Home Opener and Dirkulence

So another Home Opening Day has come and gone.

Jeff Blair summed it up nicely.

The highlight of the day for me was seeing Dirk Hayhurst at Chapters on John St. My associate and I came from out of town, so we decided to make a day of it. I was worried that it would be packed, but we were surprised when we did our 2:00 reconnaissance and it was deserted.

The eloquent pitcher-slash-author read the 'Grandma' chapter of the book, answered some questions, and, of course, garfoosed the books. There was chocolate cake, autographs, and goofy photos for all.

Sadly, Hayhurst sounded pessimistic about the progress of his shoulder rehab. "It's not encouraging when the surgeon says, 'hmmm, that's not supposed to happen,'" to paraphrase.

Hayhurst states via Twitter that he hit several bookstores today randomly signing books, so if you don't have a copy already, go on a wild garfoose chase and find yourself a signed copy.

The game itself was... what it was. Highlights? My chin just about hit the floor at Buck's 400-level dinger. My heart was warm and fuzzy at the lack of booing Wells. Rios? I was rather indifferent.

Lowlights? I wasn't even that disappointed at Frasor's blown save, since we had no choice but to leave by then anyway to catch our bus. The definite lowlights were the usual Opening Day retardedness of the non-fans. I am really leaning toward the DJF's preference to just stay away. I'm sure by next February, I'll be saying to myself, "but... but... IT'S THE OPENER." But it really does feel more frustrating than fun when you're continually distracted by the non-fans. I pay to see a baseball game, not a frat party, not the whorey Bud Girls posing with dudes at the bottom of the section, completely blocking the view of the game. (Yeah, not even waiting until between innings.) I rarely go to bars, and ball games are pretty much my "party time", so I strongly resent said party time being spoiled by a giant frat party preventing me from getting a god damned beer.

It wasn't just the alcohol; it was the same for concessions. My associate and I arrived at the gates before they opened. We were down at the 100 level York Market well before 6:00, and even though it wasn't crowded, it took everyone forever to get their food. The staff were running around with clipboards and no one was getting served. Blue Jays, you should have paid them an extra hour or half hour to get that crap done before the gates opened.

There has to be a way of making the experience better for "real" fans and/or casual fans over the age of... first beer retard. A rebuilding team that doesn't pack the house every night can't afford to turn off fans. A penny for Jeff's thoughts on the issue. Ideas from this uneducated fan include: a section reserved for season ticket and flex pack holders, available prior to individual game sale dates, where there are no group sales (unless they're not students) and have priority concession service. Perhaps a 30+ section (hard to enforce, but...) Perhaps access to the HSBC lounge, which I'm going to assume was only available to sponsors and/or People With Connections, who probably don't even give a shit about the game.

Until then, maybe we'd all rather just join the DJFs at Opera Bobs.

Thoughts On Dirk Hayhurst's "The Bullpen Gospels"

So just like all the other cool kids, I read Dirk Hayhurst's "The Bullpen Gospels." I laughed, I cried. It is truly an outstanding book and lives up to its hype. (My review, blah blah blah.)

Today, Hayhurst engaged fans in a live chat at Baseball America. He is at least teasing us with the prospect (huh huh) of another book, and gave us Aaron Hill's opinion of TBG:

He didn't get around to finishing it, but in ST this year he said, "I was surprised, it was, you know, good! I thought it would be another baseball book..." I'll take it!

He also answered Yours Truly's question regarding the cover of the book. Egads, Pinstripes. My Yankees fan coworker mocked me for it. Here's what would have been on the cover if His Dirkulence would have had any say in it:

It would have been me being strangled by my grandmother. Yeah, I know the pin-stripes got a lot of sneers (sorry Yankees, I know you won it all, but a lot of people still don't like you...) I also thought about me standing in the snow in my undies with this pathetic smirk on my face... the Baseball Reaper next to me with a foam finger that says #1 fan.

I think either would have worked nicely.

I'll believe it when it's announced by the club, but it sure is fun to think the Jays swooped in and nabbed Cuban SS Adeinis Hechavarria from underneath the Yankees. Jordan Bastian of mlb.com was told this by Alex Anthopoulos: "I don't want to comment. I don't want to lie. And I don't want to comment."

Surely if the rumour was false, he'd simply deny it?

