Skydome

From Ballpark Roadtrip

Skydome

Toronto, ON Canada

Montreal Expos @ Toronto Blue Jays

July 7, 2001

Contents 1 The Road Trip 2 The Park 3 The Game 4 Next Stop: Detroit!

The Road Trip

We spent Friday night at our hotel room in Cleveland and planned for a fairly early start with about a 5 hour ride up to Toronto, eh? The game was suppossed to be at 7:00PM but after remembering what happened with the last Saturday game we figured we wouldn't know for sure until we got there so we wanted get there fairly early. When we came back on Friday night we turned on SportsCenter in our room and were amazed at the clip we would see of Izza Alcantara from the Red Sox minor league team. Click here for the video (1.6MB AVI) We had breakfast at the hotel Saturday morning and watched this video a half dozen more times on the wide screen TV they had there, we just couldn't get enough and neither could the TV sports news shows. We headed out for our journey tothe great white north. Since Dauber

had never been to Niagara Falls we decided to stop and take some photos from the Canadian. There is very little on the U.S. side of the falls, some parks, rest rooms, vending machines, and not much more. Once you cross the border you're thrust into some sort of cheezy bizarro Vegas/Orlando. Neon signs, wax museums, restaurants, T-shirt shops and other rinky dink tourist traps litter the streets. While Candians would love to believe that it's the more pictoresque view of the falls which is the lure but it's probably really, lower drinking age, legal gambling, weak Canadian dollar and ease of getting a visa to Canada that seal the deal for tourists.

We drove on through Niagara along the major highway called QEW, Queen Elizabeth Way; God save the queen! Not far north of Niagara you come into view of the city of Toronto; it's about 20 miles away but the problem is: Lake Ontario is in your way so it's really about a 50 mile drive around the lake. We arrived in Toronto and didn't really have directions to the hotel. We could see Skydome and the CN Tower from far away so we just headed there. We drove around lost for a while and got to our hotel early enough to find out that the game was really at 4:00 PM yet we still had plenty of time to get there. We caught the subway outside our hotel and had a 10 minute ride to Skydome.

The Park

It was an overcast and rainy day so we would get to experience the domed Skydome, we saw this to be a stroke of luck as our only rainy day for any ballgame so far, was on a "dome day". We'll have to keep track of all the retractable domes we visit and which we see open and closed. We were a little disappointed that we didn't make it inside for the national anthem because this is a rare experience in baseball where assumedly the Star Spangled Banner would not be played because there were 2 Canadian teams playing each other. We look forward to as many anomalies in our trips as possible. We made it inside the stadium through a series of malls, tunnels, subway stations, train terminals, and other indoor passages which made it a bit confusing but we'd eventually find our way. We went to the club level and were able to all sit together right behind home plate since the corwd was sparse. The club level has some dining facilities and bar areas where you can sit and watch the game, or you can just go to your seats which we did.

One cool thing about Skydome is the actual scoreboard video screen which must be the largest of all the stadiums, it has a widescreen aspect ratio which makes for some cool replay action. There is a hotel and Hard Rock Cafe in the outfield with stadium views from rooms and the restaurant. The food at the stadium is nothing special but adequate - nachos seem to be the big thing here. There is just something about Canada and baseball that presents a generally apathetic atmosphere at Skydome. The crowd is weak and they even have lame heckling lines. Metrodome was a much better "dome baseball" experience because of the ambiance. Skydome does have a cool location as Toronto boasts diverse activities and Skydome is in a great location, being able to arrive by subway is a big plus. Now for the next big lame aspect of the Blue Jays organozation: Dauber, of course, goes to get a program and comes back with some booklet with Vlad Guerrero on the cover. We were dumbfounded and disgusted that what he was holding was a Toronto Blue Jays praogram! First, they have a Yankee on their season tickets (but at least he WAS a Blue Jay), then they put a rival player on the cover of the program (who was NEVER a Blue Jay). I wonder what Toronto fans think of this. If you are a Jays fan, please let us know!

The Game

Skydome would prove to be one of our better games and lead to a debate on our streak of seeing 2 consecutive games with a Home Run. Each stadium seems to have some sort of kiosk getting people to sign up for credit cards and giving away a free trinket of the home team if you fill out the application. We suddenly realized how much free junk we had missed out on at all of the stadiums we are visiting. Lumpy decided to test the waters and see how legit you have to be to get the free stuff; it certainly couldn't be as easy as just giving a phony name to get the jerky prize. It turns out you need to show some sort of I.D. so Lumpy gave them his old, expired Florida Tech (college) student I.D. card. No problem! So Lumpy gave the T-Shirt to his girlfriend gift and couldn't bear to break the news to her that it was a freebie.

The food in the stadium was decent but of particular interest was the "secret sauce" listed on the menu at "Mr. Sub" (creative Canadians). We evaluated our fields: Mike=mechanical engineer, Dauber & Cooter=architects, Lumpy=genetic researcher. Clearly Lumpy had the skillset most applicable to deciphering the secret sauce. His verdict...italian dressing.

We were again treated to a great game but a controversy would brew. Rookie Caesar Izturis with the Blue Jays would come to bat in the 6th and hit a liner into left field. Mark Smith comes changing in, makes an attempt at a catch but the ball bounces off him and darts into center field past Bergeron who was charging over toward left field. The ball would roll back to the wall and that was all she wrote, in the park homer! Click here for the video (1.3MB AVI)The first time any of us had seen one live! So now the debate began, "Does this qualify as home run to say that we've been lucky to see one in each game?" Certainly we when we think of the thrill of seeing a home run, a "blast", a "bomb" a "round tripper", this mayhem is not what comes to mind. Fortunately, Lee Stevens launched one in the 8th to settle this one.

Koch would come on in the ninth to close out a three run lead. He put 2 on with 2 out and by this time we were really laying into him, it's great to heckle a struggling closer. Some of the Toronto fans were trying to follow our lead but were just saying stupid stuff, that's OK, they have the right idea and when we publish our Ballpark Roadtrip Heckling for Dummie's book, they'll be able to follow along with some great lines. Vidro would step in as the potential last batter, knock one into the stands and send this one into extra innings. At this point, we could care less about the outcome as this was a very fun game - in-the-park home run topped off with a blown save. Toronto would end up prevailing in the 11th but the crowd seemed more enthused that they were 1 day closer to the begining of hockey season.

Pros: Domed stadium cooperates with lousy Toronto weather, US dollar goes a long way, easy to get a good ticket, Astroturff makes in-the-park home runs more likely, retractable roof prevents you from being pooped on by a blue jay in the rain, Toronto is a cool town, casino gambling is legal somewhere nearby, Blue Jays better than the Expos

Cons: Fans don't know how to heckle, have to listen to O' Canada (just kidding!), Budweiser is an import and Molson is everywhere, Montreal has better strip bars

Next Stop: Detroit!