Welcome to Siberia

If this is spring, I want a refund.

Temperatures remain frigid—it's so bad that tomorrow's high of 2° C is below the normal low for this time of year, 4°. This weekend's ice storm was so abominable I stayed inside for two days. I'd hoped to use the downtime to catch up on a few baseball games, but that didn't work out so well. All my favourite teams were snowed out or rained out the whole weekend, including the Blue Jays in Cleveland.

Today came the ultimate indignity. Now that the ice storm had petered out to a steady, cold rain, I thought I'd take in the Jays-Royals game tonight. After all, we're so smart up here in Toronto, prepared as we are for lousy Aprils. Our stadium has a roof. No postponements here. Take that, Cleveland!

Uh ... hold that thought. This afternoon brought chunks of ice flying off the CN Tower, with police cordoning off adjacent walkways near Rogers Centre in the interest of pedestrian safety. But Ma Nature wasn't done with us yet. A fragment of ice struck the stadium roof and tore a hole in it over the right field corner. Further flying debris caused leaks in left field. They've repaired the hole, but evidently enough issues remained with the roof that tonight's game was postponed. They'll play two tomorrow, assuming (1) they can patch up the roof in time; and (2) the ice shards stop flying (given tomorrow's balmy high, they sure as hell won't melt).

MLB is on pace to set a record for April postponements. Pretty much everywhere north of the Mason-Dixon line, it's been resolutely miserable. The White Sox and Twins were set to a play a four-game series in Minneapolis starting Thursday; three of the four were snowed out. As for the games they could get in, such as in Boston (game-time temp: 34° F/1° C) and Chicago (38° F/3° C), players resorted to ski masks, sweaters and hoodies in the futile quest to stay warm. Earlier this week, games in Denver and Minneapolis were played in the 20s Fahrenheit, which is minus single digits Celsius.

I'll give the last word to Kansas City manager Ned Yost, whose team narrowly escaped their own mishap with flying ice on the ride in from Pearson Airport: "If you come to a dome and get banged, something ain't right."

No, it ain't, Ned. Welcome to Siberia.