...The Hold Steady, Phoenix Concert Theater, July 16th

Our song are singalong songs


When one thinks of hipster bands, the kinds written about in the AV Club and who get the highest rating possible from Pitchfork (8.2), one thinks of The Hold Steady. Craig Finn's songs are densely layered tales of outsider drama. Many of them feature recurring characters who roam Finn's hometown of Minneapolis (even though the band is now located in Brooklyn). They have a large bombastic sweep that almost compels one to re-write their own history to fit into the stories. As such, he often gets described as the new Bruce Springsteen.



The Hold Steady played the Phoenix Concert Theater, a smaller club/hall that is reminding me after every concert why it is my favorite venue in the city. The show was originally supposed to be at the cavernous Kool Haus, but the move to the smaller club fit the band well: Something about The Hold Steady demands a hot night and a sticky club.

Seeing The Hold Steady live, I couldn't held but be struck by a couple of things:

The Hold Steady are classic rockers stuck in hipster bodies. The songs are big and loud and churning, and not in the Arcade Fire/British Sea Power faux-prog rock model. They are loud. They are bellowed. They feature twin guitar leads and, yes, singalong choruses. If Smashing Pumpkins were the Alt-rock Boston, you could argue that The Hold Steady are the Indie Bon Jovi. And yes, I mean this as a compliment - There was a time when Bon Jovi wrote a hook that made you want to make a movie to go along with it, and in central New Brunswick, Canada they formed as much of the soundtrack as they would in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

People miss the point with the Bruce comparisons It's hard not to listen to Finn's songs and hear Springstein, especially Darkness on the Edge of Town era. Springsteen's heroes were mad losers who were still going to make it, while Finn's heroes are drop outs and dropping faster, but they've got a code, damnit! Also, former keyboardist  Franz Nicolay's fills echo Danny Federici's work with the E Street band, and were quite missed on this tour.

But where the split starts to happen is in the songs. They sound like Springsteen, but Finn's lyrics feature a lot of words. They are crammed full of allusions and metaphors. They swirl around and play with each other. Finn himself loves those words. You can see it in the way he moves around the stage, using his body to give emphasis to his stories, even acting out parts of them. As I watched him that night, I was reminded of another chronicler of outsiders and losers whose love the language wasn't only audible but also reflected in his body language: Elvis Costello.

And that was the line that kept going through my head all night long - The Hold Steady are Elvis Costello and the E Street Band. They combine the best of both acts into something that actually can be a classic rock hipster.

Let this be my annual reminder that we can all be something bigger

Finn on stage is a hypnotic presence. I've mentioned his body language, but he never stops moving. Between lines he moves the microphone away and keeps talking to people in the crowd, or repeating lines. It's another sign that he's a fellow lover of words and what they can be, as we general do not posses the ability to actually stop talking since there's always another word that will fit right in with what we're talking about. He also doesn't look like a rock star: I would gather that he's mostly slim because they're on tour and he burns about 10 lbs a night, but he has thick glasses and his hairline is beating a steady retreat. My friend The New Trendy Area in Toronto compared him to a policy analyst. I think he's a throwback to the late 70s and 80s when rock critics would actually form their own bands.



And the sing along songs will be our scriptures


The show is a passionate one. Finn's motions are not the act of an angry man but someone who loves what he does, loves doing it for you, and just can't help it anymore. There might even be an element of 'I can't believe I get paid to do it!' in there as well. Sometimes the songs tend to run into each other live, a lot of them sounding a bit alike in tone and structure.

But at the same time, many of these are part of a larger narrative that Finn has been telling about his characters and his city (a narrative that is absent on their latest Heaven is Wherever). It's not a big Coheed & Cambria story, but a series of brief vignettes, like William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha county. It might not be a stretch that by the time he's done, Finn might be seen as a voice of a region in the same way Faulkner is, just on a different scale.

... living in the G20 grey zone

Why do I write?

