The Jimmy Triggs Experience : Volume 1

For the record: I did not write this post.  This is a story from a friend of the site.  We here at 1bluejaysway hope that he will continue to write his thoughts on the game and after reading this masterpiece, we think you will too.....   

A home opener on a Monday night?  The scheduling Gods were not looking down on me favorably in 2010.

In my line of work, we shut down on weekends but our customers don’t, you can see how therefore Mondays can be a bit of a grind putting out not one, but three days worth of metaphorical fires. It is a very common occurrence for me or members of my team at work to put in a solid 13 hour day after ripping up the city, cottage, or suburbs for the 48 hours preceding it.

With that being said I had places to be. Being the only meathead in a large group of friends who actually lives (and pays for living) in the downtown core I was voluntold that a minimum of five friends would be arriving at my domicile no later than 4pm on the day of the home opener. I would normally just leave a key under the mat and cross my fingers as I actually do have a high level of trust with my comrades but a recent weekend of intrigue at Blue Mountain left me one set of keys and a $220 cab ride short. Therefore, I rode the rocket into work early on Monday, skipped lunch, and snuck out around 3:40. The ‘skipping lunch’ would come back to haunt me.

Just after 4pm I strolled into my house, geared out of my two piece (no tie) and investigated the kitchen for items that could be whipped into a quick lunch. You need to realize that I live in what could be described as the Websters definition of a bachelor lifestyle (read: condiments, beer, & bottled water). Before I could even think of dialing in for a pita or Thai my mobile spat out the always recognizable ring tone of Master P rapping about some girl (or gun, or currency?) named sha-na-na-na. I wouldn’t even know how to change the ring tone if I actually decided that the laughs it gives me were getting old (this also makes for some interesting looks in the boardroom). My evening’s associates had arrived and were currently outside maneuvering the over sized explorer into a neighbors reserved spot that probably cost the neighbor an extra $15k on his/her mortgage. I put the hunger pains into the back of my mind and cracked the first Rolling Rock I brought back from the States on a recent business trip.

Fast forward 2 hours and 12 beers later. After some good natured ribbing and a few past incidents retold for the benefit of a rookie who had tagged along from Owen Sound, we ventured out to the TTC with roadies in hand. I have a few close friends who could hit a 3 wood from my place to the bus stop yet all six of us smashed two beers on the walk. Upon realizing this, I remembered a literary term my grade twelve English teacher had explained to the class called foreshadowing.

Other than chirping at some clowns on Front Street who had been chased down (and caught) by their server after attempting a dine-and-dash the trip to the park and the line up to get in were pretty uneventful. We saddled up into our 3^rd / 4^th row seats in right field, sipped our first $9.50 beers of the season and continued the requisite banter of a bunch of drunks looking forward to the new season. The group of six grew to way over 10 as others in our group who could not slip out of work early, or realized that it was Monday and just used that as an excuse, joined us in our seats. We caught the end of workouts, player introductions, and some jumbotron videos and then rose for the anthems.

BLAM! Out of nowhere during the Canadian national anthem Ike Stake screamed at Alexis Israel Rios Cruz. Oh shit I thought, here we go. As has already been written in other sentences in other stories the game was somewhat of a blur. John Buck did in fact hit a monstrous shot to left field, and that was about all that John Labatt has allowed me to remember….. until the 6^th inning or so.

In the front row, some dude was rocking an Argonauts jersey. My associates, and myself I assume, were quick to point out to him that he was in fact at a Jays game, etc……… you know the drill. The guy, to his super credit, just laughed it off. Even when I asked him if he got to meet Burt Reynolds while he worked as an extra in Deliverance he just laughed. Then I noticed it, the glint in his eye that I had only seen once before. For those who know me think of the story about Bill Gates Jr. in Vegas. One man, no matter how nice he is, can only take enough shit while drinking beers in a masculine environment such as a casino or the SkyDome. In came Reliever Jancampgreggdownfraser to start an inning and the guy had had enough.

