THE SPORTING VIEWS Baseball IS played in Canada By JOE EWING ITTAKES diehard - or crazy - baseball fans to follow s their favorite team 265 miles into a foreign country. '.Especially when that team is five games out and fading " fast. At least that was what many Canadian diamond fans thought when fellow Daily sports writer Jim Davis and I sjourneyedto Canada last Friday to see the Detroit Tigers split a doubleheader with the Blue Jays at Toronto's Exhibition Stadium. "Going to see a Jays game, eh?" smirked one gas station attendant along the way. All the attendant's friend could do was laugh at us hysterically. "You mean you came all the way from Detroit," asked another Blue Jay devotee. "You must be proud, or crazy." It was probably a little bit of both. It all started last Thursday night when J.D. returned home all fired up from watching the Tigers and Jack Morris whitewash the Minnesota Twins, 5-0, at Tiger Stadium. "Youmwant to go see the Tigers play in Toronto tomorrow night?" he inquired. "Sure," I replied, thinking he couldn't be serious. At noon the next day we were on the road heading for the border and the great white north. We were making great time, doing better than 100 (kilometers per hour) all the way across southern On- tario without one Canadian mounty in sight. We figured they couldn't catch us anyway because they were on horseback and we were in a Datsun 210. Game time was set for 5:30 and we were sure we would make it in plenty of time the way the kilometers were flying by, that is until we ran into a big problem: The Greater Toronto Traffic Jam.' It was 6:00 p.m. before we even got close to Exhibition Stadium and ran into another problem, the Canadian National Exhibition. It seems our neighbors to the north decided to have their giant, national equivalent to the Michigan State Fair at the same time we wanted to see the ba 11game. We couldn't park within two miles of the stadium. When we finally found a spot, (for $4 Canadian, eh) it was in a lot that appeared to have been occupied by a building as late as that morning. At it turned out, the tickets, at $2 Canadian (eh), cost the same as the parking, plus of course an additional $2 for the scalper. However, we soon found out why the seats were so cheap - we had to sit in the boonies. It's not to say that we were far away, but you start to wonder if something is wrong when Lance Parrish looks like a mole hill instead of a mountain behind homeplate. Exhibition Stadium is one of those multi-purpose com- plexes that is used-for baseball and Canadian football, as well as an occasional concert. During the weekdays it is also known as the Toronto International Airport. The score was 2-1, Tigers when we finally arrived. However this lead was soon erased and turned into a 6-3 deficit by the Toronto half of the sixth thanks to a pair of homeruns by Jesse Barfield and a single shot by Jorge Orta. The Tigers fought back and tied the game in the eighth only to have Aurelio (Senior Choke) Lopez throw two wild pitches in the bottom of the eighth, allowing a Toronto runner to score from first. The Tigers didn't roll over and purr yet, though, as Parrish rocketed out a homer in the top of the ninth and Larry Herndon doubled in two more in the tenth for a 9- 8 victory. The outcome of the first contest, along with some Detroit entrants infiltrating the banner contest the Blue Jays planned for in between games, brought some of the Toronto fans fnto an anti-Detroit frenzy. The six and one- half percent Canadian beer didn't help much either. Some Toronto fans even got involved in one of their favorite between-game activities - Yank bashing - where you grab the nearest U.S. citizen and make ham- burger out of his face. Fortunately, J.D. and I didn't fall victim to this cruel sport. In fact, the fans around us were pretty well-mannered. There was a group of about six locals sitting in front of us keeping a collection of all the beer glasses they had em- ptied. At last count, it was 84 beers between them at $1.85 Canadian (eh) per brew. "What the (bleep) do you think of our Jays," yelled one of the locals. "They've finally given us something to cheer about. By next year they should be able to beat out Detroit by 17 or 18 games." It's amazing what a little beer will do to someone's ability to reason. The Tigers lost the second game, 8-7, thanks to Sparky Anderson's ingenious decision to start Kirk Gibsin in right field. With two men on and two out in the Toronto third, Gibby misplayed two fly-balls into back-to-back triples, giving the Blue Jays four runs they shouldn't have had. Actually, nothing we saw Gibson do was worth cheering (we had missed his home run early in the first game). Still though, the Toronto fans felt sorry for Gib- son and cheered him every time he caught a ball during warmups. What a great thing to do to a pro baseball player who should have played pro football instead. Really, the road trip was pretty enjoyable. We got to see some of the Canadian National Exhibition, as well as munch on some Exhibition Stadium foot-long hot dogs. Sorry, though, the Canadian dogs, which were pre- packaged, couldn't beat the Tiger dogs served down at the Stadium in Detroit. On the way back we hit the border and crossed through customs at 4:00 a.m., right when the customs officials were the grumpiest. They asked us if we had anything to declare and we said,."Yea, Kirk Gibson should be sent to the minors.' They sure didn't have a sense of humor. The Michigan Daily - Friday, September 9, 1983 - Page 23 PARTHENON GYROS ~~ ~~iezllz~ FINE CREEK FOOD HOME COOKED * GYROS& SHISH-KA-BOB SANDWICHES " GREEK SALADS * MOUSAKA " PASTITSIO * DOLMADES * BAKLAVA * SPINACH PIE * GYROS PLATE * YOGURT " COMBINATION PLATE . RICE PUDDING NOW SERVING BEER AND WINE OPEN MON.-SAT. 11:00 A.M. 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