Bill's Journal Entry #22

SkyDome

Date: August 31, 2002

Location: Toronto, Ontario

Opponent: New York Yankees

Travel companion: none

Link to my photos

Game Result: The Yankees may be the Bronx Bombers, but not this day. Justin Miller of the Jays pitched a three-hitter, allowing the home team to cruise to a 5-1 win.

Stadium Summary: To think that at one time, not too long ago, this was considered to be the state of the art in baseball stadiums. Man, have those times changed. SkyDome (no, there's no "The" -- it's just "SkyDome") is big, interesting and both sterile and out of date.

From the outside, the most notable things about SkyDome are a) the big roof, b) the massive volumes of concrete in and around it, and c) its proximity to CN Tower, "the tallest free-standing structure in the world". (It almost makes you wonder why they need the "free-standing" qualifier -- are they claiming it on a technicality?) CN Tower is a very interesting, unique edifice. I wish that I had time to go up it, however the Labor Day holiday made the lines formidable.

On the inside, the first things to catch my eye were the unique hotel and scoreboard in the outfield. SkyDome has a hotel in its north wall, with many of the rooms having views overlooking the field. Amid those hotel windows is a HUGE video display board-by far the largest in the Majors. Between the hotel, the scoreboard, and the roof, there isn't a single thing on the north side of the stadium that isn't super-sized. But once you get past that area, and look at the field and seating areas, you start to see a lot of things that are very average. The field is artificial turf, with those awful sliding pits. This is necessary because the Jays share the field with the Toronto Argonauts (a.k.a. "The Argos") of the Canadian Football League. The seating area is very bland, very sterile-it looks a lot like Comiskey Field's stands, except there's a hotel in the outfield and a roof over the top. In fact, it's no surprise that Comiskey and SkyDome were built in the same "era"-if that period between the cookie-cutters and the opening of Camden Yards can be called an era. One thing that I really didn't care for is the color-coding of the various concourses. (Not the actual seats or the seating areas, just the concourses.) They are done in rainbow colors (rainbows-SkyDome-get it?), but the colors are painted over nearly every inch of concrete, with contrasting color neon-lit signs showing section numbers, directions, etc. It looks like an early '80s shopping mall parking garage. Another thing I noticed is the homerun fence-it has portraits of past Blue Jay greats, similar to the Dodger Stadium fence. However, the effect is ruined by advertising banners hanging over the fence, without regard to which former Jays they might be partially or completely covering. But still, the people in Toronto are a lot of fun, and the prices (once converted to U.S. dollars) are very reasonable.

Most Important Mathematical Approximation To Practice Before Visiting Canada: Multiplying or dividing by 1.6. Be it converting miles to kilometers, U.S. dollars to Canadian Dollars, or miles per hour to kilometers per hour, it's all approximately multiplied or divided by 1.6. However, trying to convert Canadian-dollars-per-liter of gas to U.S.-dollars-per-gallon, or kilometers-per-liter to miles-per-gallon, might make your head spin. Just pay it, remind yourself that you're on vacation, and forget about it. And let's face it, if you're bothering to convert milliliters to fluid ounces, you haven't consumed enough of either.

Most Peculiar Reminder Of 9/11: Part way through the seventh inning, an alarm could be heard coming from the hotel area. About an inning later, just as the Yankees pitcher was about to throw, an announcement boomed over the loudspeaker, halting play-"Your attention please: We are investigating an alarm situation in the hotel area. Please stand by for further instructions." An eerie silence engulfed the stadium. The pitcher just looked at the umpire, as if to ask, "What should I do?" The umpire decided to play ball, although he didn't call a balk for his pitch being interrupted by the announcement. For the next inning or so, the PA system was dead, no at bats or substitutions could be announced, nor were there any between-inning ads. Finally, the alarm stopped, bringing a round of applause, the PA system kicked back in, and things were back to normal. Besides, it wasn't like people were all that worried-after all, before the game, both planes in the Canadian Air Force had been flying overhead.

Most Equal-Opportunity Mascots: The Blue Jays have two mascots: Ace and Diamond, male and female Blue Jays.

Best Reason To Take A Small Car To Canada: The SkyDome parking garage, located under SkyDome. There are lots of sharp, narrow corners in this garage, that anything larger than a Geo Metro will have trouble with.

Stadium grade: C-  First thing that needs to be done-Boot the Argos, and put in real grass.

Overall grade of my experience at the game: B  I like great pitching performances, and this was a beauty.

-- Bill Verkuilen  biggbill@hotmail.com