It doesn’t feel like a year has gone by.
It either feels like more time or less time has passed since the Toronto Raptors won the NBA championship and this country went wild.
Over 12 months, our perspective has been altered in this challenging year of demonstrations and COVID-19 and untimely deaths. The days seem longer and less identifiable. The weekends, especially now with summer coming, don’t feel much like summer weekends. Three months at home, with the occasional trip to the drug store or grocery store, has probably brought families closer together and, in many ways, has changed how we view the world and our own community.
One year ago in Oakland, it was electric. The great Steph Curry, maybe as terrific a shooter as we’ve ever seen, had one shot to send the NBA Finals to Game 7. He missed and the Raptors won the last three games ever played at Oracle Arena, all in their championship run of moments and miracles.
Some people have been holding on to the Joe Carter home run forever. Those moments never leave you. In Calgary, it’s the 1989 Stanley Cup. In modern Montreal, it was that most recent Cup 27 seasons ago from a team that used to win them every other year. In Edmonton, it was the blur of the ’80s, the Oilers and Eskimos dominating like no one before or since. In Winnipeg, it was just last November’s Grey Cup. Each market different. Each moment meaningful. But it was different when the Raptors won a championship. All of Canada seemed to celebrate as one.
That life-altering feeling may never go away, even now as we struggle through some of the largest challenges of our lives. The one-year anniversary of the Raptors championship is a lovely memory that will grow larger with time. Right now, it’s just hard to celebrate much of anything.
THIS AND THAT
Being a hub city for NHL games matters for money and business, not necessarily for hockey. By my rather rudimentary calculations, an NHL hub city will have to be able to provide some 15,800 nights of hotel rooms over eight weeks and 47,400 meals before the Stanley Cup final is even played. That’s a whole lot of local business and incoming taxes at a time when there isn’t much of either … The flaws in the NBA’s return to play are growing. The COVID-19 situation in Florida is rather drastic. Some NBA players don’t want to play for health reasons. Some don’t want to play for social reasons and all that is currently going on in with the racial discourse in America. This is getting more complicated than commissioner Adam Silver could have anticipated … It’s hard to be a commissioner in any sport. There’s no road map on how to deal with a world pandemic. It get more confusing when the laws of states and countries and provinces and borders all differ. Nothing prepared CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie for this and he’s struggling to find a way to deal with all of the issues. It’s the weakest Ambrosie has appeared since taking the impossible job … There’s a reason CFL players are getting antsy about their season. This is normally the time of their first paycheque. None are coming now. None are coming for a while … Gary Bettman has to be happy about what he sees around him. The NBA is struggling to figure things out. Baseball is fighting with itself. Football season is far away. For once, the NHL looks like the smart guys in a world of confusion … It’s an August night. And on television you have a choice — playoff basketball, playoff hockey or, if it comes back, regular-season baseball. For me it’s easy: 1. Stanley Cup playoffs; 2. NBA playoffs. 3. Baseball … Sports owners don’t make their big money selling tickets and television rights. Their real play is the equity of the franchise. Ted Rogers bought the Blue Jays for $137 million US in 2002. The team is apparently worth $1.65 billion now. Numbers like that make the current baseball fight between players and owners all the more unnecessary.
HEAR AND THERE
This is how how challenging a hockey season it was for the Maple Leafs before the stoppage in March: As I sat down to complete my awards and all-star team ballot the other day, I registered just one Toronto vote. A third-place vote for the Lady Byng Trophy. That was it … Somehow in time, the meaning of the Masterton Trophy has changed: It is supposed to be awarded to the NHL player who best defines perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication. It’s morphed into the comeback from injury or illness award. I wish it would return to its former state …. This will be weird: The last two minutes of an NBA game without fans. So much of the atmosphere in the building comes from the natural noise of the partisans … In Pascal Siakam’s first two NBA seasons, he averaged 5.7 points a game. In his past two seasons, he’s at 20.2 and on the rise. He was 15th in the NBA in scoring when the season was halted in March … I watched Game 6 of the NBA Finals again the other day. What was stirring was how great Kyle Lowry, Siakam and Fred Van Vleet played. And how much that has translated to this season without Kawhi Leonard.
SCENE AND HEARD
Don’t know why I looked this up, but this is what you do when you don’t leave home: George Chuvalo fought nine times at Madison Square Garden, at what was then known as the Mecca of boxing. Among his opponents at MSG: A Hall-of-Fame list including Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Floyd Patterson and the best win of his career, Jerry Quarry. Chuvalo also fought 21 time at Maple Leaf Gardens, if you can believe that … Alex Mogilny should be in the Hockey Hall of Fame conversation this year, but his uneven career makes his case something of a challenge. He had eight pure Hall of Fame seasons and eight that might be considered so-so. What matters more, the dominant years or the other half of his career? The only sure-thing in this year’s class is Jarome Iginla. After that, there will be some push for Marian Hossa and Daniel Alfredsson and there should be a push (I say this every year) for the seemingly forgotten Doug Wilson … And then there are the goalies — Mike Vernon, Tom Barrasso, Curtis Joseph, Mike Richter — none of them sure things, all of them candidates you could make a case for … I can understand the shortages of toilet paper, hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes. That makes some kind of sense. By why the shortage of Diet Dr. Pepper? How did that happen?
