Baseball with the Boys in Detroit

This past weekend the guys I grew up with and I headed to see the Blue Jays play in Detroit.

After our first hotel booking fell through (we cancelled and walked out. It was a dump!), we found rooms in the Four Points Downtown, which is part of the Sheraton chain. Wow! The staff there was great. We only had 2 rooms for the Friday night but they informed us right away of cancellations for Saturday night, so ended up with two rooms again. Special thanks to Graeme on the front desk for helping us with so many things.

Due to having to search for a hotel, we were an inning late getting across the border to the game. In my rush, I forgot my camera. I wish I had it just for the 4th inning tribute to cancer survivors. It was so moving.

I did have my camera for last night's.

National anthems.

There are many features to the ballpark for kids such as a larger tiger themed merry-go-round, which I didn't get a chance to take a picture of, this Ferris-wheel and more.

Umpire meeting.

And here we are. From left to right, Alfred, me, Craig and Kevin

First pitch and some ballpark views.

We moved to seats across the diamond. Kevin stayed. This was taken from across the diamond.

More action.

And then came the rain ...

This morning looked much better from our hotel room.

Pictures from today's game.

There are some fun things they do between innings. There is a car race. Each car is introduced with the name and race from the right field wall to behind home plate. The win records for the year are posted on the scoreboard after.

Later this buggy comes out, smoke stacks and horns a blowing! See that round contraption on the back? It's a gattling-gun tee-shirt launcher. It fires them high over the safety net with some even reaching the top deck. It gets the biggest cheers of the day.

It was a good week-end for the Jays, winning two of their three games. They lost in the bottom of the tenth 4-3 today.

For us, it was a fabulous weekend. It's been three years since we did this due to my being sick. Looking forward to our getting away together to getting back to being an annual event.

Toronto Blue Jays Canada Day Ball Game

Today was Canada Day and every year Teena and I head to the Rogers Centre to watch the Jays play. Today they were up against the Kansas City Royals. It shows what winning does to attendance as only 29,339 were there to see the game. For me, the opening ceremony for Canada Day is a huge reason in itself to be there. Today was no exception.

Above is a picture of the first pitch of the game.

The 49th Parallel rescue team rappelled  from the roof of the stadium. It was amazing to watch their descent.

Our Canadian Armed Forces were there with a massive Canadian flag.

Here we are.

Ceremonial first pitch. It was in for a strike! I love that he threw off the mound.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. strokes a double in the first inning.

Lourdes Gurielle Jr.

Cavan Biggio drives in a run.

Clayton Richard pitched 6 great innings for the win and a quality start (6 innings with 3 earned runs or less scored against him).

Biggio turns a double play.

Rowdy Tellez gets out of the way of an inside fastball.

Teoscar Hernandez takes a big swing. Later he would put a home run in the left field stands.

Good timing. This is Freddy Galvez hitting his second home run of the game.

People doing the CN Tower EdgeWalk. Don't know if I would ever have the courage to do this!

Here's Hunter Dozier hitting a single. Dozier's a player on my Rumrunners fantasy team.

It was a stressfree afternoon as the Jays took down the Royals 11-4.

On the way out, we watched as SportsNet announcer Jamie Campbell walk over to speak to a young fan before signing a baseball for him. He was so classy. The kid loved the few minutes Jamie spent with him.

It was a fun afternoon. I love going to the ball yard and today was no exception.