I most often write when I've seen or experienced something that I want to write about. I also write when something moves me so much that I just can't keep how it makes me feel in my head anymore. I also write when I'm trying to figure something out, and when I start I don't know where it's going to end.

Most people know what happened in Toronto during the first day of the G20 summit. I'll point out right now that by living in the West End, I was nowhere near the action. Dawn was working during the day in the East End, but was able to get out of there before the conflict escalated and got home safely.

I originally had a larger, much more different piece written in my mind, about how there was enough blame to go around. How could the protest organizers not have been able to identify that those people wearing balaclavas were going to be trouble and removed them from their protest (an action that is easier said than done, but which could still be done, and was probably not done either out of a sense of "inclusion" or lazyness)? How could the police not realize that the city was on edge after watching a fence go up and the downtown depopulated, trees removed, and identity cards issued? What can you say about people whose first reaction was "Stop breaking the windows of MY Starbucks!" (emphasis mine), a statement that in its own way nicely encapsulated the reason why some people are compelled to smash up said windows in the first place?

The more I thought of it, the more it came down to the colour gray.

The events that transpired are polarizing. I don't like polarizing moments. The problem with allowing yourself to get polarized is that you lose your sense of empathy. At that moment, it's all black and white. "I hate those protesters and what they did to my city" might be a natural reaction, but it's a dangerous place to land and stay for long. It leads to moments like those that Steve Paikin reported from the streets, where peaceful protests and questioning authority are all treated with the same response as a violent protest, because you're angry at those to did things to "your" city. (Parenthetically, I shall note that I hate that rhetorical construct. It's "a city", it's made up of different people. You have ownership over your part of it, but it's not a hegemony.)

Anyone who knows me personally knows I have a complex relationship with authority. I have no stains on my record, but actions taken by those looking after the common good have taken someone very dear from me in the past as well as making me feel unwelcome in my own town. But I also know that this action does not reflect on the whole organization. BUT, again, this also means that I can empathize with people who can get very, very, very angry as they feel authority's grip tightening around them, even at times when said grip is justified for the common good.

There are two "but"s in that paragraph, and they see me run through three sides of the same argument. And if I told you the whole story, there would be about four more "but"s and probably seven other parts to the argument I would come down on.

I wish I could see the world as black and white, I really do. I wish that I could see what happened today and shake my fist at one person, or one group, shake the dust off my feet at them and cast them to outer damnation. I can't. Because while I don't agree with their action, I have an inkling of where there anger comes from, and I have my own dark places as well.

I was raised Catholic by very Catholic parents (Italian and Irish), but it wasn't a conservative religious upbringing. If there are those who see the Bible as a gateway to prosperity and riches, we came from the side that saw it as a document about divesting yourself of those Earthly things and embracing your neighbors, who we were told were everyone - I guess you could say we were an Acts-centric home. I was taught about a creator who had mercy for us.

When my brother finally succumbed to his injuries, I was told it was because he "didn't want him to suffer, so he took [my brother] to heaven".

That moment still kills and haunts me. At one moment it fills me with mercy, another it fills me with rage, then compassion, then cynicism. They're all different. And in their own way at their own time, they're all right.

People did some bad things today, things that are clearly wrong and unnatural in a society. I know that. But I also know that something drove them there. I also know it's not something as simple as "they hate capitalism/freedom/class-centric coffee". I know that they feel that what drove them to that may be as valid a grievance as any other expressed that day, and I also know that I 'm sympathetic to that grievance on a lot of levels. I know also that as much as I'd love to sit in judgment of those people I can't, because I know in my dark places that but for a few different life choices, both made by myself and those that raised me, I could have been there with them also.

My empathy, my dwelling in the grey areas, my lack of moral compass, whatever you want to call it, can be traced back to the fact that in my youth I was told, I was taught, I believed that there was only ever one person who walked who was untainted by sin, whose intentions were always pure, and who you could never question the effect of his actions of the contents of his heart because they were those of a pure love.

