Go Leafs Go!

Oh, and the ones on skates too, I guess. I hear they're making a bit of noise now, but I'm talking about the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team, known as the baseball Leafs or Intercounty Leafs to distinguish them from their better-known counterparts of the ice. Bet you didn't know that the original Leafs—now Boston's AAA affiliate, the Pawtucket Red Sox—had been using the Maple Leafs moniker for 30 years before the hockey team appropriated (stole) it in 1927. Take that, er, hockey Leafs.

Dominico Field at Christie Pits, home of your Toronto Maple Leafs

The Leafs opened their IBL season on this sun-drenched afternoon with a convincing 9-4 win over the London Majors. As Dominico Field—still "The Pits" to most of us—has no reserved seating or admission charge, exact attendance figures are unavailable but I'd say around 250 of us showed up to cheer on the home nine.

Home nine? But whither the big boys? Well, the Blue Jays are in town this weekend too, hosting their expansion cousins, the Mariners. Alas, times are so tough in Jayland that after making the third out in the fifth inning of yesterday's 8-1 drubbing, the boys threw the ball around the diamond and waited for the next Seattle hitter. (What with their defensive lapses of late, it's easy to see why three outs don't seem like a full inning.) Anyway, bottom line: why plunk down $20 to see a squad that's scored three runs in four games when across town, hungry young bucks aflush with the thrill of opening day will entertain me gratis?

More on my "gameday experience," to use the sports marketing vernacular, in my next post.