We Might Be Okay After All . . . Maybe

While it's nice to get both, I'll take an outstanding pitching performance over balls out batting any day of the week.

So far on the homestand, we've been treated to two outrageously excellent starts from Shaun Marcum and Jesse Litsch, marking seven straight boner-inducing pitching performances from the Jays starters overall.

One of my favourite things to watch at a ballpark, is when a third strike occurs and the batter swings straight through while the ball drops under his bat faster than Meatloaf skydiving, and he swats at nothing but air. It's such a fuck you to the hitter straight from the pitcher's arm, that if there was an equivalent play in hockey, you just know it would end in meatheads "dropping the gloves" and Don Cherry criticizing someone based solely on their nationality.

Anyway, I don't have any insight or criticism to offer about the last two games. We've all watched them and seen the excellent pitching and the up and down hitting. To be perfectly honest, I'm just thrilled to be watching baseball again. The last road trip, long enough to begin with, seemed to go on at an exponential rate in direct relation to the Jays shittiness.

Don't worry though, my content state didn't get in the way of noticing a few choice douchebags seated nearby.

On Friday night, a bunch of douche bag university students (not jocko homo enough to be frat boys) / hipster poseurs were seated a few rows in front of me. They paid about as much attention to the game as Stoeten does to personal hygiene. That in itself, while obnoxious, is somewhat expected. What wasn't expected was the amount of creepy attention that one member of their party was paying to the three year old girl in the row behind him.

What the fuck is it with some drunk guys who get wasted and then want to get all buddy buddy with the youngster behind them. I understand being friendly to a kid at a baseball game is a good thing. I want future fans as much as the next guy, but talking to strange kids seated behind you while basically ignoring their parents is just fucking weird.

I remember in elementary school, my grandpa took me and my friend Aaron Hartlieb to a ballgame. Some drunk guy in front of us, tried to take us under his wing. I wanted nothing to do with him, but my buddy Aaron ended up getting a soda every time this fucknut went to refill his beer.

I'm sure that the drunk guy last night fraternizing with a little kid is not an isolated incident, but the creepiness factor was upped a few notches in the seventh, when the guy literally pulled a piece of fuzz out of the little girl's hair and blew it in the air. It was as awkward as watching The Office with your boss after Michael does something on the show that your boss does regularly in real life.

Also, Aaron Hill is a veiny motherfucker when he's running hard down the line. And is there honestly a better fist pump in baseball than B.J. Ryan's after striking someone out to finish the game?

Oh, and Nick Swisher can continue going on fucking himself. I don't know of another baseball player more instantly hateable. The intricately shaven facial hair and bleached soul patch only emphasize what a douche bag Swisher already was.

In case you're wondering, I looked up to heaven before I wrote that.

Non-baseball meanderings: It's Saturday night, and I just spent the last five hours or so working. I'm not sure if any of you are aware, but it fucking sucks to be responsible for something that's due at a particular time. Deadlines can go fuck themselves too.

I was talking to the Danimal last night, and we were reminiscing about our respective high school lives - his in Kingston, mine in Peterborough - and we both agreed that it pretty much fucking ruled to have such a large measure of independence, but still have the minor details like food and car insurance looked after for you by your parents.

That conversation sort of stayed with me and I was thinking about it today. I was thinking about how much it sucks to be in your mid to late twenties with all the responsibilities of adulthood, but without any of the benefits of having a family. It's an in-between stage in your life in which you and you alone are totally responsible and answerable for all of your actions. There's no measure of support to be found in a mom or a wife.

Then, I thought that was sort of bullshit. And that in about ten years, the Danimal and I will be sitting in a bar on Queen St. reminiscing about how much it fucking ruled ten years ago when we could go to baseball games whenever we wanted and get ass-faced drunk and talk about the good ol' days.

The point being that life always sucks while you're living it. In high school, I was far too self-conscious to ever take advantage of simultaneously being free and looked after, and when I think about it, the entire time, all I wanted was to escape from that time. I kept thinking that you know, once I get to University, I'll "find myself" or whatever.

Then University begins and I'm thinking, "Okay, Parkes, you'll really find yourself when this is all over and you have to start work." Then work and a career happens, and here I am bitching about it and looking forward to having a family.

Of course, the worst part of all this, is how typical I'm sure these feelings are, and this is all probably nothing more than a quarter life crisis or whatever the shitty lifestyle magazines call introspective looks.

Anyway, sorry to go there. This is why I'm normally pinned on a Saturday night. I'm an ugly sober.