Baseball North of the Border

On a recent visit to Canada to visit family, my husband and I planned our trip so we could catch a ball game at Rogers Centre in Toronto.  This would be ball park number 6 in our quest to visit every Major League baseball park (we only have 24 more to go - no biggie!), and it was a great visit.

The ball park itself was kind of "eh," but the experience was a good one overall.  While I'm not a fan of artificial turf, the Centre's retractable roof was something I'd never seen in person before, and that made it interesting (my husband the engineer kept trying to figure out how the whole thing worked).  I'm glad the weather was nice enough to leave the roof open, because I'm not sure I would enjoy an indoor baseball game (I know; I need to prepare myself for Miami and Milwaukee).  It was a bit chilly for us southerners, but the crowd was lively and extremely well-behaved (it's Canada, after all).

The first noteworthy tidbit is that every single Canadian in that ball park knew the words to their National Anthem.  Everyone sang along while "O Canada" was played, and unlike our hard-to-sing song about bombs bursting in air, the Canadian anthem talks about love and God and pride.  Yes, God was mentioned 5 times in the song, and no one complained about it.  No offense to Francis Scott Key, but not all of us can reach the high notes like Whitney Houston, so even if we knew all the words, 35,000 fans singing the "Star-Spangled Banner" would not sound as good as the same amount of Canadians singing their song.  There was also no "pomp" like at Nationals Park - no presenting of the colors and no football-field-size flag undulating in the outfield.  I was totally OK with that.

Also interesting was the person who threw out the ceremonial first pitch.  It wasn't a season-ticket-holder, war veteran, or big corporate sponsor - it was a man who performed CPR on a stranger and saved the person's life.  Now that to me is a true hero, and he was very worthy of throwing out a first pitch and so much more. 

The game itself was very exciting.  It's always nice when the home team is winning, so the Blue Jays' 10-3 victory over the Oakland A's was a definite plus to my ballpark experience.  Former Cy Young winner R.A. Dickey pitched for the Jays, Chris Colabello and Justin Smoak hit homers for the home team, and the victory put the Jays in first place above the Yankees. 

What were my least-favorite things about the Rogers Centre?  Well it's another one of those parks that was shoehorned into a bustling city with big buildings around it, so it made the concourse area very dark (though not as cramped as Oriole Park).  The epoxy coating on the floor made it seem almost airport-like, though it was very clean (the whole city of Toronto was spotless, actually).  The concession vendors that go up and down the seating area were way too quiet - they were all like "Would anyone like a cold beverage?" as opposed to the "ICE COLD BEEAH HEAH!" guys I'm used to.   The grilled prosciutto and provolone sandwich I had was very good, but the food selection wasn't as extensive as in other ball parks (not sure if they had a gluten-free or vegan stand, like at other parks).

And oh my gosh, those Canadians do NOT swear or use cuss words of any kind!  When you leave a ball game in the US, regardless of whether your team has won or not, you always hear four-letter words being used - not in anger or anything; they're just part of people's conversation ("That was @#$% awesome!" or "The umpire $%!#% sucked!").  After the Jays won and took sole possession of first place in the AL East, everyone was happy and cheerful and said "Let's go get a drink" without placing any bad-word adjectives in front of the word "drink."

Overall, our visit to the Rogers Centre was one of the things that made our trip a very nice one.  As if the movie "Argo" wasn't enough to make me want to hug a Canadian, this trip reinforced my belief that Canadians are super-nice people and Toronto is a very nice place to visit.  In August.

Meet the A's New Righty, er, Lefty

May was a crazy month in our house.  3 of the 4 people who live here had birthdays within 9 days of each other, life revolved around track meets and baseball games (until my son broke his foot, putting an early end to his season), and a trip to Nationals Park on Mother's Day was thrown in there as well.  I've also been busy with a new writing project, but just like those ants that invade your kitchen every spring, I always keep coming back.  This blog is very dear to me, and I am never going away (sorry, folks, you just can't get rid of Mudville Mom!).

It's been an interesting baseball season so far - Bryce Harper is living up to his hype and leading the Majors with 18 home runs (along with Nelson Cruz and Giancarlo Stanton); the Orioles' Matt Wieters came back after a one-year recovery from Tommy John surgery (it's not just pitchers who get that done!); and Alex Rodriguez passed Barry Bonds in the all-time RBI list.  As much as I dislike A-Rod (and you should all know that by now!), I hope he realizes that he can be just as good a player without performance-enhancing drugs.  Same for Nelson Cruz - without the PEDs he's still hitting home runs, so let that be a lesson to you all:  You can be pretty good without PEDs.

OK, so what about this pitcher that the Oakland A's just called up from the minors?  Well, Pat Venditte is a switch-pitcher, something that Major League Baseball hasn't seen in 20 years.  In his first big-league game, he entered the game in the eighth inning against the Boston Red Sox.  He started throwing warm-up pitches with his right hand, then he switched to his left to face a lefty batter who grounded out.  Then Venditte pitched right-handed to the next two batters, one who got a single (Hanley Ramirez) and the other who hit into a double play (Mike Napoli).

Because switch-pitching is such an oddity, the "Venditte Rule" had to be implemented (hopefully the guy will be known for more than just a rule with his name on it - kind of like poor Tommy John, who had a decent pitching career but is mostly known for his surgery.  And don't even mention Lou Gehrig, one of the greatest Yankees ever who had to have ALS named after him after he died from it way before people started foolishly pouring buckets of ice water on themselves for charity).  Anyway, the "Venditte Rule" states that before each at-bat, the pitcher tells the umpire, batter, and baserunners what hand he will throw with for that batter.  If the player at the plate switch hits, he is free to hit from either side.  The pitcher cannot throw with the other arm in the same at-bat.