And even he got angry and turned over the tables of those who were using authority to take away money in the name of something his father made.

If you're looking for a conclusion, you're not gonna find it. Life's too complex. Just because you're done with book doesn't mean the book is done with you.

... showered and blue blazing

Before The National's two days of shows at legendary Massey Hall, Toronto Life wrote a story about the band. The main take aways from this were that The National were the new hottest thing in "Dad Rock", and that Massey Hall was a great venue to see them because it was quiet, the crowds were reserved, and you could really concentrate on the music.

While members of The National are dads (and husbands), they're not ready to join the minivan set and worry about leaving a show early to beat traffic. And they're not about to let the austere aura of Massey Hall tone down their shows, which are gaining a reputation for a combination of great musicianship and bursts of frenetic energy.

The first of the two nights felt like it was going to a show full of chair dancing and appreciative nods, until "Bloodbuzz Ohio" (rapidly becoming the band's anthem, like "Mr November") when lead singer Matt Berninger jumped down from the stage and walked up the centre aisle, encouraging people to stand up, and then move down to fill in the small orchestra area. At that moment the show, as they say in the parlance of the time, was on.

The National's albums, including the most recent High Violet, can be stately affairs, sometimes coming off like the bastard son of Uncle Tupelo and Arcade Fire. That's not to say they're boring, but it's also not to say that you imagine an experience like, say, Pearl Jam. The truth is that the opposite is true. Lead singer Matt Berninger roams the stage with a nervous intensity, and will climb through the crowd from time to time. The band swings, rocks, and presents a full sound that shows their ambition - You may not hear the horns on some tracks, but they are up there on stage filling out the sound.

They also played a lot with the arrangements. "Apartment Story" started off a little rockier, grungier with strummed guitar and vocals, as opposed to the mellow swing that the album version has. "Squalor Victoria" is almost dirge-like on Boxer, but like it felt almost punk, rising up to an anthemic crescendo that filled the Hall. "England", my favorite track on High Violet, grew on both performances, reminding me of the last two minutes of Arcade Fire's "No Cars Go" - The score to a beautiful glowing apocalypse.

The sets were similar both nights, but different enough that I never felt I was getting the short shirft. The first night, the crowd was on point, full of True Believers. They took Berninger's cue and took over Massey Hall, singing and cheering along. This was much different than the last time I saw them in Brooklyn, where the crowd demanded silence. While that gave the Brooklyn show the sense of an occasion (which it was, as they were playing many of the High Violet tracks for the first time, and prior to the release of the album). The first Toronto night felt more like an event, and the band treated it as such. Despite their reputation as dour, they joked amongst themselves and the crowd, listened to requests, and even came out for an impromptu second encore.

The second night's crowd started quieter. I don't think there was much overlap between the two nights. Those who were there for the first night, I imagine, were those who leaped to their feet (such as myself) as soon as "Start a War" began. I also don't think the people from the first night expected the vitriol - pure, angry, hateful vitriol - that one person spewed in their general direction for their standing up, even being louder than the band at one point and lunging over two rows at one of those standing. I know it's Massey Hall, but it's also a rock show, damnit. Berninger brought the crowd to its feet during "Bloodbuzz Ohio", but the conduct of some people and the bouncers gave that a bit bitter taste. I know that people complain that Rogers Centre is where fun goes to die, but to be honest a lot of Toronto is like that. I'm not saying all venues should be wrecked by the crowd, but it would be nice if we didn't feel we needed permission to enjoy a show.

A few nights before I watched the MTV Movie awards, watching people like Katy Perry singing about bikinis and LMFAO looking like clowns for a really horrible children's party (and secretly thanked my stars for being childless by choice). For two nights I saw a band that loved what they did, were good at, and took pride in it. You can call it Dad Rock, but in reality it's just great, passionate music played with great passion.

No photos please

Here's a guest post from the wife. Normally she writes about food at Dawnabelle.ca, and airs her random thoughts on twitter at twitter.com/dawnabelles. Today, she's all about her other love: Rock 'n' roll.

