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Virtual Ballpark Experience 

As COVID restrictions, which I'm in full support of, continue in Ontario, one thing that I really miss is going to baseball games. To compensate, I've devised what I call the virtual ballpark experience. Here's what you need:

  • an interest in baseball (obviously)
  • subscription to MLB TV or MLB Audio (the latter is dirt cheap: US $19.99 for one year)
  • a device with which to watch a game
  • ballpark-esque food of your choice
  • (optional) a scorecard. This is the one I use; you might prefer something more or less elaborate
  • three to four distraction-free hours

If you have MLB TV, you can watch any game, live or archived, subject to blackout restrictions. Those of us on the cheaper plan can access home and away radio broadcasts of any game, including postseason, with no blackouts. Now, you'll note that earlier, I used the word "watch." How do you watch a game if you're limited to radio feeds? Simple. Every day in the regular season, the fine folks at MLB offer a free game of the day that radio listeners can access. And if you find the TV commentary too minimalist, which I often do when I'm scoring, you can overlay the radio feed. Of course, it helps if the free game of the day involves at least one team you care about, enough to cheer for or against them.

I've had some fun with the food aspect. I try to limit myself to food I can buy at my local ballpark, Rogers Centre. So, my dinner of choice is two mustard-drenched Yves veggie dogs, Smartfood Movie Night Butter popcorn (expertly mimics the dry stadium variety), a can of Coke and a bowl of Breyers chocolate ice cream. To really make it authentic, the Coke is served in the commemorative plastic cup ("White Sox, 2005 World Series champions") I got at U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago, where I saw Mark Buehrle's no-hitter in 2007. Over the years I've collected a fair number of those batting-helmet souvenir ice cream cups, and to honour my beloved cat (surely a Tiger fan), I serve the ice cream in a Detroit Tigers mini-helmet. I must admit, I do cheat a bit with the veggie dog toppings—grated old cheddar and diced tomatoes, neither of which are available at the ol' ball yard.

Once the food is ready, it's a matter of munching away, watching the game and filling out your scorecard. I can't think of a better way to spend a few hours. You're as "at" the ballpark as you can be, arguably more comfortable than the fans in the actual seats on a frigid April night at Fenway Park (a game I watched from home a few weeks ago). The only bummer is having to prep the food and do the dishes afterwards. Still, you can pause the game to cook, clean up, use the facilities, whatever, and not miss a single pitch. The MLB TV interface helpfully includes an in-progress box score and play summary, which makes scoring a breeze.

And you know, that old adage remains true: go to a baseball game and you never know what you'll see. The Seattle/Boston tilt I watched had the Mariners winning in extras, scoring 7 runs on 3 hits. The Seattle radio crew informed me that it's only the eighth time since 1901 that a team has scored seven or more runs on three or fewer hits (last time it happened was 1994). Also, I recently had the pleasure of scoring Joe Musgrove's historic no-hitter, the Padres' first (they went 52 years, 1 week or 8,205 games without one).

So, take yourself out to the ballgame! No need to leave your living room. You won't catch a foul ball or home run, but you can do the seventh-inning stretch if you'd like—a nice little wrinkle I'll try to remember for next time.

Life Under Lockdown 

Just a quick update on how I'm coping with the current situation. Overall, I consider myself quite fortunate. As a card-carrying introvert, I'm well equipped to handle social isolation, physical distancing and so on. Like it or not, some version of this has been my reality for years anyway, so it's not been that dramatic an adjustment. I don't miss my full social calendar because I've never had one. I spent huge swaths of time alone before the pandemic, and very little has changed but for the fact that there are no social engagements to turn down.

As far as supporting myself goes, my freelance job, which I've not heretofore perceived as terribly stable, has been rock solid. I work in television broadcasting, and my industry has made the Ontario essential workplaces list, both the original and revised versions. Work has been steady and I've been able to transition quite well to working from home. I was concerned at the prospect of having to upgrade my home computer (i.e., buying a new one), but my only financial outlay was a mouse, full keyboard and wrist rest, which totalled under $40. Again, I'm grateful for my good fortune—which is blind luck, really, when I consider how many people with secure, full-time jobs are glumly sitting at home, hoping the CERB will cover their mortgage and car payments.

Of the adjustments I have had to make, some are rather humorous. I was overdue for a haircut and had booked an appointment just before the big shutdown in mid-March which, in a moment of prescience, my stylist cancelled. I'm not a fan of ponytails, and I abhor man buns. So, between repeated playings of CSNY's "Almost Cut My Hair," I've fashioned a homemade headband out of an old bed sheet. I'll look like a true Woodstock warrior until my next haircut, which will be who knows when. (Hey, Paul Kantner and Jack Casady wore headbands at Woodstock: good enough for me.)

On a more serious note, I had a cycling accident in mid-March. Bad timing. No car was involved; I rode headlong into a curb I did not see and went flying, landing on my face. For a day or two I looked like the Elephant Man, but the cuts on my face healed in short order. More worrisome is the ring finger on my left hand. Five weeks on, it's swollen and slightly bent, though not at all painful. After numerous failed attempts to receive medical attention, I finally got an x-ray this afternoon and am waiting to discuss next steps with my doctor.

