you’ve got nothing to go on, if you are one of them and you get shouted down, don’t worry—there’s space on the wagon next to me.

Home.

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 19:04:16 -0400

Home.

Yu Darvish loses his perfect game bid with two outs in the...

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 23:08:49 -0400

Yu Darvish loses his perfect game bid with two outs in the ninth. Twitter explodes.

Play ball.

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 19:06:57 -0400

Play ball.

Studying.

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 09:25:59 -0500

Studying.

It may be February, but spring is here.

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 13:50:39 -0500

It may be February, but spring is here.

R.A. Dickey is the best and he’s ours and happy spring...

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 15:37:42 -0500

R.A. Dickey is the best and he’s ours and happy spring training.

On the Money: Blue Jays offseason chat

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 10:40:00 -0500

On the Money: Blue Jays offseason chat:

I got to go on the It’s About the Money radio show/podcast last night to talk about the Blue Jays’ offseason and the expectations and excitement brewing for 2013. I feel pretty good about it.

I come in around 19 minutes, but listen through, because Brien and Stacey do a great job on this thing. I’m thrilled they had me.

Click above or here to listen.

"I just let the umpires call the balls and I take care of the strikes."

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 09:29:25 -0500

“I just let the umpires call the balls and I take care of the strikes.”

- Hank Aaron (via mightyflynn)

Lockout-Shortened Season Begins Saturday, Chaos To Ensue

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 23:53:00 -0500

Lockout-Shortened Season Begins Saturday, Chaos To Ensue:

I write some things about the Calgary Flames for Book of Loob now, and this is my first post! Includes requisite Flames grumpiness, lots of exclamation points, SVEN, Martin Gelinas, and some digs at most teams in the Northwest division. Have at it!

Old friends, new loves.

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 00:09:00 -0500

When I moved to Toronto in the fall of 2006, I was 17 years old. I’d grown up in suburban Calgary, independent to some degree but far enough away from things that my parents would often have to drive me to the C-Train station. Calgary was familiar; I spent most of my time doing the same things in the same neighbourhoods, and I never really thought anything of it.

Toronto was uncharted territory. It was new and exciting and wildly confusing, and I spent a lot of time poring over transit maps and riding the subway to figure out what was going on. My first TTC Ride Guide had all kinds of markings and annotations and addresses scrawled on it, and it wasn’t until it started disintegrating at the seams that I reluctantly picked up a fresh one. I used it every day and got to know the city intimately, soon able to plot my routes anywhere with barely a glance at the colourful, spidery transit lines.

Whenever I’d go back to Calgary, though, it was usually the same old. I was back in familiar territory and going to familiar locales. Most of the exploration stayed east.

It wasn’t until I started talking to some friends from other cities who had moved to Calgary later, for school or work, that I realized how little I’d been doing there. They knew that city inside and out, all the little hidden gems and holes-in-the-wall and new interesting establishments that I had never heard of. Being away from a city for years will do that, but so will not doing much while you’re there. It was mildly embarrassing—here was a city I’d spent my formative years living in, and friends who’d lived there for a year knew it better than I did. And I, somehow, knew Toronto better than a large handful of city natives I’d met in town.

The return of NHL hockey is making me feel like this, too. This is a baseball blog, supposedly, but I’m a hockey fan first, and was long before I paid attention to much else; when the Calgary Flames won their Stanley Cup I was something like 73 days old, and I’m quite sure I was yelling when it happened.

But I’ve taken hockey for granted. Hockey’s my familiar old home, the thing I’m so used to that it only makes itself known when one of us leaves. When I turn on the Flames game, Jarome Iginla’s still there doing the same things he’s been doing for 17 years. The fluidity and motion and sounds of the game are the same ones I’ve been used to hearing all this time.

Looking back at it through the lens of baseball, though, is a completely different story. I threw myself into baseball with all the energy I had, because I came into it so late it felt like I had to sprint to catch up. Now it feels really weird (and kind of wrong, almost) that I’m so comfortable with having a very detailed conversation about it while I still have to hack my way through talking about hockey. Before baseball I didn’t spend much time thinking about the role of statistics or analysis in sport, and I certainly didn’t pay much attention to the numbers.

Now, though, I’m happy to be discontent with my hockey knowledge—I’m learning. The hockey enthusiasts I’m surrounded by are reminding me how much more there is for me to gain. I’m back to trying to understand what charts and data samples are trying to tell me, and trying to watch games and plays with a more critical eye. It’s already made a difference (although it’s really hard to learn things when you’re watching the World Juniors at three o’clock in the morning under blankets), and now the NHL is improbably, and belatedly, back.

I really missed you guys.
Let’s do this again—with feeling.

Baseball Is Magic: Elimination Game

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 16:38:34 -0500

Baseball Is Magic: Elimination Game:

My friend Greg Wisniewski asked if I’d contribute to his 2012 wrap-up series over at Baseball is Magic. I wrote a little piece about Barry Zito’s insane performance in Game 5 of the NLCS. It’s up now and you can go read it! Hooray.

In case you are interested, here’s the box/play-by-play of NLCS Game 5, and of Zito’s other postseason appearance, NLDS Game 4.

Anthopoulypse Now

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 22:44:00 -0500

I ripped that title off from Matt English, who is much funnier than I am. And he made this:

A selection of Blue Jays transactions over the past month:

October 21: Manager John Farrell released from contract, traded to Boston with David Carpenter for SS Mike Aviles.

November 3: Mike Aviles & Yan Gomes traded to Cleveland for RHP Esmil Rogers.

November 8: Free agent Maicer Izturis signs. RHP Jeremy Jeffress traded from Kansas City for cash.

November 19: Henderson Alvarez, Yunel Escobar, Adeiny Hechavarria, Jeff Mathis, Anthony DeSclafani, Justin Nicolino, and Jake Marisnick traded to Miami for Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, Mark Buehrle, Emilio Bonifacio and John Buck.

Free agent Melky Cabrera signs.

November 20: Blue Jays name John Gibbons manager.

It’s been quite a month. (see the full list)

Bob Elliott of the Toronto Sun published a blow-by-blow account of the blockbuster trade with Miami, going all the way back to talks in July after three starting pitchers went down; it’s absolutely riveting, and should be required reading.

Gibbons’ hiring—well, we’ve got quite the running game with this new lineup, and Gibbons has less of a penchant for bunts and playing for one run than Farrell did, so we’re already making improvements. I like it a lot.

I actually refrained from writing about any of this because what can you even add? The Marlins trade still doesn’t even seem real. The Blue Jays’ first four hitters in the last game of the season were Rajai Davis, Adeiny Hechavarria, Brett Lawrie, and Adam Lind. If the projected lineups hold, they’ll open the season with Jose Reyes, Melky Cabrera, Jose Bautista, and Edwin Encarnacion.

I can’t even believe it.