I guess you can call me lucky.
After all, I did get to take in seven-and-a-third innings of vintage Roy Halladay ball, came the closest I've ever gotten to catching a foul ball, and was one of the first of 10,000 fans to enter the stadium—meaning I took home my very own Aaron Hill Bobble Head doll.
Pretty sweet, eh?
Well, I hadn't seen Halladay pitch live since 1998 (the whole "no-hitter until two away in the ninth when Bobby Higginson hit the most worthwhile home run in his career" in the mind of this young Toronto fan). Needless to say—my palms were sweating.
From the first inning, his stuff looked great. The curve had great dip, the cutter was biting, and the splitter was doing its thing as the Good Doctor worked his way through the top of the first, striking out the side.
Needless to say, in true Blue Jay fashion we followed that with a three-up, three-down inning. Go team!
Doc continued his dominance over the next two innings though. He struck out another White Sox player, while something weird happened for the Jays. They started hitting and with runners on base to boot.
Okay, so a ground-out to first to move Matt Stairs over after a double, followed by a sac fly isn't exactly "hitting" in the traditional sense.
But for a team that's had an anemic offense all season, what we saw in the second inning left Trevor, Scott, Ryan, and myself with the distinct impression that one of two things was happening:
A) This was it. The Jays will get this one run, and Doc will have to go the distance, biting and clawing to keep them up by the slimmest of margins. We know he can do it, but seriously, he shouldn't have to every time he goes out there, or
B) This was the day our offense would finally turn around. Eight runs sounded awfully nice that afternoon.
Well, we got a little bit of option A, a little bit of option B, and a whole lot of option C (the magical John "Jimy Williams" Gibbons' moments).
In the bottom of the third the Jays actually sustained some momentum and scored some runs—with two out!
Following a Gregg Zaun single and an Alex Rios double, David Eckstein and Scott Rolen proceeded to suck all of the hope out of the early rally. (We're also ignoring a possible interference call that could have had Rios killing the rally, too.)
Then Matt Stairs came through again with a huge two-run double. But we weren't done! Vernon Wells did it, too!
Out of nowhere, Halladay was staked to a four-run lead. There was finally a buzz in the stadium.
(One of my biggest pet peeves about games in Toronto—they're all ex-girlfriend games where the fans are just putting in an appearance. Check back on Facebook for that one. Really cool, ain't I?)
As I sat there my palms started to sweat and my stomach started to churn.
Roy Halladay worked through the first three innings perfectly. He gave up a lead-off double to Nick Swisher (who has outstanding range in center field, I might add), followed up by a David Eckstein throwing error (Surprise!).
The inning ended with eight Sox coming to the plate, and three runs being scored.
3 comments Last one added about 1 year ago — Leave a Comment
JJ Stankevitz about 1 year ago
I really enjoyed reading this, Bryan. It's odd, though, because all the Jays fans I've ran into at Sox games could not have been more knowledgeable and courteous. It sounds like you ran into a group of about 30 Tie Domis.
Now, if we can just avoid getting swept...yeesh...
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Max Iascone about 1 year ago
You say nobody mentions perfect games before they happen... apparently you've never had the pleasure of listening to Joe Buck (Heavy sarcasm)... he basically does everything short of running out on to the field and screaming at the top of his lungs "WE HAVE A NO HITTER!, I REPEAT, WE HAVE A NO HITTER!"... and that's only after 4 innings of perfect ball.
I have to say I've developed new respect for Halladay as a red sox fan... the man went 8 and 2/3s shutout innings against us and loses the game... what a travesty. He is probably the best pitcher in the American League in my view in terms of stuff and the ability to eat innings (well). If the jays didn't have such an anemic offense, he'd have at least 4 wins if not 5-6
One more thing, I get what you're talking about with the wave kid... I had a similar experience when I sat in front of a 7 (I think) year old Indians fan at a sox game last year, every time Grady Sizemore, Victor Martinez or Travis Hafner came up... the kid would yell "Go (insert player name here)!, you stink Josh Beckett!" ,even in the 8th inning when Beckett had left the game, right in my ear (probably unintentionally but annoying nontheless).
In the top of the 8th with one out, I believe it was Casey Blake who came up and hit a sizzling liner (foul) right at me, I didn't have a glove on me so I ducked to avoid the risk of being decapitated, the kid leans over me and sticks his glove right in my face to try to make the catch, the ball hits his glove so hard that he starts flailing his glove hand around to make it stop hurting and the ball squirts right out of his hand and ends up being retrieved by some drunk 40 year old a few rows down. Isn't karma great?
Well, I really enjoyed reading this piece and it was very well written, keep up the great work for this site.
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Chris Pennant about 1 year ago
Hilarious work, man. That is the most comprehensive article about an afternoon at the ballpark I've ever read.
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