Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Johnny Damon broke my wife's heart

True story: A few years back, when Johnny Damon was in the middle of his run with the Red Sox, Mrs. Tao fell head over heels for his rakish urban mountain man looks. She was so enraptured with Damon that she began to fancy herself as Red Sox fan and spent the 2004 playoffs swooning at his every at bat. Red Sox caps were purchased, and a McFarlane figurine of a diving Damon held a place of honour near her bedside. Occasionally, she'd begin stroking it's plasticized gluteal region.

Needless to say, these were dark days in our relationship.

When Damon left Boston for the hated Yankees, Mrs. Tao was incredulous. When she saw him clean shaven and freshly shorn at his news conference introducing him to the Bronx faithful, she was beside herself. And in that moment, Johnny Damon was dead to her. Shortly thereafter, we were engaged to be married. And we find it hard to believe that this is a coincidence.

So when we heard the news from the audience wrangler that Johnny Damon was scheduled to appear today with Strombo on The Hour tonight, we passed along word to our lovely bride. She met the news with a shrug, and told us firmly "I don't like stupid Johnny Damon any more."

We couldn't have been happier.

If you, on the other hand, are in the GTA and are interested in seeing the self-proclaimed idiot chatting it up with Canada's foremost hipster talk show host, then have at it. Here's the 411:

Johnny Damon Interview on The Hour - Wednesday May 13th - 2:00PM
Tickets are Free - to reserve, visit: www.cbc.ca/thehour/tickets and fill out the request form
Confirmation e-mail will follow
Show is 18+
CBC Building - 25 John Street.

About last night
So yeah, that was pretty fucking awesome, don't you think? A packed and emotionally-charged Dome, filled with love for Doc and hate for A.J.. Not to get too hokey about it, but that sort of crowd could make a difference for this team. (Okay, that was pretty hokey. But just play along with us.)

While we're anticipating a bit of a let down tonight in terms of attendance and the atmosphere in the park, we're hoping that some of the folks who made it down last night will be charged up enough to start coming back to the park and filling the joint for the rest of the season.

Given the way this team has performed thus far, they deserve your support.

21 comments:

Ian Hunter said...

Tao, maybe the Mrs. can develop a new crush on Tallet since she seems to be a fan of the bearded type. It is the Summer of Tallet, after all!

Tao of Stieb said...

Not sure if Tallet is her type. She might be more of a Rolen type, especially if he keeps up with the beard he's been growing.

Darren Priest said...

My wife lost any spark of interest in the Jays or baseball when Alex Gonzalez left the team.

Sounds like if Mrs. Tao were a gay man, she'd be into bears.

Yay, olde comment format is back!

Navin Vaswani (@eyebleaf) said...

I hope none of you here get your current affairs from Strombo and The Hour ...

Last night was unreal. The joint was more packed than Canada/USA at the WBC. Great fucking atmosphere. Here's to many more.

Richmond tonight. Can we go ahead and nickname him "Canada"? Sure, there are other good Canadian ball players - Morneau, Stairsy, Votto - but this Canadian plays on Canada's team.

So, do your thing Canada.

Pennants. Three of them.

Stedron said...

Big, throbbing, huge, purple, majestic BONERS!!!

Watched the game with the wife last night. We were standing in the living room clapping for the final out like we were there. Awesome, awesome, awesome.

My fear going in was that whoever lost this game, would win the series. Here's hoping I was wrong.

Voodoo Matt said...

Three problems for me regarding tickets for that show:
1) I'm not a fan of Johnny Damon
2) I'm not a fan of George Strombolopoflopojobomopostopolous
3) 3000 miles away.

The game last night was indeed great. The fourth inning AJ Burnout brought back unwelcome memories. After the first pitch of the last at bat: Roy: Fucking pay attention back there (or something just as killer) put the game over the top as Best. Game. Ever.

The Ack said...

^^ you just know the ump felt shame when Doc called him out there, too. 100% awesome.

