A FAN’S NOTES

Opening Day

The charm of minor league baseball is its scale. The ballparks, whatever their state of upkeep, are more intimate. Tickets and concessions are affordable (although beer remains as stubbornly expensive as gasoline on the Friday of a summer long weekend). It’s in places like these that baseball exists in its idealized form, as fiction and longform sportswriting and those few instances when filmmakers didn’t drop a flyball, bobble a grounder.

The West Coast League Riverhawks (who should’ve been nicknamed Magpies – those lovely, noisy, strutting, curious popinjays are everywhere) now trot on to the diamond in place of Tigers, Trappers, CrackerCats, Capitals and Prospects. Baseball in Edmonton is akin to W.O. Mitchell’s roses: difficult here. The WCL is short-season and usually savvy enough to elude the darling storms of May. Opening Day was a night game even though the sun stays up awfully late as the summer solstice approaches.

Canada’s Old Age Security allowance secured three senior-discounted tickets. Ann, Stats Guy and I sat close to an aisle (my bladder bleats like a faulty alarm in the middle of a row) along the first base line. Our preferred spot these days. It doesn’t seem that long ago when Stats Guy and I were in our thirties and would-be rakes about town when the ballpark was named for a person rather than a corporate sponsor, made of wood and bordering on decrepit. Back then he and I preferred watching the Pacific Coast League (AAA) Trappers from the third base line bleachers.

Bill Veeck was baseball’s ultimate hustler. Believe it or not, he was Barnum, Bailey and Ripley combined. The Riverhawks marketing people have memorized his methods. Every home game comes with an opponent and a theme. “Paws in the Park” welcomes dogs and feral children. Star Wars night lures incels from the clammy privacy of their mothers’ basements. Opening Day ceremonies at any level are elongated exercises; some will go to any length for the sake of a good intention.

The Riverhawks inaugural 2026 festivities were in the spirit of Truth and Reconciliation. We were gearing up to watch baseball on private property that had been First Nations territory for thousands of years before the establishment of a fur trading post in the latter half of the eighteenth century. An iron horse followed. History cannot be undone. And the gauge of the line separating abashed acknowledgment and pandering tokenism runs awfully narrow. Overwrought earnestness can be cringeworthy. I was however more inclined to applaud the drumming, singing, smudging and speechifying than groan. I’m nothing if not an insensitive and very soft leftist. I supposed it was a minor irony that the staged rituals were to be followed by “O Canada.”

The rendition of a national anthem before an everyday sporting event is an irksome formality. Tonight, there would be two because the visitors were the Wenatchee (WA) Applesox. Anthems pair nicely with affairs of state and it’s not as if Canada is at war with itself or a foreign power. Maybe we are; the nature of that dirty business has changed dramatically in recent years. What has not been weaponized, undeclared or otherwise?

The rain began before I was able to stand and respectfully remove my throwback St. Louis Cardinals road cap. Not the “little drops of rain” from Led Zeppelin’s “Thank You” nor the “silver rain” of “London Town” and “Silver Train.” These were great mercury globules, the short, foreboding prelude to a downpour. Within moments my Levi’s jean jacket was washed for just the fourth time since I bought it in the late 70s. Some of the green grime around the inside of its collar was rinsed away down my back. Ann and Stats Guy were in the same sudden miserable state. Water sloshed down the stairs between sections like some sort of elaborate fountain feature. Our running shoes, socks and feet were sodden. We were soaked through. Seeking shelter became an acute matter of interior warmth.

The capacity of our ballpark is about 9000. Its interior concourse is designed for flow, not corralling near capacity. The ramps leading to cover were awash with people but the only movement was water over concrete. This is the nature of the modern digital mob. Stop and check your phone in the most inappropriate place possible oblivious to your obstructing the people behind you. It no longer matters that the exit doors of every major public venue open outward. The hunchback herd will stop in the frame. That little bandsaw lag symbol is real; common sense downloading: This may take a while.

It was raining inside too. An elegantly choreographed cascade of silver through the ceiling indicative of structural flaws. The crush made me anxious; that woollen wet smell of a Catholic grade school cloakroom in winter. No personal space for shivering. The lines for the toilets and concessions demanded elbows up endurance. The three of us consulted. If the game was delayed there’d be at least another hour’s worth of the chafing, saturated hell of other people – and the anthems had yet to be sung. If the game was called, we’d have rain checks. Pull the goalie for a pinch runner.

Aw, but you know, it was nice to be back in the yard if only for an hour to smell those metaphorical roses. And admire the manicured diamond, red dirt and striped shades of green, poorly designed signage on the outfield wall. I always enjoy the view no matter how long it lasts.                    

Dispatches from the Crooked 9 is your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of everything meaningless. No AI and little intelligence of any sort since 2013! My latest novel Sunset Oasis Confidential is available in multiple formats. Visit my companion site www.megeoff.com for links to your preferred retailer. Of Course You Did is still in print. Collect the set!