Sky Dome / Rogers Centre

I took a three-day weekend this year to visit Toronto and the Rogers Centre. Sky Dome was completed in 1989 at a cost around 570M CAD. By comparison, other baseball stadia built in this era included Tropicana Field in 1990 for $130M, New Commiskey in 1991 for $130M USD, and Camden Yard in 1992 for $110M USD. Since the exchange rate around this time was 1 USD = 1.05 CAD that means Sky Dome cost over $100M more than the next three ballparks combined. Of course Sky Dome had a retractable roof which was still a relatively new innovation for sports stadiums. Also note that Olympic Stadium in Montreal had a retractable roof at a higher cost than Sky Dome, but Olympic stadium was built for the Olympics. [aptly named!] One final note I will mention, Sky Dome was the last baseball stadium designed to be dual purpose with football and is one of the two remaining major league parks to co-occupy with a professional football team. Other stadiums can be configured for football games but are not intended for a full time NLF [or CFL] team. 

My friend and I decided to stay at the hotel connected to the ballpark. We opted not to get one of the rooms that look into the park at triple the rate of the normal rooms. We attended two games against the Texas Rangers. Over the past few seasons, Texas has put together some good seasons. Toronto has been struggling in part due to being in the division with the biggest arms race [Yankees & Red Sox] making it hard to compete. This was going to be their big breakout season. Boston was terrible last year, the Yankees were starting to look their age, and the Marlins conducted a fire sale at the end of last year sending everyone of value to the Blue Jays. There were high hopes in Canada! As we approach the All Star break, it turns out getting everyone of value off a last place team doesn’t have the kind of impact they were hoping for. The Blue Jays look like they might finish in last in their division. Their roster looks pretty good on paper with RA Dickey coming off a Cy Young season, Jose Reyes, and Melky Cabrera. Texas is living up to expectations and is battling for first place in their division. They ‘lost’ Josh Hamilton in the off season to free agency but it turns out he is under-producing in Anaheim. The Rangers have Yu Darvish and Joe Nathan. A great ace and reliever – but beyond that they are achieving success with good players and no superstars.

The first game we saw was Tepesch for the Rangers against ‘Staff’. Apparently the scheduled Toronto starter couldn’t make the start s they let the bullpen pitch the whole game – and they pitched great. One run on four hits/one walk. Tepesch looked pretty good too until he melted down in the sixth inning. The Blue Jays handled this one easily. The whole game took 2:10 to complete. 

The second game was Mark Buehrle against Yu Darvish. The Jays looked strong early. Colby Rasmus hit a line drive into center scoring two. Rasmus ended up scoring too on a throwing error. Things were cruising along until they Rangers scored one in the 8^th and were two outs away from winning when back-to-back RBI’s at bats tied the game. The bullpens both stood up and pitched great. In the bottom of the 18^th inning Emilio Bonifacio hits a one out single and later advances to third on a bad pickoff attempt that went to the backstop. Rajai Davis gets the game winning base hit to end it. This turns out to be the longest game ever in Toronto. [The Expos had a few games that went longer.]

A few more notes about the stadium.

·        The stadium is relatively quiet. There is very little noise or sound clips coming over the PA system. Even the vendors don’t yell. They just walk to the bottom of the stairs and look to see if anyone waves them over to buy beer, pretzels, etc.

·        For the 7^th inning stretch they have this “Let’s Go Blue Jays” song with calisthenics. And the fans are doing the exercises! This is definitely not a Philadelphia crowd. They also have a 17^th inning stretch + calisthenics.

·        The fans represent their team well. Most people wore jerseys or T-shirts with player names. Among the jerseys we saw with current and former players, we noted; Alomar, Bell, Carter, Stieb, Halladay, Lawrie, Delgado, Stairs, Fielder, Hentgen, AJ Burnett, Gruber, and a Clemens. I was hoping to see a Fernandez jersey but was denied.

·        For some reason I cannot explain, Blue Jay fans have a love affair with Munenori Kawasaki. The crowd went nuts every time he came to the plate. He’s also hitting just over .200 and doesn’t seem that strong defensively.

·        Finally, the CN Tower is adjacent to the stadium. We took the elevators to the top observation deck. Not the big round thing but where the color goes from concrete gray to white. [That’s an additional 33 stories above the big observation deck.] While we were up here they opened the dome. While I can’t technically call this one of the parks I was ‘in’ while the roof was opening, I was kind of in their airspace.