The leaves on the linden tree that I can see out my window have mostly turned yellow-brown. A number have already fallen. We’ve had a series of very cool nights, as though to highlight the now surprisingly warm days. It won’t last. Soon enough the first snow will come. The signs are all there. The Blue Jays play their last game of the season today.
I didn’t play baseball as a boy other than a few pick-up games. But since their inaugural season (1977) I have more or less followed the Toronto Blue Jays. Before that my allegiance lay with the Detroit Tigers, which remains the closest team geographically to where my home town lies. In those early days with the Jays at Exhibition Stadium, I would get to a game once a year usually during The Ex. Toward the end of the summer the guys at the bakery would pile into a car early some Sunday morning and drive the near 3 hours to Toronto. But mostly I would listen to the games on my radio in my room as I drifted off to sleep.
A great many writers have noted that baseball is a sport that lends itself to radio (I would now add that cricket also shares this property). The play-by-play announcers seem to easily paint the scene. It has something to do with the structural nature of the field placements perhaps. Or the conversational pace of the game. Or the narrative drive for drama. Some of it, however, has to do with the familiarity one gains with the radio broadcast team. Over a 162 game season, their voices – the cadence and energy, the commiserations and excitements – take on the aura of friends. I still remember Tom Cheek with fondness and Jerry Howarth just sounds like the nicest gentleman imaginable.
It’s been another middling season for the Jays. They have stayed about .500 throughout the year. That’s not bad in baseball. But it’s not enough to seriously challenge within their division, possibly the most competitive in the league. That’s okay. I just like to listen to the games.
Today is the last game of the season. It will be a long winter.