When I visit foreign lands, I do not take pictures inside churches because I feel it is taboo. When I went to see the Mona Lisa, I did not take a picture because my snapshot would not capture all of its nuances (and it is behind glass). But in the open atrium of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, I took a picture in a no photo zone and got caught.

According to the employees at the Rock Hall, visitors are only allowed to take photos in the main lobby. On display are the Gwen and Moby stars from the Southside video, cars that were used as props on U2's Zooropa tour and giant suspended hot dog from a Phish tour.

If you visit the Rock Hall, the front of the building is a pyramid that extends from the ground and creates an open air feeling all the way up to the third floor -- but you cannot take pictures on the third floor. There are rooms containing rock memorabilia and displays in the basement and the second floor, on the third floor there is a movie theatre and the annex is usually reserved from special exhibits. I do not take pictures in these areas because they are poorly list and I treat them as I would any other museum exhibition.

Hanging from various parts of the ceiling and mounted on top of large surfaces are large tour props, but on the second and theirs floors, these items -- located in open areas -- fall under the no photo zone that also applies to the other rooms of the museum. This is what I don't understand. They are large props that have already been on public display for those who have seen them on tour. Their images have appeared on albums, in movies, and have entered the public consciousness. I doubt that anyone is taking photos as a means of stealing intellectual property. They are displayed in open spaces and exposed to sunlight, so I don't think the museum is worried about damage from my flash. Also, I can see them from the lobby.

In the main part of the museum, in the basement of the building, one of the first features that a visitor is asked to enjoy are two movies -- the second movie is entitled Kick Out the Jams -- in which I am repeatedly told about the place of rebellion in rock n' roll, about following your own rules. When I leave that theatre, one of the first exhibits I see regards the witch hunts in the early days of rock and roll.

The item that I was caught taking a picture of is the schoolmaster coming out of a built up portion of Pink Floyd's The Wall. Release in November 1979, the concept of the album focused on the theme of isolation -- as the concert progressed, a physical wall was constructed between the band and the audience. At the end of the concert, the wall would collapse, revealing the band.

The idea for the album and tour arose from an incident at Olympic Stadium in Montreal in 1977. As Pink Floyd's popularity as a band grew, so did the venues they played. Roger Waters' irritation at playing such large audiences culminated on a hot summer night in Montreal when he spat on a man in the front row of the audience who was simply trying to get closer to the band. He worried about the increased sense of alienation from his fans.

So here I am at the Rock Hall, being further alienated from those artifacts meant to bring me closer to a band and getting in trouble for rebelling against their no photo policy in the house that rock built.

... keeping an EYE (Weekly) on The Blue Jays

There are things we can all agree on:

• Puppies are cute
• Ice cream is delicious
• Bad things are wrong
• The Blue Jays are in trouble.

Some have specualted that the Beloved Jays are not long for this world and if any team were to be moved, it would be them. I don't think it's that bad, but I also don't think it's all lollipops and sunshine, Sunshine.

There are many theories about what can be done. EYE WEEKLY recently posted a list of things that can be done to fix the Rogers Centre as a way of proposing what can be done to fix the Blue Jays.

I'm not linking to it. Why? Because, as Queen Victoria was known to say, "It's a right load of bollocks, it is!" Find it yourself.

But I am going to go through their points, and I'm going to use this to make a couple of my own points.

1. Admit that you have a problem

I don't think anyone in Rogers (the Beloved Blue Jays owners), or anyone with two feet and a heartbeat to be honest, would maintain there isn't a problem. However, this in itself is a problem with EYE's list - it's first suggestion isn't even a suggestion. When one option is 'We'd love a new ballpark'...yeah....it's gonna be that kind of list.

2. Remove on field shortcomings.

Make the team better. Right. Gotcha sport. Good one. Also, you know what would fix Global Warming? Make the air cooler.

