2009 Blue Jays Home Opener

I may make attending Blue Jay season openers an annual tradition. The tickets are relatively inexpensive, the crowd is fun, and something interesting tends to happen. Last year's opener versus the Red Sox was wrought with bleacher melees and semi-nude streakers. Did Boston bring their over-testosteroned fans, or are Jays fans just as insane? I was able to find out as I compared and contrasted the '08 opener with the '09 opener when Toronto hosted Detroit and their more sedate supporters.

The Tigers line-up. In lights!

Last year I arrived at the game early enough to witness the pre-game ceremonies. It featured Roberto Alomar and a couple other names from the days of yore. Names were added to the "Level of Excellence" and everybody showered everybody else with polite applause. Unfortunately I missed all of that this year as work and bad traffic prevented me from getting to the Rogers Centre until about 15 minutes before the first pitch. I suppose that's good timing if I wasn't interested in sitting through all the pomp, but it would have been interesting to see if Kelly Gruber or whoever was left from the 92/93 Jays would make an appearance and a speech.

Whatever. I was there to watch baseball anyway.

I was optimistic for the Jays success that night because Roy Halladay was pitching. Halladay (whose real name is Harry Leroy, I just learned) won 20 games for the sub-par Blue Jays last season and came in second for the Cy Young Award. Everybody was confident that Doc would shut things down.

Justin Verlander, who historically has not fared well during the month of April, started the game for Detroit.

The Rogers Centre center-field

Halladay was solid, not allowing a hit until the 4th inning. For Verlander, though, it was a different story.

Verlander got two quick outs in the 1st inning, then allowed a walk, then a double, then a single (coupled with an E9), then hit a batsman, then another double. Four Toronto runs would score that inning, but they weren't through yet.

The Tigers scratched back with a Curtis Granderson solo home run in the top of the 4th, but Travis Snider of the Blue Jays (who will be a Rookie of the Year contender this season) responded with a solo shot of his own. Marco Scutaro immediately tripled and scored on a sacrifice fly. After Verlander allowed a double and a walk he was pulled for reliever Eddie Bonine. It didn't help as Adam Lind hit a three-run homer to center-field.

At this point the Jays were winning 9-1. Halladay was cruising until the 7th inning when, inexplicably, he fell apart. Carlos Guillen hit an RBI double. Gerald Laird followed that up with an RBI single. Brandon Inge followed that up with a two-run homer. Four quick runs, and Halladay was noticeably agitated. Halladay finished the inning, but probably because nobody had even been throwing in the bullpen until that point.

Over 48,000 in attendance

In the meantime alcohol was taking effect in the 500s. The 500 level is the upper tier of the dome. It's the cheapies, and it's taken on the reputation recently of being party seats. Don't get me wrong, it's a lot of fun up there. There's a lot of good-natured ribbing, a lot of odd goofiness. I just wouldn't ever take children up there during a busy night. Opening night is a busy night x10.

At first there were just a couple paper airplanes, but then the paper airplane phenomenon caught on throughout the rest of the stadium, and eventually everybody was trying to see if their plane could coast all the way to the field. This wasn't initially a big problem because it's hard to glide a drunkenly made paper airplane one-or-two hundred feet.

There was also a lot of Tiger baiting. There were some heated arguments and some spilt/sloshed/tossed beer, but I didn't see any fists fly.

More and more planes were making it onto the playing field, and finally, in the bottom of the 8th, two baseballs were thrown at (or near) left-fielder Josh Anderson. Somebody also chucked a golf ball or two (who brings golf balls to a baseball game anyway?... unless it was one of those expensive souvenir balls, in which case the ball tosser was stupider than I thought). Tiger manager Jim Leyland called his players off the field and we all sat for eight minutes while security took the field. No announcement was made. More planes hit the field and the crowd applauded. No announcement. The umpires and managers conferred near home plate. No announcement. Finally the crew chief pointed at the PA booth, and finally an announcement was made to please refrain from negatively interfering with the game by tossing foreign objects onto the playing surface thank you. Bang, players back on the field, game resumed. They could have made the announcement ten minutes prior, but maybe they were waiting for a super special moment. Maybe the PA guy was just taking a leak.

The empty field with five or six security personnel keeping watch

ANYWAY, just before Leyland hit the pause button, the Jays had tacked on three more runs. The Tigers couldn't do anything in the ninth inning as Brian Tallet and his '80s 'stache (saving up for the throwback nights, I'm sure) induced the final three outs.

Afterward a lot was made of the delay of game. Nobody should have thrown baseballs or golf balls or anything onto the field. It is dangerous, rude, and annoys thousands of people. On the other hand, nothing was being done to prevent it. Security was useless, and an announcement to please stop was made only after the umpire told somebody to make the dang announcement. Usually that sort of thing is done when it become evident that people are trying to hit the field/players with whatever objects they have on them. And an announcement may have been all that Jim Leyland wanted anyway as he allowed his players to return to the field immediately after one was made.