So we'll have to see how good Venditte ends up being and if he tends to favor one arm over the other.  One positive note is that if he injures one arm, he still has the other one that he can use (Remember Jim Abbott, the one-handed pitcher back in the 90s who went from college ball straight to the Majors after pitching in the 1988 olympics?  It can be done!).  Let's keep an eye on Pat Venditte and see how he does - I definitely find this guy interesting.

In other baseball news, the All-Star voting is well under way.  I plan to submit my ballot as soon as school is over, when I can sit down and analyze all the players without any work-related interruptions.  I usually vote earlier in the season, and then someone I voted for ends up in a slump or with an injury, so I'm going to wait a little this year.  I know that the Giants' Buster Posey and the Cardinals' Yadier Molina are in a dead heat for the starting catcher position, and I'm not sure if I'll go strictly Puerto Rican on that one or if I will give my sentimental vote to cutie-patootie Posey.  I also have to decide if I should vote for Bryce Harper because he's having a great season, or give my vote to Nick Markakis of the Braves, because he's not an ass like Harper is (and my step-daughter took care of Markakis's dog when she worked in an animal emergency room).  Luckily we get three votes for the outfield, so I may vote for both.

So until I cast my vote in a couple of weeks, enjoy the nice weather (it finally stopped raining here in the mid-Atlantic), catch some games on TV or in person, and feel free to go to www.mlb.com and cast your own vote for this year's All-Stars.   Maybe next year we'll see Pat Venditte on the All-Star team.

Are They Baseball Players, or Cows?

When I finished graduate school, I was determined to go on to law school with hopes of becoming a sports agent.  Jerry Maguire was going to have nothin’ on me – I was going to represent high-profile athletes and I was going to negotiate contracts that were worth millions of dollars, including the contract of my millionaire baseball player husband.  Well, things didn’t quite go that way – I was burned out from so much studying, and at the age of 24 I was in a hurry to be a grown-up, so instead of going to law school I bought a house.

I don’t believe in regrets, so I am perfectly happy with my engineer husband, two great kids, a crazy dog, and a little house in the heart of a great city.  When I stop to think about what my life would have been like as a big-time high-powered sports agent, I conclude that I would have been miserable.  Rich, but miserable.  It is the sports agents (and the team owners and General Managers) who make the business of professional baseball such a turn-off for so many fans like me.  When you ask a baseball fan why they like the game, they might mention the excitement of visiting a ballpark to catch a game between two rival teams; following a young player’s career from the minors through retirement; the thrill of a well-executed double play or a nasty fastball.  No one says “I like baseball because I enjoy watching overpaid athletes being traded around like cattle at an auction” or “I just love when my favorite player is traded to another team and I can no longer watch him day in and day out on local broadcasts.”  And surely no one says “I love baseball because the players give it their all despite being underpaid.”  Baseball is a business, and its rich players are the chess pieces that get wheeled and dealt no matter what the price or the team loyalty (or lack thereof).

One of the toughest things for me as a fan has been trying to explain the business of baseball to my ten-year-old son, who fervently follows the Washington Nationals and feels like he knows the players like if they were close relatives.  When I told him last week that reliever Tyler Clippard was traded to the Oakland A’s for Yunel Escobar, he was heartbroken.  “The Nationals don’t need another shortstop!” he said (Escobar is being moved to second base, which he hasn’t regularly played).  And when the Nationals signed free agent pitcher Max Scherzer for a gazillion dollars earlier this week, he said “That makes six starting pitchers!”  I had to explain to him that both Doug Fister and Jordan Zimmermann would become free agents at the end of the 2015 season, and if they were going to sign with other teams after this season anyway, they might as well get traded so the Nationals could get some players in return.  He was not happy.  Why would they get rid of last year’s best starter – the guy who pitched a no-hitter on the last game of the season (Zimmermann)?  No idea.  Why would they get rid of such an excellent-fielding and consistent pitcher (Fister)?  I wish I knew.  But now my son thinks that the Nationals’ General Manager, Mike Rizzo, is a heartless Grinch who doesn’t care about the fans.  Well, that’s what the business of baseball is all about, son; no one said it was pretty and happy and full of Koom Bah Yah.

I, the practical one, always think about the effects of a trade on a player’s family.  Do they pack up and move to a new city, or do they stay put in their off-season home?  And it’s not just the wife and kids who are impacted – when the Nationals announced the Clippard trade on Facebook, Tyler’s grandmother posted her appreciation to the Washington fans and said “I guess I’ll have to get used to green and gold!”  I Facebook-stalked her (that’s what she gets for not making her profile private!) and her wall is filled with pictures of different family members decked out in red, white, and blue Nationals garb at different games throughout the past few years.  They all looked so happy watching and supporting Tyler – now they have to send their patriotic-colored fan wear to Goodwill and buy all new jerseys and foam fingers.  That’s a pain.  And unless you live in San Francisco, Oakland is not exactly close to anything, so I don’t know how often Grandma Clippard will be able to watch her grandson pitch.

On the bright side, Spring Training is less than a month away.  I know; hard to believe, right?  Plus we still have the Super Bowl to look forward to as well as March Madness (this year I will be filling out my brackets based solely on school mascots).  And my husband and I are going to this year’s annual meeting of our local SABR chapter (Society for American Baseball Research) in Alexandria, Virginia, so that should be interesting.   Hang in there with me, friends; opening day will be here before we know it!