What's really funny is that I can only assume that EYE is willfully missing the point here. They talk about the sellout crowd when AJ Burnett pitched against Roy Halladay last year and that that's because "the hometown fans have stars to cheer for". What's funny is that Halladay and Burnett were both Blue Jays the previous year, and that there wasn't much of an uptick in attendance. It also doesn't mention that Burnett was playing with the Yankees, and that games against the Yankees tend to have about 20,000 more people than the average game, and they are all wearing Yankees gear. Thirdly, until this year the lowest attendance figure ever for the Blue Jays was on a night Roy Halladay pitched. There are your three strikes (EYE, in baseball when someone has three strikes, they go and sit down. Just want to make sure you're keeping up with the lingo.)

3. Feed the huddled masses properly

This you have to agree with. Did you know that every other ball park I've been to I've been able to get hot dogs at my seat - every park except for Rogers' Centre.

As for the cost of the food, this is an issue, but it's also a macro-issue: I've never heard someone day "The cost of the ticket to <%Insert ANY sporting event%> was expensive, but the food was cheap, and the selection was awesome!". This can be improved at Rogers' Centre, yes, but it's not limited to just Toronto, nor just the Blue Jays.

Having said that, joy can be found in a pretzel and hot dog with brown mustard in Cleveland. Oh yes, yes it can.

4. Embrace the history of the Blue Jays.

Build a museum? Ummm...okay. I don't think this does a damn thing one way or another. I'll get to why it won't in a little bit.

5. Change the name back to Skydome.

Stop. Just stop. STOP TALKING.

This is exactly NOT the problem. EYE wants to beat the "People hate Rogers" drum. Maybe people do and maybe they don't. The building's name has NOTHING to do with the team and its placement in the city whatsoever. "Hey, these Blue Jays have a great young team and are exciting to watch. The kids really want to go. Let's get on the TTC and go to...oh...it's called Rogers' Centre? I guess we better stay home and look at the sun then."

There are stupid ideas, really stupid ideas, moronically stupid ideas, Cito Gaston's ideas about when to use a pinch runner, and then this idea. I don't know if it's sadder that someone wrote it, an editor left it in, or that it made me so angry I've written 3 paragraphs about it.

6. Modernize the ballgame experience

(You know, while also celebrating the history of the team from 20 years ago)

EYE want the Jays to display more stats on the screens because, as this article says, "Sabermetrics are totally the way of the future," which right away should raise the red alert that the person writing this has no idea what they are talking about. Yes, stats are important to baseball. Yes, there are more important ones than RBIs. However, most people who know or care about VORP are hardcore and probably already at the game (Yes, they actually used VORP as a stat that everyone would be interested in seeing. EYE has access to Wikipedia, evidently.)

7. Improve the 500 level

Since no one goes there, it's quiet and most of the places are shuttered. At least in this article the writer admits they don't know what to do about it, and hopes that all their pointers will bring more people there and the area will open up more. ("Kids, they've got VORP on the screen and an outfield museum dedicated to Alan Ashby. Let's get tickets to the 500 level of the Roge.....oh.....never mind. I guess it's back to putting our hands in the fire.")

There are problems with the Jays, and Rogers Centre. Yes the stadium is dated and not very friendly (either as a structure or the way it is staffed). Yes the team should be better. But for making it a destination, there is a larger issue that would have made a more interesting article, and here it is.

Toronto needs to be educated about baseball

Toronto is a one-sports city - hockey. There is no shame in that. There are a lot of one-sport cities (Miami, Boston, I would even argue New York City and Los Angeles are).

Hockey and the Leafs will never be supplanted in this city, but that doesn't mean there can't be room for a sport to occupy the second tier.

The key word in that is "Sport".

EYE's list is about the team. "People support a winning team". Yes, that's true. What's important is how to retain those people when the team is not winning. You do that by making people interested in the SPORT.

The Leafs didn't make the playoffs, but people still talked hockey in Toronto. Why? Because they are invested in the sport.

