After 670 days, a harbinger of hope

Rogers Centre will never be thought of as a baseball cathedral, but tell that to some 15,000 who returned to a stadium that had sat dark while its team wandered hither and yon, surviving on youthful resilience for two seasons

Rogers Centre doesn’t greet you with the splendour of Wrigley’s ivy or the imposing figure of Fenway’s Green Monster. There is no gleaming yellow of Clemente Bridge at Pittsburgh’s PNC Park.

Its concourse features not sluggers or flamethrowers of yore, but a cable magnate.

From its first day it was always more a centrefold candidate for Architectural Digest, not Baseball Digest.

The smell of the grass? It is, and always has been, fake.

On Friday night, none of that mattered. Suddenly, a shopworn home to the Toronto Blue Jays that was exceedingly difficult to romanticize, never looked more alluring.

This will never be thought of as a baseball cathedral, but tell that to some 15,000 who returned to a stadium that had sat dark while its team wandered hither and yon.

“I feel like the world has become a giant stopwatch and time just keeps stopping. Maybe this is the last tick and we can finally go forward.” DAN DZIKEWICZ ROGERS CENTRE USHER

They’ve been living out of a suitcase, surviving on youthful resilience for almost two years.

Suddenly, this place took on the sheen of a shrine.

Damn, had the late afternoon sun splashing over the pitcher’s mound during batting practice ever looked more beautiful? Maybe it had. The point is, we had almost forgotten.

Baseball has always been the harbinger of hope, the springtime promise of sunshine and long summer nights after the gloom of winter, so it was only fitting that it should play that role of harbinger of hope one more time, this time at an unfamiliar juncture in the calendar in an unfamiliar era.

The easing of this pandemic will play out in many different ways for different people – the long-delayed hug with a mother in a long-term-care home, the first cuddle with a newborn grandchild, the simple fist bump between buddies over a pint on a patio.

Yes, for many in the GTA, a baseball game would be met with a shrug and that is just the nature of the place.

But the communal gathering at a sporting event holds a special place for many of us and the return of Toronto’s erstwhile travelling baseball show is, with apologies to TFC and its fans, a momentous signpost on the journey out of this pandemic darkness.

There may have been only 15,000 of us and our cheers welcomed back Vlady and Bo and Teoscar, but the night also conjured memories of a Jose Bautista bat flip, a Josh Donaldson dash to the plate or an Edwin Encarnacion walk off blast. We were here for those nights, but we wondered sometimes if we would ever get back again.

But beyond those ghosts, there were the others who make up the landscape of a night at the ballyard.

There was our hot dog vendor again hawking his $5 sausages. Price hadn’t changed.

Rodney and John were there scalping tickets again, promising a deal next weekend when we’ll be looking for a pair against the Red Sox.

Once again, there was a parade of blue jerseys heading down John Street, patios dotted by royal blue, powder blue, road grey – anything with the Jays logo. The ritual of the pre-game drink had returned to this neighbourhood.

There was the anticipatory gait of those pouring out of the trains at Union, dads trying to slow down excited kids who dragged them through the concourse.

There were $12 hot dogs and a couple of beers would still set you back close to $30. But somehow that beer tasted better last night.

There was, of course, Home Plate Lady. Asked to throw out a ceremonial first pitch, she instead handed the ball to Guerrero and received a big hug for her effort. And a standing ovation.

There was Dan Dzikewicz, an usher who delivered food to shut-ins during the pandemic, back at his station as an usher in the 100 level. He’s happy to be back, but he will continue to deliver food.

“I feel like the world has become a giant stopwatch and time just keeps stopping. Maybe this is the last tick and we can finally go forward,” he said.

And then there was 80-yearold Winston Stokes of Victoria who was finally at his first game. Fate and personal travails had conspired to keep him from Rogers Centre in the past, but when his stepdaughter Andrea Gardiner, an Air Canada flight attendant, called and said she had an adventure for him, he jumped on the red-eye from the coast and arrived in Toronto a couple hours after the Blue Jays.

We were back.

Except, of course, for those who found their Field of Dreams in their ninth decade. To them, we say simply, welcome.

On my way to the game, my phone rattled with alerts warning of a potential fourth wave.

Travel remains challenging, the unvaccinated remain frustrating, the future is certainly not sealed.

I know all that.

But none of that mattered at this moment, at 28 minutes past seven on a late July night in 2021.

Whit Merrifield of the Kansas City Royals stepped into the box and Ross Stripling looked in for a sign.

After 670 days, they were playing baseball in Toronto again.