01-15-2020, 07:48 AM
BOSTON - If youre a fan of the Toronto Blue Jays, no doubt you remember where you were 20 years ago tonight. October 23, 1993. The SkyDome. Game Six of the World Series. The Blue Jays vs. the Phillies. Joe Carter vs. Mitch Williams. The home run. Tom Cheeks famous line, "Touch em all Joe, youll never hit a bigger home run in your life!" To this day, it remains the most recent postseason moment in Blue Jays history and oh was it special and memorable. I had the good fortune of being there, of seeing that famous moment in person and of experiencing the bedlam as Carter rounded the bases, feet leaping and fists pumping. I was sitting down the right field line, in foul territory. I know exactly where, by the way. Section 113B, Row 34, Seat 111. Before you think Im crazy, I still have the ticket stub. I didnt actually memorize the seat. I was 14 years old. We were fortunate, my entire family, because my dad, Jamie, had a position with the Stadium Corporation of Ontario, which operated the SkyDome. This afforded him the opportunity to get us tickets to games. We went often and many of us were there that night. My paternal grandparents, both of whom have since passed, were there. They loved baseball. Let me be clear: They didnt like baseball. They loved baseball. They, along with my mom, Terry, were in box seats. My maternal grandparents, my grandmother has since passed, were somewhere else in the crowd. My brother, Drew, then a 10-year-old, was sitting with me and so were two sets of aunts and uncles. Heres what I remember about the ninth inning and the immediate aftermath. Philadelphia turned to its closer, Mitch "Wild Thing" Williams, to save a game that, for most of the night, was in the Blue Jays control. Toronto, behind Dave Stewart, led 5-1 after six innings but the Phillies, keyed by a Lenny Dykstra two-run home run, put up a five-spot in the seventh to take the lead and deflate the partisan SkyDome crowd. Rickey Henderson led off the inning with a walk. The crowd was on its feet, hooked on every pitch. Now, for reasons I cannot recall, 20 has always been my favourite number. I began to clap, along with the rest of the crowd, in between each pitch, except I would stop at 20. It became my routine for the remainder of the inning. Pitch is thrown, resulting play occurs, I clap 20 times. Lather, rinse, repeat. Devon White flied out to left field on the ninth pitch of his at bat. One out. Im still clapping 20 times in between each pitch. Paul Molitor, the consummate pro, drove a base hit to centerfield on the third pitch of his at bat. Henderson advanced to second. Joe Carter came up and, well, the rest is history. I saw the home run swing. I saw the ball leave the bat. But I lost the balls trajectory as it soared through the air. It was, for a home run, a relatively low line drive and I remember the ball disappearing in the backdrop of the white facade of the auxiliary press seating in left field. So I waited for what obviously was a matter of mere seconds but for what felt like hours. Surely the ball was going to hook foul. Maybe it would careen off the wall for extra bases and at the very least Henderson would score the tying run. I remember thinking these thoughts in that brief nanosecond of time. I watched for the reaction of the crowd down the left field line. When the folks in foul territory raised their arms in unison, followed quickly by almost everyone else in the stadium, I started screaming and jumping up and down. There were high fives. Random people were embracing. We were strangers but for the moment, we were all friends in this celebration. Then there was the bunting lining the façade between the first and second decks. People began to reach up and pull it down. We all wanted a little piece of the cloth; our little piece of this historic moment. Guys were using the little scissors on their Swiss Army knives to cut out fragments. I didnt have a Swiss Army knife. What I did have, and man did it seem like a good idea at the time, were braces on my teeth. Remember, I was 14. Yes, I tried to tear a piece of the cloth with my braces and, yes, I was in the orthodontists chair just days later as he reattached the tinsel to my bottom front teeth. Smart move, Scott. Smart move. Some guy was good enough to cut me a piece of the cloth. I still have it. After the game those of us sitting in right field met up with our family whod watched from box seats and other spots in the stadium. We laughed and relived the moment. We commented on the look of sheer joy on Carters face as he bounced around the bases. We knew that this was a cool time to be a Toronto sports fan. The Blue Jays were back to back World Series champions. The Maple Leafs, under Pat Burns, had taken us on quite a ride the previous spring and were in the process of starting 10-0 that season. And nobody was talking about it. Get that, nobody was talking about the Maple Leafs in Toronto. Can you imagine? The Argos were owned by McNall, Gretzky and Candy. We hadnt yet been introduced to the Raptors and their maddening sub-mediocrity. Major League Soccer was but a pipe dream. Toronto FC wasnt yet the pipe nightmare it would become. Aside from the home run, I think what I remember most is being young, at that impressionable age when our fondest sports memories are created. Sure its special when youre an adult and your favourite team wins but it isnt quite the same. You know too much about the world, how it works, and you become jaded, maybe cynical. You know most athletes arent the superheroes youd once envisioned them to be. I remember my grandparents, three of whom are gone, and how we enjoyed that celebration together. My dads folks used to buy tickets to games at Exhibition Stadium on sale at the Dominion grocery store, two-dollar bleacher seats for one dollar, and they often took me. Carters home run was the culmination of our committed fandom. The great payoff we experienced together. There was nothing better. Maybe someday something else will happen on a baseball field that will top it. But I doubt it. Joe Montana Jersey . As a follow-up, TSN.ca offers you the opportunity to chime in on all the big issues with our insiders. Read up on all the questions and answers, and put in your own two cents on our popular Your Call feature. Kevan Barlow Jersey . 