SCENE MISSING

I’ve been in the bowels of the Dome a few times over the years for autograph signings, season ticket holder tours, etc., but I was very impressed to find down there a temporary prison. Guards, bars, and shit I might have even seen Morgan Freeman selling a bag of drum to the dude with the bird who hung himself. Now, believe it or not, I’ve been in a few ‘situations’ like this before and let me tell you that the ‘situation’ can only get worse if you are being a dick. Men drink, men fight, and the cops do their job. If they decide I need to spend some time thinking about my actions then I am going to trust there judgment and agree. If they decide that I need to offer some apologies and do a little work at the local soup kitchen I am going to be the best damn soup ladler I can be. Arguing, or especially body arguing, with the law after 20 beers is a bad idea no matter what happened. You are drunk and they are not. You lose, they win. It’s as simple as that and since the existence of law and justice it’s always has been that way and will be that way long after I move on.

Keeping in mind this theory, I do my best to be cordial and apologetic while being marched down to the makeshift Shawshank. Upon approaching the detention centre my jaw dropped. There are men down here that are, and I use this term only because it fits, fucking losing it! I see cops sweating from having to corral these savages before they inflict more damage to themselves and others. Shit, if officer (enter name here) had taking my bracelets off I would have helped them keep the peace. Chairs were flying, blood was pouring and overall mayhem was ensuing. I stopped in my tracks and thank God officer (enter name here) realized I was no threat allowed me take a knee on the outside of the room that caged these savages. After a few mandatory minutes of data collection, stern warnings, and even a few laughs the officer (enter name here) informed me Johnny Argonaut was nowhere to be seen and I was free to go. Excellent I said, it’s only the seventh inning and I can still buy a few beers before they shut it down! No, you are leaving, and I don’t want to see you here in Shawshank again over the next 81 games…..

Moral of the story:

Eat some food next time you jackass.

Go Jays!

My Theory On Opening Day "Sell Out"

I'm watching Jason Frasor do his best Mitch Williams impression as I type this. Hopefully by the time I'm finished the post, the Jays will have put their first victory of 2010 in the books.

Anywho, on with it... Golden Arm, long ago, in early March, sent out an inter office memo to the folks at 1bluejaysway, looking for all those interested in making an outing of the Jays April 12th home opener vs. Rios and the White Sox. He even went as so far to throw his own credit card down and stump up for the tickets. At the time, I was too occupied with my pending trip to Florida and the ensuing Grapefruit League play to fully commit to purchasing tickets and to be quite honest, you need to be in a special frame of mind to attend a baseball game with him, and I was not sure I would be, a month in advance. So I passed...

Fast forward to April. It had occured to me that I still had not secured ducats for said home opener and decided to have a look on the ole bluejays.com. I needed 4 tickets, since my sister decided that her and a friend wanted to decend on the concrete convertable to take in the festivities, along with me and Mrs. Last Row 500's. Section 514, Row 31, Seats 11-14. Row 31? If you are wondering where those shadow puppets in centre field are coming from, that would be me, sitting up near the lights on the 1st base side, 500 level.

Now, my handle here, Last Row 500's, is more of an hommage to my grass roots, die hard fandom, as opposed to my preference of seating location. For the record, I prefer nice and close. Having said that, I decided to peruse my favourite ticket market place website. I've used it many times before for tickets at Yankee Stadium, Rogers Centre and even Dunedin Stadium.

But something funny happend to me this time, on my way to opening day. As I was perusing the available tickets I found an anonomaly. In my selected section there were 148 tickets available. 148!! One hundred forty eight!!!! My first thought was, "who the hell bought 148 tickets only to turn around and sell them here?" My naiivety got the best of me. I simply passed it off as a shrewd business plan on the part of some ticket re-sellers for the hottest ticket of the Jays season.

Then, strange fact #2. The tickets were at face value!! I'm by no means, an experienced ticket re-seller, but, I do know that in order for these folks to make some money the tickets are usually sold at a higher than face value price. Makes sense, no? Are you following yet? See where I'm going here? Hold on... Perhaps now, you're exploring the same theory as I was at the moment.....Would the Blue Jays sell a block of tickets on this re-selling website to artificially create the impression of a sell out? Nahhh!

OR would they?

I tried to downplay it in my mind. Maybe that aforementioned shrewd business person bought a block of tickets under the guise of a group sale, and then in turn, placed them for resale. But the face value argument trumped that in my mind.

But then.....

Just a few days ago, I received an email from the Blue Jays. A marketing email, encouraging me to support my Blue Jays by purchasing tickets to the upcoming homestands versus the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim of California of USA, and the Royals and of course Yankees and Red Sox. Benign in nature this type of email usually.