Can this be done for the Jays? Probably not, as it's too late - that horse left the barn. But it could have been avoided, and there's no reason not to try to mitigate the damage. Marketing would have been smart to get current players out in the community, doing all those corny things that cities do. If this city saw Aki Berg and Tie Domi as all-stars and hall of famers, then there's no reason why I shouldn't hear the name "Fred Lewis" or "Jose Bautista" on the patios after work. That Rogers's job - to market the team like that. Their current marketing plan, which does not feature any players and serves mostly as "aren't marketing people stupid" jokes does the exact opposite of this (and the fact that they reference bringing hot dogs to people's seats shows how out of date they are. Hot dogs, and the ran running around yelling "Getcher red hots!" is part of baseball. GOD THOSE COMMERCIALS MAKE ME ANGRY!)

Stop trying to sell the past of the team: yes it was nice, but it's gone. Ernie Whitt was a hitting coach, at every game for the past few years - that didn't raise attendance, nor will putting a a little plaque with his batting stats on it in the outfield. People don't go to Yankee Stadium because of Monument Park - Monument Park is possible because people went and continue to go to Yankee Stadium. If you have to tell people why Ernie Whitt was great, tell it in the context of the team as it was, the promise of the team today, and in the entire history of baseball (which they will never do because in that case? Ernie Witt is an above average catcher with some hustle and a couple of good years).

Rogers: Love of the Blue Jays is one thing, but love of the game will fill your coffers year after year and give you a better quality of fan at your part.

Fans: Rogers owes you a better team, but you have to prove to them that any investment they make isn't going to be a band-aid solution.

They had the best pitcher in baseball, and one night only 11,000 of you bothered to come to watch him pitch.

That's really all you need to know: Toronto is a city that's angry that they're not going to get a chance to see a pitcher who pitched here for seven years who they didn't come to see then, either.

And EYE? Stick to club listings and imagined slights on the subculture, and leave sports reporting alone. You do that, and I won't write about Deadmau5. Deal? Deal!

... mourning the passing of baseball in Toronto

On Wednesday April 14th I was at an historic event for the Beloved Blue Jays as they drew their smallest attendance ever at Rogers Centre. Now, it's highly possible that there have been smaller crowds than the one that night (The Blue Jays used to have a convoluted way of reporting attendance that inflated each night's total. Not as bad as the NHL's borderline corrupt way of reporting it which makes every game seem like a sell-out...but more on that later).

Being at the game, I can tell you this:

1. I'm still willing to say that the number was over-inflated. It was very very VERY empty in there, no matter how cavernous the venue.
2. It does impact how much you enjoy the game. It's tough to get really involved when you feel as conspicuous as you would were you on a street corner wearing a tin hat and ranting about socialism.
3. None of it surprises me

Let's take away that this is an April game, early in the season when a lot of teams struggle at the gate. Let's look at the following factors

1. The team was arguably playing well: They were first in the AL East and were on a bit of a streak having taken 2 of 3 from the Misbegotten Rangers and swept the Lowly Orioles. True, it's a bit of an illusion, but a win is a win is a win
2. It came one day after Ricky Romero nearly threw a no-hitter, something that even people with the most passing knowledge of baseball can figure out, and was well reported
3. It came at the end of actually a pretty nice day - not nice enough to have the dome open, but definitely a day when people had summer on the mind.

If anything, those three factors should have mitigated the fact that it was an April game even by a little bit - it wouldn't have sold out, but it would haven't have been as bad. No, you weren't going to get a lot of families because it was a school night, but other Toronto teams play on a school night and can draw in more than that and have ZERO chance of playing a meaningful game, so I dismiss that argument with a wave of my hand as easily as I would dismiss a bunch of dead leaves.

So why was attendance so low?

Well, there was the Raptor's last game of the season, which they needed to win to have any playoff hopes. But more importantly, it was the first game of the NHL playoffs, of which Toronto has, at least count....lemme see...yes...zero teams in.

