We're on a Mission from God

Once again, with the Chicago White Sox in town, we turn to our trusted Second City advisor Andrew Reilly of The 35th Street Review for some perspective on the Good Guys. Read my corresponding piece here.

I looked at the standings today, took note of who sat atop my fair city's geographic predecessor and chuckled out loud at what I saw. The papers, it seems, had erroneously printed those Blue Jaybirds of Toronto City as having won twenty-three games - two more than their competitor Red Stockings.

This is incorrect.

As you may recall, several weeks ago your Blue Jays stomped on a certain lighter-hued brand of stocking on the shank-or-be-shanked South Side of Chicago. It was quite the ugly affair, with the White Sox first embarrassed and then just made to look stupid. Fourteen to nothing? Four to three? Whatever. The 2009 White Sox are nothing if not flexible. Any of you Ghostreaders privied to the Chicago-based broadcasts probably heard our dear ambassador Ken "The Hawk" Harrelson and his partner Steve Stone explain the dynamics and complexities of the series to us, the layviewer.

"I tell you what," Hawk may have said, "that Rod Barajas, he might just be one of the best catchers I've ever seen at hitting a baseball."

This may or may not have occurred after Barajas drove in either of those two runs he contributed to your Jays' 14-0 shellacking of my White Sox, but that's irrelevant anyway. The Jays obliterated struggling Sox RHP Gavin Floyd, then two days later laughed in the Sox' collective faces as they couldn't capitalize on Roy Halladay's surrender of three earned runs. Three! Three runs against Halladay is like me getting 100 points in a game of one-on-one against LeBron James in a race to 105: you'll still probably lose, and badly at that, but the amount of room you've been given to work with is magnified considerably given the circumstances.

And those two games, I'm sorry to have to tell you, are why the Blue Jays are not in first place and also why they won't be come Tuesday morning after their probable inevitable series victory over the White Sox. Perhaps you don't pay as close attention to the Pale Hose as I do, and honestly I don't blame you. They are normally mostly ignorable, but so far this season have taken it a step further; the White Sox, at this point, simply don't count. To defeat them is worth no more than taking the day off, in both statistics and in won-loss records.

I want to take a second to encapsulate everything you need to know about this weekend's series, courtesy of the Sox' PR office's preview of Sunday's game:

White Sox: For the fourth time in seven trips to the mound, Floyd failed to post a coveted quality start. Monday's start against the Indians was actually well below the quality cut-off, as the right-hander gave up eight runs on 11 hits over five-plus innings, including two batters faced in the sixth. Floyd has a 0-2 record with a 9.74 ERA in his past four starts and has allowed more double-digit-hit games this season (two) then he did in all of 2008. Floyd already has a 0-1 record with a 10.38 ERA against the Blue Jays this year and stands at 0-2 lifetime against the Blue Jays. But Floyd has never worked at Rogers Centre.

Blue Jays: Halladay threw his first complete game of the year against the Yankees at Rogers Centre on Tuesday. He gave up one run on five hits -- matching his lowest total this season -- and struck out five. For the third time in his eight starts this year, he did not walk a single batter. He got 16 outs via ground ball, and gave up only two extra base hits, both doubles.

An epic 113 words to explain how Gavin "Wave of the Future" Floyd has fluctuated between bad and awful; seventy-one to say Halladay will either cut you up or kill you outright. I suspect this will set a record for Worst Game of All Time.

"But!" you may counter, "the White Sox aren't in last place! How bad can they be?"

A technically accurate statement, but one that breaks down upon closer inspection. Of the three basement dwellers, the Sox have lost series to two and have yet to face the third. The last series they won was a one-game homestand against the Detroit Tigers.

One game.

Detroit Tigers.

The White Sox, they of the much-vaunted offense and theoretical All-Legends Softball roster, are thirteenth in the American League in team batting average; hard to call them "sluggers" when they're twelfth in slugging, trailing even the likes of the last-in-the-East Baltimore Orioles who, by the way, beat the Sox 10-3 and 6-2 last month. Twelfth in on-base percentage, thirteenth in total bases, last in runs scored. Once upon a time, the bats were going to save them. Those were gentler times. Kinder. Sweeter, almost.

