Friday, April 3, 2009

Friday Rock Out (Not Really a Rock Out) - Ok Blue Jays!



Kudos to the ever-grinding Go Jays Go tumblr for tracking down this nostalgic nugget from the days when the Jays wore blue and were on their climb to the top for the first time.

We get a little misty eyed looking at the cast of characters in this video. Key! Moseby! Willie Freaking Upshaw! Ernie! (All is forgiven!) Buck Martinez with his broken leg and porn stache tagging out Gorman Thomas!

With all of the pissing and moaning that's gone on over the offseason, it's easy to lose sight of the reason why any of us spend 12 months per year agonizing over every minor league free agent deal, and every Spring demotion or Fake Game homer hit by someone who was never going to make the team anyhow.

We do it because, goddamnit, we love this game, and the fact that the real games are finally almost here has put an extra spring in our step.

A few housekeeping items

-Jeff Pearlman clarifies what his book actually said about this whole Clemens-Cito imaginary battle royale (but thanks to the Canadian media for the free pub!) Meanwhile Neate (who has actually read Pearlman's book) digs a little deeper.

-Paul Beeston, who is absolutely 100% full of shit and we love him for it, says that the Jays will boost the payroll to $120 million if the team has a shot of winning. So, if we've got this straight: They'll spend money to win if they are winning, but only if they are winning and not to help them win. Awesome!

-The Drunks have produced another of their absolutely indispensible Guides, The DJF Guide to the 2009 Home Opener. If you are attending Monday's game, please be certain to review this material. There will be a quiz.

-Sportsnet will introduce innovative live entertainment platform interactivity into their Jays broadcasts this year that will make you feel like it is 1993 and you are playing NTL Trivia at a bar over wings and pitchers of Moosehead. Progress! There's no stopping it now!

Closing thoughts for this final weekend of the offseason
You know what folks? This week has been fucking awesome. You guys have rocked it out in the comments section over the past week (Voodoo Whammy!), and we truly appreciate all of your patronage over the offseason. It's been more than 135 posts since we've had actual game action to discuss, but we're happy that you've stuck with us over this long winter. Whatever happens this season, let's all have a bit of fun, okay?

Don't forget that TSN has the broadcast of a fake game on Saturday, and if the crick don't rise again (literally), the Ack should be on the job this weekend.

17 comments:

The Ack said...

I am going to be fucking EPIC this weekend, sandbaggin' or no.

OK, maybe not, but I'll be sure to throw down my brand of bloggarhea on the readership. Sorry in advance, yo.

dave said...

No no no, Tao! You can't be cynical about the bump up in payroll. It's going to happen!

It's not even a bump up really, they're just using the $20mil they saved this year and adding it to next year when they go back to the $100mil payroll. It's a brilliant strategy, IMO.

Anyway, I love the love in this post. The Jays blogsphere is awesome! So excited for Monday!

Tao of Stieb said...

Ack, you're always EPIC.

We just expect that this weekend, you'll be ever EPIC-er.

Whammy!

Darren Priest said...

How high's the water, Mama?

Navin Vaswani (@eyebleaf) said...

Tao, I love nostalgic nuggets.

Ack, looking forward to it, brother!

Just a few more sleeps until I get to see Doc in action.

FUCK. YES.

Anonymous said...

Yeah! Voodoo Whammy! This weekend I'll be sitting by my door expecting my pony.

Adam said...

OMFG GAME IN THREE DAYS!!! Good thing I got an extension on my essay, nothing is getting done when the game is on! :D

Anonymous said...

Tao,
i would definately trade Scott Richmond for Juan Pierre.

j/k

LEGITIMATE SPEED off the bench, a pinchrunner to spice things up, a player to take advantage of cathers like our ol' buddy Zaun.

Not small ball but a little spark. The great Jays of 98 did a ton of runnin. Not comparing by any means (loved that team 4 the record)

Whats the downside of using ONE bench spot for that?

I think Dave Roberts is a free agent...just joking

-Neal

Ian Hunter said...

It's good to see that I'm not the only person who calls it a "crick".

DaveC said...

Isn't Juan Pierre making $9 million a year? He'd be good at about one-ninth of that for what he does well.

The Ack said...

This is the height of fucking bullshit. Like, the home fucking opener pre-empted for a fucking regular season hockey game?

FUCK.

Anonymous said...

I don't know how it is in the Peg but here in T-Dot we get Sportsnet West and Sportsnet Ontario. Do you get the Ontario channel in your section?

bs said...

hey ack, if you look hard enough, you can find a feed of the game somewhere online. i could usually find em last year on the days rogers was too gay to broadcast. the quality isn't that good, but it beats radio

bs said...

you might have some luck here, these things can be sketchy sometimes though.

http://myp2p.eu/competition.php?&competitionid=&part=sports&discipline=baseball&allowedDays=2,3,4,5,6

bs said...

link got cut off, it should read:

http://myp2p.eu/competition.php?&competitionid=&part=sports&discipline=baseball&allowedDa
ys=2,3,4,5,6

The Ack said...

^^ thanks dude, I will most def resort to those measures.

I mean - the Home Opener! Am I overreacting, or is that not a load of shit?

Sven the Swede said...

That video is still amazing! Len freaking Matuzek's in it (his trade for Al Oliver was genius Gillick; although starting the year with Burroughs and Matuzek as DH wasn't as smart). I had no idea Doyle Alexander had such a strange delivery.

Roy is going to rock this year.