I've said this before, but Toronto is pretty much a one team/sport town - it's all Leafs/hockey, all the time. As such, ANY sport playing in this city is going to be second best, and it shows. The Raptors aren't the draw they used to be, and so few are aware that the Rock even exist that when the league nearly folded it was sidebar story. And before you start, I'll say it again: Don't be so smug, Toronto FC fans. There are already rumblings of discontent in your fanbase, and towards the end of last season there was red in the stands that were seats, not sweaters. You have about one year, possibly two, before a lot of those tickets start getting easier and easier to get.

So...what is my conclusion?

Baseball is dead in Toronto. Long live baseball in Toronto.

"But all they have to do is start winning, and people will come back!" Yes, that is true, and it's all the more proof that baseball is dead.

It's not that people aren't coming to the game because the team isn't winning - people aren't even really talking about the Jays. Traveling through other baseball cities during the season (New York City, Chicago), there's a difference in the air. People talk about the team as part of conversation (even the Mets). They are aware of who is playing and who is not. They have a passing familiarity with the rotation. You hear the game on radios and can see them flicking on TVs. They agree, they disagree, but it never gets heated of boastful. It's part of the fabric of the city and the conversation of its people.

Toronto will never be like that. It just won't. If they win, people will talk and dust of their old hats and banners, but once there's a bump in the road they'll go away. It's not a good thing, it's not a bad thing, it's just the way it is. It's already happened twice in this city (funny how people forget the lean years between the thrill of expansion and the opening of SkyDome...).

There are a lot of cities like this. Dallas has teams in all four sports, but you have to admit that it's a one sport town. Same as Miami, Kansas City, Houston - football is the REAL sport of those cities. There are baseball towns also - New York, Boston, Chicago, St Louis.

Toronto is a hockey town.

So does this mean that baseball is doomed? Does this mean that the city should count the days until the Jays fly south permanently.

No. First of all, there's no where else to go.

Secondly there has to be an attitudinal shift where we as Jays fans admit it: We're not going to draw in large crowds of baseball knowledgeable people, and can we live with that. But we can rebuild IF we are realistic about the outcome. It goes to the heart of what I've been mulling over for the past few years: How does one remain a fan of a team that won't compete yet not be a sucker as much as Leafs fans are? How do you embrace the inner Cubs fan?

There's one word in there that is the key: Cubs. It's about taking an interest in the game as a whole, in the 30 teams and two leagues that play it. It's knowing your team and their team, and talking about them. We're not going to win fans over by beating them over the heads with how great the game is, nor can we lie to them and say it's an exciting young team and that you only need the edge of your seat. The team is in a rebuilding process, so we as fans have to do our part and rebuild the base. We need to find ways to weave the topic of baseball back into the patterns of summers. We need to quietly but steadily show our love of the game and hope that by our example we lead others into a conversation about the sport and why it's worth following. If then they start coming to the games to see the GAME, not the uniforms, then when the team does better there's a base to grow on. A base that hopefully can remain there during the lean years. It's about pride in victory, stoicism in defeat.

I'm not a religious fellow, not in the least, but I guess it comes down to how we want to win converts: By the light shinning through us, or by knocking on people's door and bothering them until they say "Fine, I'll come to the game." I don't know about you, but the first option is what we need to do: Baseball is a game of patience.

Baseball in Toronto is dead. Long live baseball in Toronto.

Do not look directly into the navel
This week the Chicago Sun Times ran a story on the poor showing. Alex Rios and Ozzie Guillen made some great points that echo what I've been saying for a while: It's a one horse town etc.

A lot of strum und dang and pearl clutching came out of some comments in the piece that suggested that baseball would be better served moving out of Toronto and into Latin America.

