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.

The Case Against Evil

With a weighty title like that, you might well expect a lofty philosophical discourse, cogently structured and flawlessly argued. If so, sorry to disappoint. I do, however, offer humble anecdotal evidence from the world of baseball.

Somewhat miraculously, the 2011 Tampa Bay Rays find themselves in the playoffs after trailing the Red Sox by 9 games as late as September 3. (Boston's spectacular collapse is in itself legendary, but I'll leave that for the denizens of Red Sox Nation to dissect. You know they will.)

Okay, so a team that's done rather well for itself in recent years makes the playoffs again. So what? Well, the Rays began life in 1998 as the Devil Rays, which is where the evil comes in. A quick glance at the Devil Rays' year-by-year record paints a clear picture:

• 1998: 63-99, last place, AL East
• 1999: 69-93, last place, AL East
• 2000: 69-92, last place, AL East
• 2001: 62-100, last place, AL East
• 2002: 55-106, last place, AL East
• 2003: 63-99, last place, AL East
• 2004: 70-91, 4th place, AL East
• 2005: 67-95, last place, AL East
• 2006: 61-101, last place, AL East
• 2007: 66-96, last place, AL East

In and of itself, compelling evidence that evil doesn't pay, no? That's nine last-place finishes in ten seasons. But there's more.

In late 2007, ownership revamped the team's logo and uniform and, most crucially, ditched the "Devil." In owner Stuart Sternberg's words, the rechristened Rays would be "a beacon that radiates throughout Tampa Bay and across the entire state of Florida." Lovely sentiments, but could they actually win? Let's have a look:

• 2008: 97-65, 1st place, AL East; AL Champions
• 2009: 84-78, 3rd place, AL East
• 2010: 96-66, 1st place, AL East
• 2011: 91-71, 2nd place, AL East; AL Wild Card team

That's four straight winning seasons and playoff appearances in three of those four years, and this from a team that (a) plays in toughest division in baseball; and (b) has a history of futility about as grim as it gets. So, kids, take good care when naming your sports teams. As the luminous Tampa Bay Rays have shown, good must trump evil, at least in the world of baseball.

(How, then, to account for The Evil Empire and their 27 World Series championships? Or the 1919 Black Sox? Or Roger Clemens? Ah, other posts for other days.)