It was a distraction, and it is too bad because the Jays crushed the Tigers by a final score of 12-5. When I mention the game to people all they ask about is the delay. They don't ask how Halladay looked, or about Snider's good game (2 for 4 with a home run and a double) or about Lind's great game (4 for 5 with six RBIs and seven total bases).

Umpires conferring.

And as far as whether or not Jays fans create all the trouble... oh yeah, it is definitely us. Boston fans and Yankee fans may contribute when they are in town, and Detroit has a fairly strong base in Southern Ontario, but it was definitely the homies goading the out-of-townies, and it was the homies who got liquored up and didn't know when to stop. It is okay to an extent. I'd rather have a rabid (literally, even) fan base than an uncaring and silent one. And again, the stadium's personnel did little to quell the disruption. But there are lines, and you may toe them, but know when you've crossed them.

By the way, no alcohol was served at the dome the following day. For incidents unrelated to opening day, the Alcohol and Gaming Comission of Ontario suspended the Rogers Centre from serving beer on three particular dates: April 7th, April 21st, and a Toronto Argos CFL game on August 1st. Canadians love to abuse alcohol, I guess.

Regardless, I had a lot of fun at the home opener and am happy that another baseball season has finally arrived. I also look forward to the other eventful/eventless games I'll see at the Rogers Centre this year.

Speaking of the season, that Brandon Inge homer was the first of three consecutive homer-hitting games. Game number four is in progress. We'll see if he finishes the year with 162 dingers this year.

The Blue Jays Home Opener

Friday the 4th me 'n' the missus attended the Blue Jays home opener in Toronto. The Red Sox were in town and with them came all their boisterous fans. 50,000 total in attendance, division rivals meeting, and the excitement of a new season... this probably wasn't going to be a mellowed out game of baseball.

(Click any of these images for a larger view)

It was cold, windy, gray, and awful outside. Just this once I was thankful for domed baseball.

Great view from the 500-level nosebleeds. Yes, we were higher than the foul poles. Every Blue Jays fan, by the way, received a free white rag with the Blue Jays logo on them. They're like the Twins' hankies, but you can dry dishes with them.

We arrived early enough to beat the crowd and catch some Red Sox batting practice, but soon all of these seats would be filled.

Here is Roberto Alomar, with the lights out, saying some stuff on the jumbotron.
During the opening ceremonies they unveiled Alomar's name on the Level of Excellence. Even though Alomar only spent five of his seventeen seasons in a Jay uniform they were all all-star seasons. He also helped the Blue Jays win two titles, and should he be elected to the Hall of Fame he's expressed his desire to wear their uniform.

Fireworks are neat and all, but man, they really fog the place up.

After Alomar threw out the first pitch it was game time. The Jays took the field in their vintage powder blue unis, and the Red Sox were met with lusty boos. For the first few innings Jays pitcher Shaun Marcum kept the Sox from accomplishing anything productive. He only allowed one hit through six. Boston knuckler Tim Wakefield, though allowing more baserunners, was equally as hard to score off of. He kept the Jays shutout until Matt Stairs homered to lead off the bottom of the sixth. From our seats we were unable see the ball go over the right field wall and couldn't know what was happening until the stadium's boat horn signalled the home run.

From that point on the runs came pouring in. Toronto scored two more that inning, but then JD Drew hit a three-run shot in the top of the seventh to tie the game. The Jays came right back and permanently took the lead with a 2-RBI double by Frank Thomas. David Eckstein knocked in another run in the eighth inning, and the Blue Jays defeated the Red Sox 6-3.

As an added bonus, Marcum's eight strikeouts ensured that every ticket holder would receive a free slice of pizza. Hooray for food promotions.

The Ortiz shift, seen above.
Wife: The rightfielder is playing really shallow.
Me: That's the second baseman.
Wife: Oh. The second baseman is playing really deep.
The rightfielder himself was fielding his position so deep that he was beyond our line of sight. The shift worked as Ortiz grounded out twice.

Meanwhile there was a good bit of mayhem in the 500 level. Every Sox fan was mercilessly picked on and fistfights were inevitable. We saw a fellow a few sections over take a header down the stairs and somebody else ended up at the receiving end of a series of haymaker blows. Pow, pow, pow -- haymade.

Fan participation culminated with two shirtless fools (one male, one female with a skin-colored bra [who obviously took streaking lessons from George Costanza]) running across the field. The woman only made it to the foul line (much to the amusement of Manny Ramirez, who was standing on first base just a few feet away). The guy got all the way out to centerfield before getting levelled by security. He ended up with a nasty turf burn across his chest.
Pwned, or FAIL, or something.
And while I would never condone pseudo-streaking or unwarrented jaunts across a baseball field, it's still terribly entertaining. Here's somebody else's Youtube video of the event.


Everybody, except for those who got punched in the face and certain members of security, had a great time (though my wife said that this was the most amoral game she had ever been to). The atmosphere was electric, the Blue Jays won, the Red Sox lost, and great baseball was played. Hopefully the Jays will make it all the way to the playoffs this season. Regardless of whether or not they do, I'll definitely try and make it to next year's opener.