Three things:

1. As a former Expos fan who still carries that wound, it's kinda hard for me to get too wrapped up in a team moving. Again, I didn't see many of you blocking the road from Montreal to Washington. (And I admit, Montreal is a one sport town also. Baseball, sadly, is not coming back there though I'm convinced it's a better baseball town than Toronto).
2. Cowley is wrong that moving is the only solution.
3. Yeah, it really sucks when someone writes a story about how a sport doesn't belong in your area, that the people aren't fans and don't care, and really the whole sport would be better served by picking up those teams and moving them to places where people really love the game. I'm so glad that we Canadians are completely and utterly blameless in this regard, and would never be so parochial about a game as to sit in judgement of how it's working somewhere else, nor go so far as to try to make it a political issue.

... respecting unwritten rules

The following post contains spoilers for Glengarry Glenn Ross. A good chunk of my life also seems like a spoiler for Glengarry Glenn Ross.

Today was the season opener for the Beloved Blue Jays against the Hardscrabble Rangers. For the first 6 1/3 innings Shaun Marcum didn't allow a hit (though he did walk one batter and hit another). Despite not having pitched for a year, he was cruising towards one of the rarest feats in baseball, the opening day no-hitter - it's only happened once.

There is a tradition in baseball that when someone is cruising towards a no-hitter or perfect game where no one speaks to them, nor does anyone mention what is happening.

The logic is that you don't want to take the player out of his zone.

The superstition is that you don't want to anger the baseball gods, to whom we are like wanton flies (look it up, kids, look it up. It works on a couple of levels).

Today on twitter there was a mild heart attack by all baseball people when those who should know better, including Blue Jays beat writer Jordan Bastian and Roger's Sportsnet's Buck Martinez (currently the second worst manager the Jays have had not named 'Cito'), actually said the word aloud. "Oh, but it doesn't matter," they say, "it won't affect the game."

No, it won't. And it also won't impact my life at all. But...that's the point. Nothing I can do will influence the game, and nothing in the game will actually change my life. So why have a superstition handed down from baseball generation to baseball generation.

There's a scene in Glengarry Glenn Ross when Roma berates Williamson for speaking out of turn and costing him a sale - "You don't open your mouth 'less you know the score". It's the same with everything in life - you don't count your chickens, etc.

Williamson isn't the only one who makes this mistake as not two seconds later Levene, joining the dogplile on Williamson, opens his mouth without knowing the score and manages to incriminate himself in the robbery of the office. Levene is a wily veteran fallen on hard times who taught Roma everything he knows, including (we can assume) that very adage.

Baseball is a game of skill or training, but it's also a game of luck. It's a game of bounces, breezes and bumps. For every great play in history there's the sheer flukiness of the ball bouncing off of Jose Canseco's head, Bill Bucker misjudging a routine ground ball, or the Merkle Boner. It happens. It's part of the charm of baseball - it breaks your heart as it heals someone else's. It's the Wheel of Fortune, spinning in the same rotation as a nasty breaking ball.

And you don't temp the fates. You respect them.

I don't care that you don't think it matters but if you study the game and report on it, you should one that one of the allures of it are these traditions, these unwritten rules. It's a game where people embrace rally caps, videos of monkeys, "Sweet Caroline", and french fries (look it up...I'll give you a hint...Mariners). You should know that what people love about it is the mix of athleticism, drama, and the fact that as you watch the game you can play strategy along with it - you are engaged.

But it's a game of chaos. We respect the chaos, but also don't want to surrender to it so we try to find some order so we don't feel as helpless. It's why it's the most stats heavy of any game, because we want to try to quantify the luck. It's why there are great legends and superstitions around the game because there are so many things that CANNOT be quantified, and we don't want to surrender to that. One of those ways we do that is by not opening our mouths until we know the score - 'less we expose ourselves and our team.

In the end, The Beloved Jays lost 5-4. We all knew there was a nary a chance that Marcum was going to pitch the no-hitter. But there's that word: Chance. And as long as there is a chance, there is hope. And where there is hope, there is also the belief that we can influence what we cannot control even if it is completely irrational.

That's the score.