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"We were yelling like idiots," Mike Bouchard, the players father, said Thursday of his daughters stirring win over Ana Ivanovic in the quarter-finals, which made her the first Canadian to reach the semifinals of a Grand Slam tournament since Carling Bassett-Seguso in 1984. It wasnt quite as frenzied at their Westmount, Que., home two nights later, when Bouchard bowed out with a 6-2, 6-4 loss to fourth-seeded Li Na of China in the semis. "It was also exciting, but in the first set Li Na came out strong and Genie was a little nervous," he said. "I felt for her, but she came back well in the second set. Overall, it was an excellent tournament." Bouchard stole the show in Melbourne, where a dozen or so local fans formed Genies Army to cheer her on and toss her stuffed Australian animals after her wins. Several commentators spoke of Bouchard, the 2012 Wimbledon junior girls champion, being the next big thing in womens tennis and a potential future Grand Slam tournament winner. Already, her results are expected to move her from 31st into the top 20 in next weeks rankings. And it has stirred ticket sales for her next appearance on home turf. She will play for Canada against Serbia Feb. 8-9 in a Federation Cup tie at the Claude Robillard Centre in Montreal. Eugene Lapierre of Tennis Canada, tournament director for the Montreal half of the Rogers Cup, said 500 to 600 tickets per day have been sold since Bouchards win over Ivanovic. The 4,000-seat venue will likely be sold out. And ticket sales have picked up for the womens Rogers Cup at Uniprix Stadium next summer, which is rare in January. "It will drag a lot of people out to come and watch her play," said Lapierre. "It will be interesting to see how she makes the switch from a Grand Slam and playing in a 20,000 seat stadium to the Claude Robillard here with 4,000. But it will be a lot of fun." Canadian tennis has been on a high lately with Milos Raonics rise into the top 10 in the world on the mens side and Vasek Pospisil also climbing in the rankings. Both made the Rogers Cup semifinals in Montreal last summer and led the Davis Cup team to a first-ever semifinal appearance. "Its phenomenal what Eugenie has done," said Lapierre. "I wouldnt say she opened the gates for Canada. The boys started that last year. "But its a new era thats started with the sport of tennis in Canada. Itll be tremendous for the promotion of the game in Canada. Thats our goal at Tennis Canada — to get more kids playing the game. Everyones talking about Eugenie, and thats bound to be good for the sport." Louis Borfiga, Tennis Canadas high performance director, said Bouchard could have a similar impact to Nadia Comaneci, the Romanian who drew slews of girls to try gymnastics after her stunning performance at the 1976 Olympiics in Montreal.dddddddddddd Or the effect that Anna Kournikova and Maria Sharapova had on womens tennis in Russia. "It will enlarge the pool of players and that will produce more very good players," said Borfiga. "Thats the difference between Canada and countries like France and Spain — their pool of players is larger." Mike Bouchard, an investment banker, is fine with having a daughter who may be seen as a role model for young players. He doesnt even mind that she is quickly becoming a celebrity. "Its good for her," he said. "Shes put in so much work and effort. "If she can be an ambassador for tennis and help tennis grow in Canada, thats fantastic. If it becomes bigger than that — international stardom — good for her. She has a strong head. Shes well grounded, and I think shell be able to go through that unscathed." Mike Bouchard knew he had a special daughter when Eugenie was a young child. When she was 12, the family the moved to Florida so she could learn at an academy run by Nick Saviano, who remains her coach. She spent more than three years in Florida before returning to Montreal to work at the national tennis centre. "It was difficult to find players at her own level to play against, and we also wanted to expose her to international coaching," said Mike Bouchard. "It takes a lot of dedication. Everyone in the family chipped in." Eugenie has a fraternal twin sister Beatrice, an 18-year-old sister Charlotte and a 14-year-old brother William, so the move was a big commitment for all of them. It paid off when Bouchard became one of the worlds top junior players and then made a rapid rise in WTA rankings. The group cant go to every tournament and they elected not to go to Australia, where Eugenie lost in the qualifying tournament last year. But her father said he was tempted to jump on a plane when she reached the semifinals. "We never anticipated shed go this far in the first Grand Slam of the year, so we gathered the kids and some friends and we watched (on TV)," he said. "There was a lot of emotions when she was hitting some winners. We were screaming and laughing and encouraging her." He was a little taken aback at a bizarre question put to Eugenie by an on-court interviewer after the quarter-final. She was asked who shed most like to date. To the apparent displeasure of Genies Army, she named Canadian pop star Justin Bieber. "Youve got to get used to that if youre going to become a celebrity," Bouchard said. "I actually thought she answered pretty well. She said Justin Bieber with a question mark at the end. It was tongue in cheek." It became a little awkward when Bieber was arrested in Florida on Thursday for reportedly taking part in an early morning drag race. "I actually dont follow anything that goes on in his life," Bouchard said with a laugh. "But I did hear about that." ' ' '