We are watching the Jays play the Orioles in Baltimore.  It is a typical April ball game like the ones we used to watch in early spring in the old days back in Toronto.

The temperature at the start of the game is 7 C (45 F).  You look at the fans in the stands and there are barely enough people to pay for the salary of the starting pitcher.

I can understand because it is cold and the seats in Baltimore are metal.  Donaldson just hit a grand slam in the top of the ninth and when the Orioles come up at the bottom they will be lucky if the team wives are still in the stands.

However… I remember going to Jay games in the old Exhibition stadium in the eighties.  I was in sales and at 4 in the afternoon on a cold April weekday I would be given 4 of the company tickets and told to ask my reps to find customers for that night’s game.  We never found customers, but I could always find a couple of my guys or office people who said “I’ll go”.  We would sit in the stands and shiver (those days I was wearing a suit to work and had at best an overcoat), but we loved the game.

Games in Toronto in April could be cold.  Unless the Jays were ahead I , like the Baltimore fans tonight, would bail out and go home.  It was a long drive north to Markham.

When the Sky Dome came along the game changed.

So watching the game tonight did take me back.