I want to go back to our much-maligned Hawk Harrelson for a second. He's going to say a lot of wacky things on the air this weekend, things about how Kevin Millar is a great professional hitter, how John McDonald reminds him of a young Derek Jeter and how baseball is really just a game where you want to make the other guy not let you get beat at the game of outguessing how that team is going to make the other not lose, and you may scratch your head for a second.

And for years I have cursed this man publicly and privately for such ramblings, questioning how he can be so oblivious to what's happening on the field and in the league to spout off such nonsense and non sequiturs instead of dispensing with actual useful, sensible information. But at times like these, I think I understand. Talk about Rod Barajas. Talk about what an honor it is to be iced by Roy Halladay. Talk about Adam Lind, Cito Gaston and a failed Ontario golf trip from twenty years ago.

Anything but the White Sox.

I suppose the Blue Jays will take at least a few games from the Sox this weekend. Worse things will happen, and I wish you no ill will, but I do ask this: please, please Blue Jays, please be the real thing. Do not let my attempted understanding of Hawkeroo go in vain; I will have died so that you may live.

Elective Surgery

As tradition dictates, the first Jays series of the season against the Chicago White Sox means time for a post exchange. Andrew Reilly of the amazing 35th Street Review once again offers his perspective from the City with Broad Shoulders. Update: Don't forget to check out my accompanying piece here at sox35th.com

Toronto baseball needs an enemy.

I decided this today as I watched a bunch of drunken jackass fans of the other, lesser Chicago team stumble onto the subway. I seared with rage as their crooked hats and backwards lifestyles polluted my trip home with their obscene clothing touting false messiahs past and future. I looked on in disgust at their cuddly little logos and laughably weak ideas of what baseball is about.

And in these moments of nonsensical, misplaced rage, I smiled.

As a White Sox fan, I know what it's like to truly hate a team. Not just actively dislike, much like most people do with regards to the Yankees and Red Sox, but actually hate with true passion. A team whose failure brings joy to those working against them; a team whose good fortune makes the day a little less bright. We Sox fans have many such teams, but we are also an especially hateful lot. Such is life.

I know, Jays fans, that you have reason to frown upon at least four other teams out there, but where is the searing, deep-seeded feud with fans of those clubs? Where are the shankings of visiting Orioles backers? Why don't we hear more people in New York say "Oh no, I'm not going back to Toronto after what happened last time"?

So what I'd like to do, Jays fans, is declare war. In the interest of enhancing baseball for you and I both, I'd like to offer up the Chicago White Sox as a sworn enemy of those Queen City ballplayers.

But I won't, not just yet, and with good reason. Actually, just one good reason: I am scared to death of Roy Halladay.

It's not a numbers thing, as the Sox and Halladay have some fairly pedestrian numbers against each other, but more a product of the Legend of Roy Halladay. To the Jays fan, he's just your run-of-the-mill, once-in-a-lifetime talent, but in the context of everywhere else in the world, the myth always surpasses the man.

"Hey, did you hear about that guy in Canada?"

"What guy?"

"Some dude. They call him Doc. Dude once threw two complete games at the same time for two different teams. In two different parks. In two different cities."

The discussion always goes that if Halladay pitched for any of the glamour teams, he'd be the most famous arm in the game, and that's probably true. But what no one ever points out is how cool it is that Halladay pitches in relative obscurity, or at least whatever obscurity a five-time All-Star and Cy Young winner starring in a city of four million can lay claim to.

Obviously this is not a knock on the fair city of Toronto, certainly not a small place and not even a fraction the backwater hellhole certain other American League cities have come to be. (New York, Los Angeles, I'm talking to you.) But it's Canada all the same, meaning most American sports media outlets just assume "baseball" is coincidentally the Canadian word for "hockey." So now you've got this fantastic pitcher, already capable of such greatness, plying his trade away from the bright lights of Anywhere Else and instead shrouded in this layer of awesome mystery. By the time the news-wires and horseback messengers reach us with word of his magical accomplishments, an average six-inning, four strikeout evening has grown into twelve innings of two-hit ball.

So instead, I propose a compromise: trade Roy Halladay, and we will hate you with open arms. You get a much-needed rival, we dodge a much-feared savage beating at the hands of No. 32.

Better yet, trade him to the White Sox. You get a boatload of decent prospects, we get the true ace we're lacking and Halladay gets to take his right-armed savagery to the masses. The way I see it, everyone wins.

