RIP Zezel

Peter Zezel died on Tuesday after a battle with a blood disease called hemolytic anemia, which is a disorder that causes red blood cells to be killed off faster than the body can replace them.

Zezel was always one of my favourite players on the 1993 and 1994 teams. He was the defensive and faceoff specialist. He scored a goal to win Game 1 of the 1994 Western Conference Finals. He also was great off the ice giving back to his community and leaving hockey to be with his family after the 1999 death of his niece from leukemia.

Down Goes Brown has a great piece paying tribute to someone I'll always remember as a Maple Leaf.

To those who want to pay tribute:

His family has requested that in lieu of flowers, donations be made in Peter Zezel’s name to the James Birrell Fund at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. The cheques should be made payable to "The James Fund" and can be mailed to:

The James Fund
625 Whitaker Street #4
Peterborough, ON
K9H 7L5
Canada

The Bandwagon

It happens all the time and it seems in this city with more frequency than others. It is the bandwagon jumpers. The so-called fans who cheer the team when they are doing well but are quick to abandon, criticize and forget about them when they are doing poorly.

In hockey it is usually evident in May and June (well not for the past 5 years but normal Mays and Junes). There is a sudden increase in Leafs fans across the city. Many people who have not even watched a game the entire season will suddenly hoot and holler as if they live and die by the team. These same people will be hard pressed to name more than 2 players on the team. When they get eliminated those same "fans" forget about them until the next playoff season.

The same happened for the Blue Jays in the past month and a half. Due to their torrid start there was a sudden increase in the number of Jays hats seen around the city and people were buzzing about the team. After one sweep, however, against the Red Sox people were pushing each other to jump off the bandwagon. The following are paraphrased comments by these bandwagoners. "They can't compete with the AL East": right, the same AL East we had a winning record against last year, the year before, and the year before that? "They can't compete when it matters": Well, considering it's May and there are about 120 games left it is a little bit too early to judge this team's ability to compete when it matters. "They don't have the depth": Considering the Jays are probably pitching with one of their relief pitchers as their number three (or 2a) and are still in first that's deep enough for me. "The season's over": It's baseball, not football. As the axiom goes every team is going to win 50 games and lose 50 games. It's what you do with the other 62 that make the difference. They currently sit .5 games ahead of Boston. If someone had told me preseason that the Jays would rank there at this point I would have laughed at them, so I'll take it. As for you bandwagon jumpers, I hope you don't get hurt your legs on the fall down. After all you're going to want to climb back up come October. Magic Number: 120.

The Eck

Nothing went right for the Jays the past 2 games. Tallet's great start was wasted, Cecil showed why he's not quite ready for the big leagues, and the bats disappeared unless it was to hit a useless popup. Worst of all, however, was that they were aired on TSN 2 via simulcast from NESN, which meant we had to listen to Dennis Eckersley, herein the Eck. The Eck, in case you don't remember him, was a dominant closer in the 90s. He was the Mariano Rivera of his generation. Money. The penultimate shut down guy. He was one of the foremost Blue Jay killers, except for one game when it mattered most. It was game 4 of the 1992 ALCS and Oakland, who had defeated Toronto in the ALCS 3 years earlier, was poised to tie the series.

The past two nights the Eck has mostly talked about cheese and how much he hated the Blue Jays. I'm guessing he's still bitter. In the 9th inning the fans in Oakland were going crazy and cocksure that Eck would shut the Jays down. They had a right to be confident. After all the Eck had a record 51 saves that year. They didn't take into consideration though the determination of the Blue Jays. At the end of the 8th the Eck had attempted to taunt and intimidate the Jays dugout by pointing at them. Big mistake. It only served to motivate them. In the 9th Roberto Alomar took his revenge by slamming Eck's offering over the wall to tie the game. When Alomar homered his two arms raised in the air were a direct taunt back at Eckersley. The Jays would go on to win that game and then the ALCS 2 games later. It was probably the biggest home run in Jays history to that point. This was the fourth time they had got to the ALCS (1985, 1989, 1991) but they had lost the previous three. Alomar's homer helped the Jays believe that they could win and exorcised the demons of the previous disappointments. If the Eck had not surrendered the homer the series would have been tied and the Jays perhaps would not have advanced to the World Series.

Last night, when Ortiz homered off Cecil, one of 5 Cecil surrendered, the Eck became absolutely giddy as if it was a huge historical home run. Sorry Eck that wasn't a big home run. Robbie's on the other hand was and you gave it up. I just want the Jays to win now to shut the Eck up and make him relive 1992 all over again.

What a Game! What a Team!

On Sunday I got to see the unparalleled Halladay in action once more and once again he did not disappoint. After a shaky first in which I was almost ready to question the good Doctor he came back. It looked like he was angry for that terrible first and decided that he would dominate the Sox the rest of the way. Dominate he did as no Sox player scored again.

Along the way I saw one more thing I was shocked at: Rod Barajas puffing his way around to score in the fifth. I'm surprised he even played the rest of the game.

Lind and Hill hit incredible home runs again. Those two better be in the All-Star game.

The only sour spot in the game was seeing Scutaro writhing in pain after taking a throw into the chest stealing third. It turned out he was fine but it still sent me into panic mode. This team can't be forced to deal with injuries when everything seems so be going so well. Sweep? Again? With Boston losing the magic number is now 121. Pennant!!!1