It's going to be a fun couple of years watching these kids, folks.

(ETA) I almost forgot to wish a Rational and Reasonable 40th birthday to Mike Wilner.

Some V-Dub Lub

So, my associate and I hit the beginning of yesterday's B game at Bright House Field prior to the real game in Dunedin. We couldn't stay, but any excuse to go back to that ball park was good enough for us. Dave Steib was there.

Later, in Dunedin, the Jays won 14 - 9 or something ridiculous like that. It doesn't really matter.

Vernon Wells had a nice hit.

It wasn't particularly remarkable.

That would be irrelevant, except said hit came approximately thirty seconds after this retarded pile of douche perched himself on the balcony where the GM, scouts and/or other officials usually hold court; directly behind the plate. Apparently, his parents didn't give him enough attention as a youngster, and he tried to make up for that by spewing a stream of epic heckling fail.



"YOU HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING FOR SIX YEARS!" was one of his witty gems. He dug into Wells for his entire at bat... until said bat made contact.

This little heckling failure's balls shrunk up into his kidneys, and the rest of the Jays fans in the stadium had a new appreciation for V-Dub.

Dunedin Stadium is great for heckling. You can hear a pin drop. You don't even need to yell your witty comment very loudly. However, ladies and gentlemen, if you don't have something witty or fitting to say, you are not entitled to heckle.

Dunedin 2010

Greetings from beautiful craptacular Clearwater, Florida. It's pretty cold here. I have once again trekked down to catch some baseball and sunshine... poverty edition.

My buddy and I took in the Jays opener vs the Tigers in Dunedin, plus the Phillies opener vs FSU in an enjoyable night game. Jordan Bastian sums up the game better than I, apparently not through beer goggles. What he didn't tell you is that Chad The Beer Guy lead the crowd with "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" for the seventh inning stretch.

Brian Dopirak takes a wave:



Bright House Field at night:



Dr. Phil:

I'll Have Whatever Amphetamines They're Having

Marc Rzepczynski and Brett Cecil, Sept 2009:



Now:


Okay, so they were muffin-topping those mini-skirts a bit. Welcome to my world. But good gawd; did they FEED those boys over the winter?!

Go!

Spring training is here.

2010 Spring Training Broadcast Schedule

It has been posted.

The Fan 590 will be broadcasting 9 spring training games, mostly on weekends. MLB.com will provide 5 games in addition to that. mlb.com does not appear to have their gameday audio pricing information up, but it was about $20 last year.

TSN2 will air the final spring training game on Sat Apr 3.

Jays Raise Cheap Seat Prices

Story here

What the Blue Jays will draw in the upcoming season is an open question. Attendance during a dismal 75-87 campaign in 2009 was 1,876,129, the club's lowest total since 2003, and well off 2008's count of 2,400,416.

More tough times are likely ahead, both on the field and off.

"We understand what the sentiment is out there, we fully embrace Alex's vision with where he's going and any time you have that change and when you're building in a different direction on the field there may be some growing pains as it relates to attendance," said Diplock. "But we think we're going to play a little better than people are suggesting and our hope is attendance can be around where we finished last year.

"Having said that, we're realists, we know what we're going into in 2010."

Well, you're realists about what the team is going to do, but you seem a little naive about the fans.

I noticed when I was sent my schedule that every single weekend game was suddenly a "premium" game.

So the 500 level tickets go up in price? You're nuts, Mr Diplock. Way to alienate the bubble fans: the students, the families, the people who are iffy as to whether or not it's worth the cost of getting there PLUS the ticket prices, PLUS the outrageous concession prices. If anything, more should have been done to get asses in seats up there.

Maybe they were just trying to align the price of seeing shitty Jays baseball with the price of seeing shitty Leafs hockey.

Good Day.

If you found your way over here from The DJFs, I'll repeat what I've said multiple times here at my li'l corner of the blogosphere: I don't update every time Alex Anthopoulos sneezes. I post if and when I have something unique. It's January. You don't need to hear it from 15 different bloggers that the Jays signed Joe Shitballer to a minor league deal with an invite to spring training.

Coincidentally, I have something unique today. Season ticket holder and friend of mine E gives you her take on last night's State of the Franchise event.

My next update is likely not to be until I'm in Dunedin for the first few spring training games.