If there is one thing that was missing in our obsessive following of the Blue Jays this year, it was our best pal Jeff Blair's insight on the comin's and goin's on. Being otherwise engaged in serious business in Beijing and the hinterlands of Hamilton, Blair's input on the Jays in the Globe this year has been somewhat minimal. And it has been missed.In Blair's absence, we've just been re-reading our own hackish blog posts about how the Jays' performance makes us feel. It's like taping a therapy session, then watching it obsessively. Blair's return has come in a nick of time.
Which is why it is a little disappointing to see one of his first columns back on the baseball beat is a big wet sloppy somethin'-somethin' for Reed Johnson. It's an outright paean to Reed's gritty gutsy gamitude, and frankly is going to reignite the flames of misguided passion that was only recently extinguished in every Dougie and Gordie in the GTA. Thanks for that Jeff.
Maybe the excessive rage over Reed Johnson's release has faded in Blair's memory because he was on the other side of the world when it finally petered out.
We, on the other hand, had just finally reached a point where anonymous commenters had given up on bitching and moaning about what a horrendous error in judgment this was, and how J.P. should be fired for this roster move alone. We'd even gotten used to listening to JaysTalk and not hearing Reed Johnson's name mentioned obsessively but the goofballs and drunken security guards venting at Wilner.
Blairsy, we beg of you: Stop feeding the animals and stop rattling their cages.
It's oh so quiet on JaysTalk
Speaking of peace in the valley, we had figured that every J.P. hater was going to read Dick Griffin's speculative article yesterday on the Jays' GM return for 2009 and totally lose their shit on the Wilner-Ricciardi Fan 590 Hoe-Down last night. Instead, we had an episode so genteel and polite that it has already been optioned to be a Merchant-Ivory film. (Colin Firth plays Wilner, Alan Cummings plays J.P., and Emma Thompson plays Lady Steeles from the North of Marcum).
We though for a minute that we were hearing crickets chirping on the air until we figured out that it was J.P.'s Blackberry going off.
Please excuse a few of the goofy mistakes in this post. There's some weirdness happening with Blogger that's not allowing us to go in and fix our grammatical errors.
ReplyDeleteStupid technology.
un-acc-ept-a-ble.
ReplyDeletewait, you proofread your posts? christ, there's an idea.
ol' Blairsy looks ready to absolutely destroy all challengers in that bio pic of his. "Just try me, Dick. Same goes for you, Cathal."
We think we remember Blair mentioning that he didn't like this photo after the Globe's redesign because it made him look too angry.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, we can't find any smiling photos of our favorite (if delinquent) Jays beat reporter.
you guys are both losers, go sox!
ReplyDeleteDustin Pedroia is the next Mike Greenwell.
ReplyDeleteReed Johnson is like the old lamp in that Ikea commercial, except instead of sitting in the trash looking up at the chick enjoying Joe Inglett, he's playing in Chicago. And really, isn't that the same thing?
ReplyDeleteI was prepared to dislike Blair, simply because he was part of the mainstream media. Then he actually quoted an obnoxious question I had earlier in the year, in reference to Adam Lind being trapped in Syracuse, and answered it in his mailbag. He didn't even censor it.
ReplyDeleteThe simple act of not deleting my question made him my favorite baseball writer, and now, having seen a photo of the man, I see that he seems poised to destroy Superman next, so good job, me.
We need to have a Oompa Loompa song for Pedroia.
ReplyDeleteBlair's awesome, love-in article for Reed aside.
ReplyDeleteand I really wish I could kick "dustin kicked your ass" square in the nuts. what a dipshit.
Reed rules...go cubs
ReplyDeleteReed sucks, He is a career backup that had one good season. Its utter crap if anyone thinks that it was HIM that put the cubs over the top.
ReplyDeleteCubs fans: A Century of Championing Mediocrity
ReplyDeleteCareer backup? Hardly. A very solid platoon player when healthy, absolutely.
ReplyDeleteAnd who said anything about Reed Johnson putting the Cubs over the top? Ted Lilly already did that before Reed came along.