Until then, well, I hope you get a good chuckle out of the fact that the elderly, wounded Jose Contreras is scheduled to start opposite the Good Doctor. I look forward to headlines of "Outgunned," "Pass the Anesthesia" and "The Doctor Will Kill You Now."

Photo courtesy of Flickr user egorsha

Second City to None

With the Jays starting a "big" series in Chicago against the division-leading White Sox, I thought it would be sporting to have one of Chicago's finest give us his perspective on the Jays, Canada and the world at large. Andrew Reilly of The 35th Street Review has done that and so much more. Mr. Reilly invited me to return the favor on his site, but don't let that foolhardy decision take away from the excellence below. Enjoy.

Eastern Avenue Freeze-Out

Several years and more than a few jobs ago, I had the opportunity to travel to Toronto on a business trip which eventually just degenerated into maxing out my per diem at that bar on Queen Street whose name escapes me. These were the glory days of a non-failing American economy, and I remember very specifically that the lead story on CablePulse 24 was the Canadian dollar trading at seventy cents American. And at the time, that seemed about right. Not economically, but contextually: for all intents and purposes, Toronto felt like seventy percent of Chicago.

This isn't a knock on the great city of Toronto, nor Canada, nor its people, nor its baseball team which I'll get to in a moment, but rather an observation that the good citizens of America's Hat had figured out a way to perfectly replicate roughly seventy percent of the life we know south of the border - but only the good seventy percent.

You have a subway system, but it's quiet, reliable and mostly void of homeless people using the corner seats as a toilet after dark. You have esteemed educational institutions, but they're actually open to those qualified to attend. You have a remarkably sound, relatively stable economy and financial system, but it's based on a currency that sounds like play money. You have guns, but you don't pull them on each other in traffic. You have Aerosmith, but they're actually Rush*.

Growing up as a White Sox fan, there were several teams I would come to hate. The Cubs. Oakland. Supposedly the Orioles should be in that group, but I was too young to grasp the enormity of the failure that was the 1983 American League Championship Series. Of course the next time the Sox made the playoffs, they had the misfortune of running into arguably the least-heralded baseball juggernaut ever assembled.

Everyone remembers Joe Carter and that one great moment whose image graces the right side of this fine website, but people forget the Blue Jays also employed the services of a current Hall of Famer, three future members and four players debatably worthy of enshrinement on the 1992 and 1993 rosters alone. The 1992 staff boasted two of the 15 pitchers to ever throw a perfect game in the modern era**.

Ah yes, 1993. That was a good time to come of age as a Sox fan. Every player on that team was doing exactly what they were brought aboard to do, and they were all doing it well - in some cases as well as they ever would. Staff ace Jack McDowell won the Cy Young while a not-yet-despised-by-fans-media-and-teammates Frank Thomas was the AL's Most Valuable Player. They took the division by eight games but then, well, you know what happened. We'll just say it ended well for you and leave it at that.

So why don't Sox fans hate the Blue Jays? You ruined Bo, repeatedly embarrassed one of the best pitchers in franchise history***, elevated some of the lamest of Sox regulars to the status of playoff hero by default while the stars' bats mostly stayed home, then kicked us in the throat just in time for our owner to engineer the strike in 1994.

(Two of the outfielders from that 1993 Jays squad, by the way, later became our locally mocked general manager and nationally mocked color commentator. So thanks for that as well.)

The answer points back to that seventy percent approach. You briefly had a baseball empire, but without the need for revisionist history or an arrogant fanbase spreading the word. You beat the hell out of everyone for a while, but never left a bruise. You killed the White Sox as a team in the early part of the decade, but fled the scene just in time to let their later organizational moves make it look like a suicide.

Even now, with all the talk of certain other teams and players in the American League East, no one notices the Jays would surely be in the hunt for the West or Central titles and easily atop the National League West. In any normal season (i.e. one where the Rays are terrible) you would be looking at the pennant race, not away from it. The Yankees getting hurt is bigger news than the Jays' bullpen putting the hurt on. Roy Halladay dominating the American League is somehow less of a story than Manny Ramirez fleeing from it. Shaun Marcum is having a great season and might as well not even exist.

