To be honest though, there's too much going on in the stands for me to care long enough. There's high-fiving, there's screaming until our lungs hurt, and there's a sense of this being a turning point in the season.
Don't ask me why, but it just had a different feeling at the game, like this team was prepared to gut out the tough wins now, after three months of not being able to.
In all likelihood though, I'm getting ahead of myself—I've sat through the games where the Jays looked like a real team and looked to have the ability to turn it around, and then I was mired in disappointment the next few weeks after all that promise went to waste.
Who knows though? At least we got a real baseball game that got the people on their feet before the season ended—I was worried it would never happen.
Postgame Thoughts
-As we were driving home, we tuned in to AM 590. Needless to say, whoever the late-night guy is on that station is very in love with Derek Jeter, vehemently defending him being the best choice to be a leader on a new ballteam.
Given the choice of any player from any era (I'm not sure if that was the argument or not) I'd take Johnny Bench. If it had to be the current era? I may take Pudge Rodriguez, while a caller made a few good points about Jason Varitek. I would probably just go with a catcher in general though.
The big argument was "stats outside the scoresheet", but no one on the field is supposed to be smarter than the catcher—a smart catcher can make a lot of things happen, and a smart catcher with a great arm can intimidate the other team.
In no way am I saying Pudge has the best arm in the business, but if we're talking "outside the scoresheet" stuff, then catchers give confidence to your pitching staff, the ability to notice patterns, and so many little nuances that otherwise go unnoticed.
Am I saying Jeter isn't a great leader? No. I just wouldn't go with him as my first choice.
-Apparently McGowan left with soreness in his shoulder. That's definitely reassuring.
-I still don't like Mike Wilner, but I can at least appreciate him a little more. He does put up with a lot of strange calls and impractical ideas from some callers, which is tough. In a position like that, it has to be frustrating to keep getting the same people calling in with the same ideas to solve something that isn't quite controllable in the game of baseball. I guess you have to give credit where credit is due.
-Melky Cabrera and Coco Crisp need to play in the same outfield at some point in time, and someone needs to draft a kid with the nickname of Snickers. That'd be the tastiest outfield ever.
Pasqual Coco and Pedro Borbon (Senior and Junior) would be three other members of the "Cadbury All-Candy Team".
It's just a thought, after all.
Bryan Thiel is a Senior Writer for Bleacher Report and the NHL Community Leader. You can get in contact with him through his profile, and you can also view all of his previous work in his archives.
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