Game # 26-Toronto Blue Jays vs. San Diego Padres.....WE ARE BACK!

We have arrived in Toronto to visit ballpark #26 on Wednesday, July 19 after a month long break from our Field of Dreams Tour. Let’s just say it was not an easy or restful break as we bid farewell to Jim’s mom who passed away in Houston and then we spent a busy but glorious week in Lake Tahoe with 6 of our 10 grandkids. We are happy to be continuing our baseball journey and look forward to the last few ballparks. It is a little bittersweet getting this close to the end of this adventure. In the initial planning of this trip as we worked all the teams schedules we just could not make it work to visit Toronto in our RV because while we were in that vicinity the Blue Jays were on the road. Jim’s first thoughts and words were, “Oh well we will just skip it.” Very quickly he saw the look on my face and knew that was not in the plan. So from early on we planned a flight back to Toronto after we parked our RV back at home. As I always do I planned for every moment of our baseball trip with a few side adventures along the way. We took public transportation to the downtown area of Toronto to visit the CN Tower prior to the game. The CN Tower held the record as the tallest free-standing structure for 32 years until 2007. Currently it is the tenth tallest structure in the world with 147 stories. You can view pictures of our visit to the tower on our Instagram @ourfieldofdreams2023. Let’s just say Jim is NOT fond of heights and I must say it was a bit frightening venturing out onto the glass floor 147 stories up. After a very thrilling experience to the top of the CN Tower Jim and I took a long walk around the exterior of the ballpark. Rogers Centre does not have very much to see on the exterior other than the commissioned artwork above the northeast and northwest entrances called “The Audience.” It is a collection of depictions of larger-than-life fans in various acts of celebration. Please see our Instagram for pics. As we were walking around the stadium we noticed Blue Jays fans were already lining up at various gates with three hours until gates opened. They are professionals as they all came with small pop up seats or blankets to sit upon while they waited the three hours for the gates to open. The Blue Jays fans are passionate and go to great lengths to support their team which we discovered when we saw the Blue Jays play at three other ballparks. Once in the ballpark and through security (that darn hot dog hat!) we spent about an hour walking the inside of the ballpark. At the very top of the stadium we asked a very nice usher to take our picture…..in fact the one on this post. Rogers Centre has a retractable roof which was closed when we arrived to the park. It takes 20 minutes to open the roof so we assumed as it got closer to game time it would remain closed. We were wrong in our assumptions as during the third inning the roof began to open. We could not believe they did that during the game! We visited the Corona Rooftop Patio, Park Social and WestJet Flight Deck. These are all very nice venues with unique seating areas that overlook the outfield. While we were in Park Social we sat in one of the swings they have and listened to a guitar player for a short time. Really a great concept to have these areas for social gatherings at ballparks. Another unique feature of this ballpark is that the Toronto Marriott City Centre Hotel is connected to the outfield with 70 of its rooms windows a backdrop to the field. These windows are two-way windows which in some instances have given fans a little more than baseball to watch leading to nicknames for the ballpark of “SexDome” and “Exhibitionist Stadium”. If you are interested you should Google some of the shenanigans that have taken place. Now the hotel has guests sign a contract that they will not perform any lewd acts within view of the stadium. Switching gears, I will move on to the history of this ball club. The Toronto Blue Jays came in as an expansion team in 1977 so their history is relatively short in baseball terms. The Blue Jays have been playing at Rogers Centre formerly the SkyDome since 1989. While looking for the Blue Jays display of retired numbers I only saw two, one was #32-Roy Halladay and #42-Jackie Robinson. I wondered where #12-Roberto Alomar’s banner was and then I looked it up and found out he was banned from baseball following allegations of sexual misconduct in 2021. It is so sad a player with his accomplishments choose to take this path. The Blue Jays removed Alomar from their Level of Excellence and his retired number banner. Unfortunately he is not the first professional ballplayer nor the last who will do something so ignorant to ruin their legacy. It has been 30 years since the Blue Jays have won a World Series and the fans are hungry for another title. The Blue Jays were back-to-back World Champions in 1992 and 1993. They have won 6 AL East Division titles and 3 Wild Card berths with the last one in 2022. All of the banners are displayed proudly between the Canadian and American flags. The next thing we notice was a huge sign that indicated it was National Hot Dog Day. Can you believe Jim the Hot Dog Man did not even have that marked on his calendar? We originally wanted to attend a Tuesday game because they have “Loonie Dog” night where all hot dogs are a loonie/dollar. The record for number of Loonie Dogs was broke the day before our arrival on Tuesday, July 18 with 75,173 Loonie Dogs sold! With 42,680 fans in attendance that is 1.7 dogs per person! All this talk of hot dogs sent us quickly to the hot dog stand where Jim selected a Poutine Hot Dog. It is a classic Schneiders hot dog topped with hash brown potatoes, cheese curds, and gravy. Jim gave that dog a rating of 8.5. I tasted it too and it was really good! As game time approached we went to our seats to be present for the opening festivities and both National Anthems. With the stadium roof closed and our seats located right near a large overhead speaker the sound was almost unbearable. The Blue Jays have great entertainment throughout the game with a female DJ and Blue Jays cheerleaders or “J FORCE.” The J FORCE made their way all over the stadium dancing and entertaining the fans. Another great dancer is their mascot Ace who really got the crowd going and was very entertaining. The game began at 7:07pm with 42,948 in attendance of a 49,282 capacity stadium. That is a pretty full house for a Wednesday evening game. It was a pitching battle the first several innings of the game with Jose Berrios on the mound for the Blue Jays and Yu Darvish on the mound for the Padres. Both pitchers were putting them down in order or close to it. Then in the 5th inning Berrios struggled to find the plate walking Trent Grisham and hitting Ha-Seong Kim with a pitch. With runners on first and second Fernando Tatis Jr. came to the plate luckily Berrios would strike him out but not before both runners would advance by stolen bases. With runners on second and third Berrios intentionally walked Juan Soto to load the bases in the hopes of a double play. Manny Machado was next to the plate and hit a two-run single with a broken bat that nearly took out Blue Jays shortstop Bo Bichette. Score Padres 2 - Blue Jays 0. That would be the only score of the night as this game had some outstanding pitching and fantastic defense. Unfortunately it did not go the Home Team’s way tonight and this makes it 11 wins for the Home Team and 15 losses for the Home Team. Next up we fly to Washington DC to make up the rainout we had for the Nationals back on April 28. Lucky for me the Nationals will be playing the San Francisco Giants! So I will NOT be routing for the Home Team. Here is hoping for a W for the Giants. Until next time PLAY BALL!