Meanwhile, back here in Chicago, the Sox need to win this series, badly, or to at least not lose as much as they seem to enjoy losing these days. Win and loss columns aside, I'll be the first to say the two teams are not so far apart talent-wise but the last to say this won't be a pivotal four days for the team on the South Side.

But if this series turns ugly, well, we probably won't even notice. We'll blame Carlos Quentin's wrist or the Mariners or the Indians or some other AL punching bag the Sox should've hit harder, all the while overlooking that time in September where they lost to a comparably decent team. The standings suggest the Jays are irrelevant, which means we fans here in Chicago will assume the Sox can win without playing and gain ground without trying.

You have a winner, but it's not the kind anyone equates with winning. You have a good team, but not the kind anyone thinks is any good. You have a supposedly inferior franchise whom the White Sox have yet to beat this season. It could all end in total disgrace and we would still attribute it to anything besides actually losing a disproportionate number of games to the Toronto Blue Jays.

This probably sounds like a stupid way of thinking, and maybe it is, but that doesn't take away from you being a terrible sporting neighbor, Canada. You're slowly destroying us and don't even have the decency to let us know about it.

Well played, good sirs. Well played.



(*) Of salesmen!

(**) Wells' was the superior game if only for its reliance on so much big fat guy power.

(***) Not just the shellacking handed to McDowell in the ALCS, but also the on-field beating at the hands of Hard-hittin' Mark Whiten in 1991. Whiten would later thump four home runs in a single game with the Reds in 1993. What a guy.

Please Return Your Boners To Their Upright and Engorged Position

Gibby politely informs Bruce Dreckman that he will NOT go gently into that good night. Neither will his scrapgritastic team.

Looking Ahead

The Jays return to the sanitary confines of the Rogers Hornsby Memorial Center today, where they will take on the first place Chicago White Sox. The good people at The 35th Street Review (a White Sox blog) were kind enough to ask me to preview this legendary weekend tilt for them. I encourage, nay implore, you to check it out. I'd just like to thank them for the opportunity, and encourage them to keep up the good work.

Some Good That Has Come of What Just Transpired

Win or lose, the Jays starting rotation has been nothing short of sensational. The losing is tiresome, but no team that pitches this well will ever be too far from .500. The last time through the rotation has been other worldly. Five straight quality starts, one win. Whatever. I'm not ready to give up hope quite yet.

Buzz Bissenger is Currently Drafting a Soft-Focus Feature on the Much Maligned Will Leitch

The Tao nailed it a way I only wish I could, but there are a few things about the lunacy on HBO the other night that I refuse to let go.

1. Buzz and douchebag emeritus Bob Costas cherrypick some of the greatest reporters of the 20th Century when asking Leitch about quality on the internet. Will said the same thing anyone with a brain would: those people are wonderful writers. It is hardly fair to pick out the worst of what blogs have to offer while ignoring the laziness and incompetence that spawned them.
   
   What about Deadline Danny of the Polookaville Post? Sitting in the press box, his story already written by the 6th inning, dying for the game to end so he can hit the postgame spread and be home in time for CSI?
   
   
2. Reporters have long favored the few players who are willing to give honest answers and not speak in the bland, rehearsed platitudes that athletes are known for. One of my favorite blogs (and often linked here) is The Mockingbird. Why does General Hale need to ask AJ Burnett about his start, when he can analyze the data? I guess we should dispose of the Pitch F/X machines and simply ask AJ if he was "battling" or "had his best stuff tonight."
   
   
3. A few months back, Big Daddy Drew wrote an amazing and dickjoke laden post about what a blog really was: a blank website. It can be anything you'd like, and the Blue Jay blogosphere showcases it perfectly. You can get a wide variety of analysis, opinion, comedy, and most importantly, discussion. The depth of discussion is what brings people to blogs, depth you're unlikely to find in any newspaper or on any hockey-mad television station. They don't have the time or the resources to dedicate to the minutiae of Johnny Mac's role with the team.

I'm not a journalist. I have no journalistic training (shocking I'm sure) and don't really aspire to be one. I enjoy doing this as a creative outlet, as a way to get more out of a game and team I love, and just do something outside from sitting around growing more and more obese. Micromanagement, media training and larger than life persona's have changed the fan's perception and attitude towards athletes. Surely, someone will understand when we fans have a little fun at the expense of these carefully shaped public images.