However, it included the following: "Thank you for your recent purchase and we'll see you on April 12th."

What? But sir, I did not purchase these tickets from you, I purchased them from a re-selling website. Or did I? How would the Rogers Blue Jays Baseball Partnership know I bought these tickets?

Hmmmm. I look forward to comments on this...

That's my view from the Last Row 500's. Oh by the way, Frasor nailed it down with 2 K's and a feeble ground out to short. More on that in another post.

Exciting Home Opener Fact

The Jays 2010 schedule has been up for a while now, but it only occurred to me yesterday, that they open at home versus the Chicago White Sox. That's right folks, the Chicago White Sox. The Jays first ever home opener in 1977 was against those same White Sox. Dougie Ault clubbed two homers that day, who will ever forget that? A sore armed Bill Singer threw that first pitch, and later it was revealed that the home plate umpire was calling that son of a "b" a strike even if it had hopped 29 times before crossing the plate.

Flash forward to 2010. New season, new G.M., new lineup, hell, even a new play-by-play man. Our Jays open up, at home, hosting the Chicago White Sox, with a lineup featuring Jake Peavy & Mark Buehrle on the front end of a formidable rotation, Bubba Jenks on the back end, newly signed Mark Teahen and Juan Pierre and, yes folks, anchoring it all in Centre Field, Alex "Who Gives A Fuck?" Rios.

Am I the only one here who's chomping at the bit here to buy my tickets as close as I can to the toy helicopter flying douchebag and launch tirades at him for a full 9 innings? Hell, even his own manager isn't his biggest fan, when one White Sox beat write asked him what he saw so far from Rios, Ozzie Guillen retorted; "I'm seeing a lot of outs so far".

Here's what the statistician saw from Rios last year.

TEAM  G      AB   R     H    TB   2B   3B  HR  RBI     BB   SO   SB   CS    AVG.     OBP.    SLG.   OPS.

TOR   108  436  52 115 186   25    2    14    62     31    78    19    3     .264     .317     .427    .744

CWS    41     146  11  29   44     6     0     3      9       6       29     5     2     .199     .229     .301    .530

Yes sir, Ozzie was right. He did see a lot of outs. A whole shit bunch of them. 5 lbs in a 3 lb bag my farmer friends would say. His .264 AVG. looks down right silver sluggerish when compared to the move to U.S. Cellular field. Nice to see he kept his 1 K per 5 AB's consistent after the move.

Another 0-5 with 5 k's at the home opener is one of the small victories that Jays fans and media pundits alike will be talking about this season.

I'd break a lot of bats too, if they were my numbers. Or would I? I'm getting paid roughly the same money as Jesus, whether or not I'm hitting...so yes, "who gives a fuck" indeed.

When this is all said and done, I think, when any fan looks back, letting Rios go for nothing could possibly have been the best move of the J.P. era.

Snow Birds

I was thinking about how your Toronto Blue Jays players are doing in the winter leagues when I came across this link.  Every player we have doing the winter ball thing can be found there.

Some highlights from the guys currently on the 40 man roster:

Jose Bautista played only three games and went 5 for 8 good for a .625 average.  Classic example of a small sample size.  No doubt this will be Cito's justification for hitting him lead off.

Randy Ruiz is killing both righties and lefties to the tune of a .341 batting average with 6 bombs in 88 at bats.  He also has a stolen base.  Must have been the back end of a double steal.....

Mike McCoy has a .413 on base percentage with 26 steals in 227 at bats.     

For all the Lyle haters:  Brian Dopirak has 7 homers and 32 RBI, but his 40 strikeouts in only 137 at bats worries me a little.

Projected back up catcher Raul Chavez is hitting .238 and has grounded into 10 double plays in just 105 at bats.  That's about one twin killing every 2 games.....

Let's not talk about the pitching.  It's just better that way.

The guy I'm most excited for on this list BY FAR is named Darin Mastroianni.  He was selected in the 16th round (505th overall) of the 2007 amateur entry Draft.  Last season he split time between High A and Double A.  Darin managed to swipe 70 bases with a .398 on base percentage.  According to the team over at Jays Journal, he is our second best outfield prospect and is a legit defensive centre fielder.  I doubt he is ready to contribute in 2010 but he should start the year in Double A.  Keep an eye on him.