Dig Those Pajamas

Much to report, as real life, so-called, pulled me away from last night's game and prevented commentary. I know only about that game as much as the pithy highlights on Canada's two major sports networks would allow. Apparently, there were ice hockey matches with serious consequences related to the major hockey league's upcoming championship tournament; that meant little time for baseball news.

As for today, well, this has been a uniquely satisfying day to be a Blue Jays fan.

Rios locked up longterm. We knew that. But the rare second prize in our Crackerjack was learning that Aaron Hill has signed on for the long haul, too. And both sides were being so cagey, all like, "We're not talking about it anymore until the season is over." Devious cats.


And then there was the home opener. I note the unusual quiet on the other Jays blogs tonight; I assume this is because every Jays blogger but me was at SkyDome (shut up - tonight it was the SkyDome again). Well, the televised images made it look like a hell of a party.

The Roberto Alomar/Paul Beeston ceremony was a righteous thing. All spitting incidents forgotten, Robbie. About time he was elevated to the "Level of Excellence." It was actually a nice moment, later on, when he joined Campbell and Tabler in the broadcast booth, and Tabby had a chance to lavish praise on Alomar. He seemed genuinely moved.

Then the powder blues came out, and you know, I was prepared to write them off. I thought that with the way modern players wear their unis (baggy and low, bunching up over their hightops), they'd look silly. And I was right in the sense that nobody had the stones to wear the new suit a little bit tight, like they used to. After all, this whole thing is just a way to move some merchandise, right? But you know what? They looked pretty damn good. And if you squinted - what with the stands full of seemingly interested fans - you might have actually convinced yourself that it was, like, 1989, or something, and people showed up not just because they loved their Jays, but because the retractable roof was the single most advanced scientific development the world had ever produced. And yes, shut up, I know they stopped wearing the powder blues in '88, but for the stadium timeline thing to work there, I had to fudge it a bit. Besides, memory is a hazy and sentimental thing.

It was a lovefest through and through. It was PR and spin and hokum, but it was nice to succumb to it, truth be told. It was a treat to suspend disbelief and allow the Blue Jays' marketing department to mash all the good feelings we've ever had about Our Team into one gooey powder blue ball of goodwill, and to smear that all over this year's model so as to convince us that these new guys exist on the same continuum as all your heroes. They don't, of course, but who cares? Being a fan means accepting a certain degree of manipulation. And tonight, it felt good to be manipulated, goddamnit.

And the team held up their end. Marcum was gold until, well, you know. The Canadian guy broke the scoreless tie. Hurt finally got a meaningful hit.

I'd like to break it all down a bit more incisively, but I'm a bit buzzed by all that Blue Jay love, frankly. Maybe later I'll regain my critical faculties. Maybe not. Right now it just feels amazing to be a Jays fan.

Voice of a Nation

An outpouring of emotion from the Jays blogging community concerning Tom Cheek’s having been passed over for the Ford C. Frick Award in favour of Seattle’s Dave Niehaus. I can’t say that Niehaus isn’t deserving; I suspect he means as much to Mariners fans as Cheek did (and still does) to Jays fans. All I know for certain is the wave of nostalgia I’ve experienced while reading all those heartfelt reminiscences of Cheek’s work.

What comes most immediately to mind is those years when the Blue Jays were Canada’s team in a way that they haven’t been since, and likely never will be again. Beginning in about 1989, with the opening of SkyDome, the team was big news. And when they charged into the World Series in 1992, they were the topic on everyone’s lips. The pastor at my family’s church spoke about them on a weekly basis; family friends who had never shown an interest suddenly engaged me in conversation about the Jays; blue caps sprouted in the schoolyard like mushrooms. I was too young and unsophisticated a fan to resent all those late on the bandwagon; I was just happy for the collective rejoicing I felt taking place around me. Newscasts led with the team’s progress through the playoffs, the players’ names became as familiar as family. And Cheek brought it all to us.

It was still a radio age, in a sense. AM stations from coast to coast picked up Jays broadcasts, and Ottawa was no different. I had a crappy old clock radio next to my bed, and most nights during the summer I’d go to bed listening to a game. Often as not I’d wake up in the middle of the night, the game long over, and the station softly playing tinny oldies. In a way, I like to think that Cheek’s calls made their way into my dreams. It was certainly his voice I heard when I’d put on my cap and glove and practice diving catches by jumping onto my bed.

But back to that period – I’d put it between ’89 and the strike in ’94 – when the Blue Jays were the thing a whole country could get behind. I watched World Series games with friends who never gave a damn about baseball, and I saw the genuine excitement on their faces. I remember walking the streets of my suburban childhood neighbourhood after game 6 in Atlanta, a couple of friends and I, imploring motorists to honk their horns, and finding them surprisingly willing. I remember “Touch ‘em all, Joe!” (though I must have heard that call after the fact, since I – like everyone else north of 49 – was watching that game 6 on TV). The Blue Jays were everywhere then, a soft spot in a nation’s collective heart, an entity warmly regarded and largely beyond reproach. The sport grew – minor league teams north of the border flourished, participation in the sport rose. There was a marked lack of cynicism about sports in general then (at least compared to now), and the Jays reflected a rampant optimism at large in the world. They were world-beaters, a scrappy unit with a purpose and a voice – Cheek’s – and they were impossible not to love.

But that was then. Athletes aren’t heroes anymore, not the way they used to be. They breed suspicion and doubt, not hope and inspiration. Teams are cash cows, owners are corrupt, and we seem to have accepted the role of sport as entertainment, not as grand expression of civic or national aspiration. Canadians are more and more ambivalent toward baseball now, maybe because of labour strife, maybe because of steroids, maybe because we’ve been told ad infinitum that hockey is our game, maybe for some other reason. The Expos are long gone, the last AAA team just left town, and Jays tickets are easy to get. As a baseball fan, it’s all a little hard to take, but just the sound of Tom Cheek’s voice brings me right back to that other time, when it mattered here. It won’t be that way again here, no matter how successful the Blue Jays are; that uniformity of opinion is a thing of that past, of a time embodied for me by the voice of Tom Cheek.

I think Tom Cheek belongs in the Hall of Fame for all the right reasons – longevity, the quality of his work, his connection to the fans – but in the end it won’t matter if he’s enshrined or not, because he’s permanently etched into my mind and the minds of millions of Canadians, and he always will be. Baseball, maybe more than any other game, is a game of memory. Cheek's voice charges right to all those incredible memories, it disarms me and makes me a kid again. That’s a gift that doesn’t require institutional recognition, just a hell of a lot of gratitude.