Despite this I've managed to devote some time to my old standby, home recording. What better time to lay down some tracks in your home studio, right? Thing is, my finger has made playing any of my stringed instruments difficult. I've devised a couple of alternate-fingering workarounds, and compensated by recording my guitar and bass parts in even more pieces than usual. The finger has slowed me down, but I'm progressing with the cover tunes I set out to record in December. Anyway, I'm now on to mixing the latest, and this one has a lot going on so it'll take a good while. I'm hoping my finger will be back to full strength by the time I'm ready to record the next cover.

What else? Well, we've all had to learn how to video-conference in five minutes or less. My Zoom H1 (handy digital recorder) also works as a USB mic, and it's a significant upgrade over my laptop's built-in model, a pinprick in the front console. I also have a decent USB webcam that provides high-quality visuals. The experiment continues, I guess, as long as COVID-19 keeps spreading. Me, I'm happy to live in a country whose guiding principle is "peace, order and good government." In my estimation our leaders, even those whose political stripes don't jibe with mine, have acted prudently and responsibly. Contrast our prime minister, premiers and mayors with that very stable genius to the south who openly ponders the benefits of shooting Lysol at his press briefings.

Baseball and Slow Travel 

You don't need me to tell you that we suddenly find ourselves living in extraordinary, unprecedented times due to the spread of COVID-19. I've certainly never experienced anything like this, and I've been around a while.

A few weeks back, I was basking in my usual spring ritual: listening to the first baseball games of spring training and eagerly awaiting the regular season, which was due to start on March 26. As of March 13, all spring training activity has ceased and MLB rather optimistically says that opening day will be "delayed." As far as I know, this is the first non-labour suspension of baseball since World War II.

For years now, I've been hoping to pull off a week-long visit to Florida for spring training. (I may be the only Canadian who's never been to Florida.) Thank God I didn't have the means to do it this year, or I'd be stuck in the Sunshine State with no games to see and a 14-day quarantine awaiting me upon return. I'm still quite excited about the trip, which has progressed well beyond dreaming into planning, but my enthusiasm is now tempered. Even if I can afford it, who knows if in a year's time anyone will be able to travel anywhere?

Nevertheless, let's envision a world where COVID-19 has done its business, moved on, and a modicum of normalcy has been reestablished. If I could take in spring training, what might that look like?

The Blue Jays train in Dunedin, a small city in the Tampa-St. Pete-Clearwater metro area. A flight from Toronto to Tampa would get me there in under three hours, and I'd be all set, right? Yes, but I dislike flying, the biggest reason for my disdain being that it's like teleportation. You don't get to see what's between here and there, and to me that's the whole point of travelling.

I don't drive, but I toyed with the idea of simulating the well-worn trek down I-75 popular with snowbirds on Greyhound. Like the road-tripper brigade, I'd take it slow and stop along the way, roughly at the end of a day's drive. I even mapped out a six-day itinerary: Toronto-Detroit-Cincinnati-Chattanooga-Macon-Orlando-Tampa. And for variety, a different route back over five days: Tampa-Jacksonville-Raleigh-Baltimore-Albany-Toronto. All well and good but for one consideration—safety. Greyhound's bus depots are often in spotty if not outright scary parts of town, and I soon realized that my fantasy of walking several blocks, in the dark, to the nearest hotel could result in a mugging or worse. And even if I made it to said inner-city hotel, it might not be the kind of place where I'd want to bed down for a night.

Plan B, which didn't last long, is the no-bed-required option, a continuous 41-hour trip on three Greyhound buses, again getting there one way (Toronto-New York-Orlando-Tampa) and returning another (Tampa-Tallahassee-Cincinnati-Detroit). The way there wasn't too severe in terms of layovers, but on the return trip a five-hour layover in Cincinnati (9:00 p.m-2:00 a.m.) didn't exactly thrill me. In any case, I've done this before, 20 years ago, when I took the Greyhound to San Francisco and back. That trip was even longer, and when I straggled back home I vowed I'd never again sleep on a bus ... because I can't sleep on a bus.

I've now landed on Plan C: Amtrak, the USA's passenger rail system. This entails one compromise: I'd have to return the same way I came, and checking the Silver Star timetable, the same part of the country (NC, SC, GA) is in darkness both ways. Boo, hiss! Also, a continuous trip from Toronto isn't possible by rail; the schedules simply don't hook up. I'd have to take the Maple Leaf to New York, stay overnight, then board the Silver Star in the morning. On the plus side, I'd have only one sleep on the train which, though not a proper bed, is far better than the bus. And if I had the cash, I could splurge for a roomette.

As for getting around the Tampa area, public transit will do the trick, though I can see from researching schedules that PSTA and HART aren't exactly the TTC. But with careful planning, one can make it from A to B. It's also dirt cheap. And lucky me, I'd have three teams' games to choose from in the metro area, with the Phillies training in Clearwater and the Yankees in Tampa proper.

The rather pokey way I like to get to and visit new places now has a name: slow travel. I'm not sure I subscribe to or follow all its tenets, but in both my preferred transportation modes and sightseeing predilections (offbeat, weird stuff), I qualify. Anyway, once COVID-19 has run its course and I've saved up sufficiently, I look forward to getting to know Amtrak, seeing a bit of Florida, and taking in some spring training baseball—something any serious fan really should do at least once in their lives.