AND ANOTHER THING
I have known and been professional friends of Sheri Hargrave Forde and Duane Forde for more than 20 years. Sheri wrote a remarkably difficult, thought-provoking and personal story of her life as a white woman married to a black man in Ontario, and the challenge that racism has played in their lives and their children’s lives. If you haven’t read it, you should find it. Sheri related stories and used words that will make you uncomfortable. It’s her life. It’s her story. It doesn’t need censorship. No one should be telling her which words she can use and which ones she can’t … One problem in today’s social-based media world I have trouble reconciling: When one media person has a problem with another, why not pick up the phone and talk? Have a conversation. Listen to each other. Context always gets trampled on in online battles … Yes, racism is a problem in minor hockey. So is the cost of playing. So is referee abuse. So is parental behavior. It’s a long list, things that need to change and get better in minor hockey … Without university football this coming season in Canada, I wonder: If you’re the University of Toronto or York University, and combined you’ve had one winning season in 20 years, is it the time to consider dropping the sport and the cost involved? Is it worth continuing with programs of failure year after year? … John Tavares was the first pick in the 2009 NHL entry draft. To date, he has accumulated 769 points, 180 more than anyone else selected that year … Happy birthday to Penny Oleksiak (20), Ernie Whitt (68), R.J. Barrett (20), Willie de Wit (59), Glenn Michibata (58), Erica Wiebe (31), Sami Kapanen (57), Jamario Moon (40) and Devante Smith-Pelly (28) … And hey, whatever became of Robert Reichel?
MARTIN A MARVELOUS ‘MAYBE’ FOR JAYS
The Blue Jays were ecstatic that Austin Martin was available with the fifth pick in Wednesday’s MLB draft. They even pulled out the old ‘I can’t believe he was still there’ line that just about every team uses when making a selection.
But in this case, considering the rankings and pre-draft talk, the Jays may have come away with a steal in Martin. The key words being ‘may have.’
Of all the drafts in professional sports, baseball’s is the least reliable. Teams pay all kinds of money for prospects and only a small percentage of them ever turn out to be significant. The Jays hadn’t picked as high as fifth in years so there was a natural kind of excitement in selecting Martin, who many have called the best hitter in the draft.
But then, look backwards for a moment. In a 10-year period, from 2009-2018, not one of the players picked in the five slot wound up being a big-league star. Only one of the players, Drew Pomeranz, became a decent major-league player. The rest either tapped out or are still in the prospect phase.
Maybe Martin will be different. Maybe he will be the real thing. Maybe he will join the Jays on the rise such as Bo Bichette, Vladdy Guerrero Jr., Cavan Biggio and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. Maybe.
TALKING BASEBALL WITH CITO GASTON
Had a long, engaging conversation with Cito Gaston this week and wrote about his views of growing up in a racist America and his views of today, considering the current state of the country. But in between that, we talked baseball.
We talked about what it was like to have Hank Aaron as his first big-league roommate. We talked about the greatness of Willie Mays. He said Mays would hold the home run record today had he played somewhere other than Candlestick Park for 14 of his big league seasons. “He changed his swing for that ballpark,” said Gaston. “Imagine if he had played somewhere else.”
We talked about meeting Bobby Cox, playing with him on a Texas League championship team and how his relationship with Cox changed his life in baseball. We talked about him being drafted by the San Diego Padres in the expansion of 1968, which also brought the Montreal Expos, Seattle Pilots (now Milwaukee Brewers) and Kansas City Royals into the big leagues.
Cito was one of the last picks in the draft. Among those chosen before him, famous Expos names Coco Laboy, Mack Jones, Bill Stoneman, and the catchers John Boccabella, Ron Brand and John Bateman. You may have heard of them. Montreal also picked a guy named Jimy Williams before Gaston was selected as one of the Padres last choices.
Gaston was promoted to manager of the Blue Jays when Williams was fired early in the 1989 season. He didn’t remember Williams was part of the expansion draft some 20 years earlier.
Considering how far down the list he was chosen, Gaston remains in the Padres record books. After 51 seasons, he ranks 14th in at-bats, 15th in hits, 19th in home runs just ahead of his former Blue Jays batting coach Gene Tenace, 17th in games played.
Gaston, with back-to-back World Series wins, one of only two managers to do that in the past 40 years, doesn’t get enough attention anymore. His stories get more fascinating with time.
DROPOUT RATE FOR GIRLS IN MINOR SPORTS IS ALARMING
Canada won 22 medals at the last Summer Olympics, 16 of those were won by women. By that number, you might surmise what a great country this happens to be for female athletes.
Then consider this, some of the most famous athletes in the country are women: Brooke Henderson, Bianca Andreescu, Christine Sinclair and, before that, Hayley Wickenheiser.
And all that makes the release this week of something called The Rally Report all the more discouraging. For those who care about women’s sport, the results were somewhat heartbreaking.
The number of girls participating in sport in Canada is rather low and the dropout rate is particularly high. One out of every three girls in sports drops out in their adolescent years, according to the study. On the same scale, just one out of every 10 boys drops out.
The notion of gender equity in sports has always been a noble one, but it’s also unrealistic when 62% of all girls don’t participate in any kind of sport. How does this get changed? How do you change socialization? Maybe you can’t. But you have to try.
It starts with parents. It starts with local programs and school programs. It starts by removing stigmas, real or imagined, that playing sports can bring.
Sports can be life-changing for kids, for adults, for families. We need to do more in this country to make sports accessible and available and cool enough for young women to participate.
