Boring Sunday, no real Jays news of late (if Adam Loewen plays another game at the Rogers Centre, I'll buy you a Coke Zero) and nothing coming down the pipe either. Ms Moseby and I head out to a local High Park breakfast spot, the kind of place staffed exclusively by Slavic-styled Ice Queens that populate this area known for Russian/Ukrainian/Assorted Eastern Bloc immigrants with angry blood and big hair.
Seated in my booth, enjoying bad coffee and hot sauce-infused eggs and hash browns, contemplating how I would go about filling this space during the coming dry season. I was briefly distracted by the petite, yoga pant-clad form of a young BoBo trophy wife. The bronzed flesh and platinum hair told me this wasn't the kind of woman usually found in this neighbourhood, the kind of woman that never misses a pilates class but doesn't understand why her kids have Filipino accents. She was older, and tanned in a way that Canadian winters couldn't sustain. Her grizzly bear husband rose, equally tanned under his professionally applied baseball hat.
Wait a damn second, that is no ordinary grizzly bear, that is ERNIE FUCKING WHITT! Awesome! Ernie Whitt keeps it real, staying in Toronto 4 months after being unceremoniously dumped by the Jays.
What should I have done? Should I have chased him down? Should I shatter the quiet, hungover serenity of a busy breakfast spot with a You the Man, Earn? Looking down at the delicious nitrate omelet in front of me, I chose to bury my head in the eggs, content in the knowledge that Ernie Whitt follows Borje Salming's lead and bigs up Bloor West.
Dude, you probably should've said something. I think Big Ern is pretty much anonymous in TO those days and would've appreciated some fan gushing. If I ever met him I think I'd probably say thanks for coming up the idea of serving *pitchers* of pop at Mother's Pizza back in the day. That was genius! Still can't believe that place went under...
ReplyDeleteJ.
I can't believe you saw the Whitt at a breakfast joint! I probably would've just cowered in the corner, and maybe eventually got the courage to just walk by his table and wave. I'm not so good with brushes with fame - I choked and couldn't even say hi to Dave Coulier.
ReplyDeleteI can see the headlines now:
ReplyDeletePersona Non Grata harassed over Potatoes O'gratin
Ernie Whitt is the greatest line cook that diner never hired.
ReplyDeleteApparently Denny's tried to sign him, but Whitt wanted a 1 pound of bacon per week clause in the contract.
ReplyDeleteErnie!
ReplyDelete