Tao of Stieb said...

When the DocBot 3200 tells you that he just threw a strike, you'd better believe that he threw a strike.

His laser-precision is never wrong.

RoboBoners!

Anonymous said...

Hoo! What a game that was. i was one of the 43,000 who booed AJ every chance we got. Boos for A-Rod as well of course..but it was a special night. I was hoping we would get the cap tip from AJ when he was pulled but he disapointed us all. Again.

Oh, and of course, Doc was spectacular. Again.

Anonymous said...

Tao and Crew,
how bout a poll or column, (not sure if you've done it before)

Favorite and least favorite TV play by play/commentators.
Rod Black, Jamie Campbell, Cosentino, Mulliniks, Tabler, Darrin Fletcher, etc. I may be missing some.

I'm out of market so I'm curious to see what you guys think about the guys in the booth. (I often get the other team announcers via MLB package)

Thanks
Neal (metro NY Jays fan)
lovin this right now

Stedron said...

@ Neal:

If you have DirecTv you can usually find both teams' broadcast. Unfortunately if you go to the MLB Mix channel, it will only show 1, but if you go to the guide you can find both. I just realized this little nugget of awesome last week.

cd said...

How can you not be a fan of the Strombo?? He was at the game last night, standing up the whole time, getting his section on their feet, wearing out a powder blue Jays jersey and completely gracious and friendly to anyone who wanted to talk to him. Great guy.

Anonymous said...

He comes across as a major douchebag on tv

Drew said...

I agree with cd; any person I know to interact with him has nothing but positive things to say. Authentic and all that good stuff.

Stedron said...

AWESOME!!!

This will probably mean nothing to those of you close to the action, but this just made my day, seeing as I'm 7 hours from Toronto.

Some dude in my office, who I've never even seen before, stops me in the break room and says "Hey, you're a Blue Jays fan, right? They're doing really well. Big game last night."

Seriously, I don't know anyone around here who is aware that there are more teams in the league than the Reds, and the team currently playing the Reds.

Blue Jays recognition! First, an office outside of Dayton, Ohio. Tomorrow, THE WORLD!!!

Tao of Stieb said...

@ Stedron

It's becoming a full blown movement!

Re: Strombo

Have met him very quickly in passing, and seemed to be a nice guy. I don't necessarily blame him for the show being a little hipper than thou.

The distaste that some folks have for him may have something to do with his ubiquity.

Also, we wouldn't necessarily give Strombo props for being a superfan last night...really, everyone in the city was. If Strombo shows up for a weekday game versus the Orioles when there's 14,000 people and brings the noise, then we'll tip our cap to him.

Navin Vaswani (@eyebleaf) said...

I'm mainly being a douche re: Strombo b/c I work for the competition.

But he does seem like a swell chap, and he supports the home team, so he's obviously a smart guy.

Go Strombo. Go Jays.

Tao of Stieb said...

Hey, Strombo is welcome to post here anytime.

Bruno Van Rottweiler said...

That was some cool shit yesterday. I wish I was there, alas I'm stuck here in the NYC area. People saying that it was like the 92-93 World Series last night??!!! Holy shit, is it deja vu all over again? The Yankees are one thing BUT the REd POx need to be schooled/crushed. I'm annoyed by Pukilis, the Child Molester's Brother Pedroia AND the Gay Lumberman looking Varitek!They need to be crushed and the Red Pox gang of idiots!

Anonymous said...

Strombo is the bomb, the best. And go Jays go, let's beat the Yanks again!

MK Piatkowski said...

Thank god you've gone back to this comment format. I couldn't post in the other one.

Last night was indeed incredible. I had a great time razzing some obnoxious Yankee fans behind me for the first couple of innings before they moved. Great to be around a crowd that was actually into the game rather then getting drunk and starting the wave.

I'm having so much fun these days. Now if only the baseball gods would smile on me and have some lovely person give me a ticket behind home plate when Doc is pitching, this season would be perfect.