Viewing: weather - View all posts

Play Ball! 

Well, not here, not yet. But soon enough: opening day is March 28. Anyway, down in Florida and Arizona, all 30 MLB teams are playing ball in what's rather oddly called spring training. I say that because the first game took place on February 21. That's winter on any calendar, no? Regardless, I relish the arrival of spring training every year because it signifies the beginning of the end of winter.

Now, up here in Toronto, we've had more snow than we know what to do with, it's bitterly cold, and winter can hang around till mid-April. That's why I said beginning of the end. But the mere fact that baseball, that quintessential summertime sport, is being played somewhere means Old Man Blizzard and his good buddies Ice Storm and Wind Chill are on their way out. Good riddance, I say.

Baseball and radio go together like peanut butter and jam, and every year at this time I celebrate the return of my favourite broadcast teams: Jon Miller and Duane Kuiper (Giants); Dan Dickerson and Jim Price (Tigers); Ed Farmer and Darrin Jackson (White Sox). As for the hometown Blue Jays crew, I miss Tom Cheek and Jerry Howarth, but Ben Wagner and Mike Wilner do a decent job and their chemistry is good.

One pet peeve, and this is not confined to Blue Jay broadcasts, is the incessant use of player-specific adjectives. Examples:

  • "Three outs, all on fly balls. Now, that's an un-Marcus-Stroman-like inning."
  • "He just flailed at it. What an un-Miguel-Cabrera-like swing that was!"
  • "He's already issued five walks, which is so un-Sam-Gaviglio-like."

I've never understood this. Why invent new words when you've got old ones that work fine? It's as though they feel they must conjure up fresh adjectives for each player, because of course un-Marcus-Stroman-like is completely different than un-Sam-Gaviglio-like.

Newsflash, boys: there's an elegant, simple word that encompasses un-Marcus-Stroman-like, un-Miguel-Cabrera-like, un-Sam-Gaviglio-like and un-Insert-Player-Here-like. That word is "uncharacteristic." If it seems unwieldy, try "unusual." And you can even use "unlike" sans player name in the middle, like so: "He's already issued five walks, which is so unlike Sam Gaviglio."

I'm happy to report that things are looking up, though. Why, on a broadcast last week Wilner said of some pitcher, "He's just not himself today." Yeah! Beautiful. See? Pithiness is next to godliness.

But whatever your quirks, all you broadcasters out there, I thank you profusely for bringing the old ball game to us season after season, 162 games a year. Baseball is the sound of summer, even in these un-baseball-like frigid temperatures.

Welcome to Siberia 

If this is spring, I want a refund.

Temperatures remain frigid—it's so bad that tomorrow's high of 2° C is below the normal low for this time of year, 4°. This weekend's ice storm was so abominable I stayed inside for two days. I'd hoped to use the downtime to catch up on a few baseball games, but that didn't work out so well. All my favourite teams were snowed out or rained out the whole weekend, including the Blue Jays in Cleveland.

Today came the ultimate indignity. Now that the ice storm had petered out to a steady, cold rain, I thought I'd take in the Jays-Royals game tonight. After all, we're so smart up here in Toronto, prepared as we are for lousy Aprils. Our stadium has a roof. No postponements here. Take that, Cleveland!

Uh ... hold that thought. This afternoon brought chunks of ice flying off the CN Tower, with police cordoning off adjacent walkways near Rogers Centre in the interest of pedestrian safety. But Ma Nature wasn't done with us yet. A fragment of ice struck the stadium roof and tore a hole in it over the right field corner. Further flying debris caused leaks in left field. They've repaired the hole, but evidently enough issues remained with the roof that tonight's game was postponed. They'll play two tomorrow, assuming (1) they can patch up the roof in time; and (2) the ice shards stop flying (given tomorrow's balmy high, they sure as hell won't melt).

MLB is on pace to set a record for April postponements. Pretty much everywhere north of the Mason-Dixon line, it's been resolutely miserable. The White Sox and Twins were set to a play a four-game series in Minneapolis starting Thursday; three of the four were snowed out. As for the games they could get in, such as in Boston (game-time temp: 34° F/1° C) and Chicago (38° F/3° C), players resorted to ski masks, sweaters and hoodies in the futile quest to stay warm. Earlier this week, games in Denver and Minneapolis were played in the 20s Fahrenheit, which is minus single digits Celsius.

I'll give the last word to Kansas City manager Ned Yost, whose team narrowly escaped their own mishap with flying ice on the ride in from Pearson Airport: "If you come to a dome and get banged, something ain't right."

No, it ain't, Ned. Welcome to Siberia.