A LONG WAY FROM MANY PLACES

Baseball Next Summer?

Stats Guy and I have sat and watched a lot of baseball together throughout our 35-year friendship. Most of the games we saw were played in a stadium situated down on Edmonton’s North Saskatchewan River flats and most of those games were just one tier below the majors, AAA Pacific Coast League.

We are the sole survivors of the pre-pandemic Tuesday Night Beer Club. One member committed suicide. Another just couldn’t be bothered anymore. Our guests, visitors to our town, come and go. Must be the conversation. Stats Guy has a few years on me. Come July he will be officially certified a golden ager. He’s a little old-fashioned; he seriously believes that football, what North Americans call soccer, is a communist enterprise. Perhaps that’s why he loves America’s pastime, because except for maybe the Montreal Canadiens and the Rolling Stones no one has branded and marketed “Golden Age Nostalgia” quite like Major League Baseball. I’ll swing away on that 0-3 count.

Stats Guy grew up in a Los Angeles suburb. He saw Sandy Koufax pitch. He’s still a Dodgers fan: the Angels are upstarts, shame about the Expos. I hate the Dodgers because my late big brother hated them, and I don’t know why Bob hated the Dodgers but that was good enough for me. Stats Guy and Bob were very good friends. The Dodgers played in Brooklyn before I was born and their AAA International League club was the Montreal Royals. I believe my father attended a game or two at Delormier Downs. Possibly with my brother in tow as a youngster because Bob’s nine years older than me although now I’m as old as he ever was. The only baseball game I saw with my father was on a summer visit I paid him in Ottawa; we saw the Lynx (Expos AAA) host the Rochester Red Wings (Orioles AAA).

For some hundred Tuesdays prior to covid interruptus Stats Guy and I have kicked around, bent it like Beckham, the idea of a baseball road trip. I know he’d like to go home to southern California but if I’m going to buy a souvenir cap, as I must, I’d prefer not to promote a team I hate. Also, I’m tired of blue hats and black hats. I think I’d like a red hat. I’d love to see the St. Louis Cardinals play at home. And Kansas City is only an hour away. However, transport is problematic. It’s easier to get to Iceland from Edmonton’s international airport (YEG) than it is to Missouri. Call me persnickety, but I’d like to watch baseball somewhere just a direct flight away. The pandemic has lingered while time itself seems to have accelerated and YEG isn’t exactly a hub, and hanging around other airports waiting for connections is not my idea of time well spent. By this cranky logic, Stats Guy and I could end up in just one place: Minneapolis-St. Paul, home of the Twins.

In 2015 the Rolling Stones embarked on their “Zip Code” tour of North America. Of course I reviewed their itinerary. Big ticket prices to be paid months in advance for seats in big American football stadia in secondary markets, that is, places where people live because there once was a primary industry and where tourism now constitutes Thanksgiving visits from distant relatives. With the Stones in their diseased dotage, what would I do in Indianapolis except pluck little green apples should they cancel or postpone at the last minute, after I’ve beast of burdened up all the cash? Even in their prime there was an element of risk, a no show, although that was likely jail.

Travelling to watch a ballclub seems inherently more sensible. What could possibly go wrong for a pair of baseball tourists in the United States.? Travel insurance is available for sudden, personal medical events. It could rain. Oh, terrorist attacks, violent demonstrations and random mass shootings too. But all in all, safe as houses of credit cards, really.

The Government of Alberta is confident the province will open up for Canada Day, the first of July. Aside from a nastier covid variant named for a Greek or NATO alphabet letter in order not to offend the government of its country of origin, what could possibly go wrong? Perhaps the Tuesday Night Beer Club will reconvene. Perhaps Stats Guy and I will emulate Vivaldi: enjoy the grace of the ensuing four seasons, summer, fall, winter and spring – many months – and hatch a scheme we’ve only been talking about for years.                  

meGeoff has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of revenge travel writing since 2013. My novella Of Course You Did is coming soon. Don’t miss out on the literary sensation of 2021. Bookmark this blog for further breathless updates.