Blue Jays vs. Dodgers June 19th

The Rodgers Center, for all the technological achievements of being one the first retractable roof stadiums as well as a respectable arena despite the fact that it houses a Canadian Football League Team (Go Argos!) as well, has one major glaring flaw. It doesn’t take plastic. I’m pretty sure even the friendly women on the street corners in most cities nowadays will take credit cards—and keep a detailed phone list if they are in D.C. This lack of accepting fake money is doubly troublesome when you learn that they also only take Canadian Dollars, or Dollars Jr. as I call them. Thank the good American Lord that I had already gotten a hotdog beforehand and wasn’t particularly thirsty, or else the wrath of the Southern Gods would have been unleashed upon them a righteous vengeance unseen on Canadian Soil since the French and Indian wars left the still lingering scars of fully armed mechanized combat upon the countryside.

While soaking up the games I’ve enjoyed in the past, one of the lights shined onto my life is the realization that when I grow older and have a son or daughter, that I will legitimately claim (no bastards getting a cent from me), I am genuinely looking forward to taking them to baseball games. It is funny that the “slowest” game is the best to take kids to, since the spurts of action last as long as their gnat-esque attention spans. Toronto, however, provided an eerie example of what can occur when a large group of urchins concentrate their high pitched powers on continuous cheering during a game that invokes raucous cheers as often as a spirited badminton match. Sprinkling random futbol cheers (Olè, olè olè olé! Oooolè, oooolÈ!) alongside their dueling “Nomar” chants, fifteen kids sitting in the upper grandstand out shouted the entirety of the Rodgers Center Toronto BlueJays home fan base, and nearly deafened yours truly sitting in front of them. Lucky for them that Ontario had already flexed its policing muscles with me at the border, otherwise I might have taken to beating the little wonkers back into the womb. Or asking them politely to be quiet. As it was I just left and went to one of the fifty thousand other seats unoccupied at the game, watched Toronto parade out the entire bullpen to try and stop the beating occurring, admired the extremely large scoreboard, and then went merrily back to the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave (America). Little did I know that I had a stop with heaven along the way...