A Canopy of Birds

Have you ever seen the movie The Birds? Here’s the summary from IMDb.com:

A wealthy San Francisco playgirl pursues a potential boyfriend to a small
Northern California town that slowly takes a turn for the bizarre when birds of
all kinds suddenly begin to attack people there in increasing numbers and with
increasing viciousness.

I was 'lucky' enough to catch the tail end of this movie one day last year after leaving work early. My supervisor mentioned this flick to me so when I saw it was on the telly I had to check it out.

While crossing the Peace Bridge en route to the HSBC Arena for the Bandits season opener I saw a sight that ripped my mind back to this movie. A flock or ten of birds were covering the bridge just about in the middle of it. They were above the light poles forming a living canopy that stretched from one side of the bridge to the other while being several feet wide. It was an awesome sight but having witnessed Alfred Hitchcock’s imagination on the screen, there was a bit of fear mixed in too, perhaps even terror. Travelling underneath this moving canopy was kind of eerie but we survived the encounter with the birds. Our car, on the other hand, needed a good washing afterwards.

Early Christmas Presents

Today I got two early Christmas presents from GO transit. 1. The train was at the station waiting when I got there and ran on time; and 2. the parking lot at the train station was plowed. It is just sad that these two things have become so unexpected. Let's hope they give me a third present and get me home on time.

Despite the great gifts above, I am still waiting for one of my Christmas wishes to come true. Having Pierre McGuire not do the World Junior hockey championship broadcasts. When I hear his broadcasts the phrase 'beating a dead horse' comes to mind as he mentions a useless fact and then reiterates it for another ten minutes. Thankfully televisions come with a mute feature.

Irritants

It's election time in Canada again and that means campaing time! Time for the various party leaders to promise us the world in hopes that they be elected into office where they will get post election amnesia and forget the promises they made. Time for the leaders to call each other names and point out their parties faults and past mistakes as if their own party is innocent of all evils. Pictures of kids in a sandbox comes to mind....

And then there are those people who like to continually complain of the high gas prices. I bet they are the same people who spend $80+ per bottle of toilet water and then bathe in the stuff so rather than enticing others the chemicals attack the senses of those unfortunate enough to pass them in the hall or on the street. Did I forget to mention being stuck on a train with them too. That is even worse because there are no real alternatives. I guess changing seats is an option, if one could find one that isn't close to one of these chemical lovers. Speaking of change...

The platform numbers at Union Station changed over the weekend. There have been notices posted everywhere, including GO Transit's website, for the past few weeks so people knew the change was going to happen and gave the appearance of someone caring. Instead of them providing the new mapping (i.e. platofrm 1 will become platform x) they get to stand back and watch the confused faces of the commuters while they try to figure things out. It shouldn't be difficult since most trains will be leaving from the same track but they could have made things easier by not keeping the new numbering system a secret.

While I am on the subject of making things better, changes are greatly needed in the world of sports broadcasting. The use of ex-player/current player analysts needs to stop. In most cases there is no value added and in some cases (Pat Tabler, Darrin Fletcher, Rance Mullincks) it actually hurts the whole game experience. This past weekend as one of the MLB divisional series entered Game 3 with the one team down 0-2, an analyst was asked what the trailing team needed to do to win. Is that not obvious! Score more runs then the other team. Have everyone playing like they deserve to be in the postseason, perhaps. We don't need some slightly above average ball player from a team long out of the playoffs to tell us that.

A Tale of Two Stadiums

We are up to the main reason for my recent trip to New York City, visiting the two ballparks that will be replaced for the 2009 season. Apparently, New York is really where the money is these days since both the storied Yankee Stadium and the ugly sister called Shea are both being taken out of commission at the end of this baseball season.

Although both stadiums have witnessed some ‘amazing’ baseball (even if the one more so than the other) there is definitely no telling which one is in the hearts of the city folk. That is evident by the name assigned to each of the new stadiums; Yankee Stadium and Citi Field. Yankee Stadium can be seen as being modernized (i.e. more comfortable seating and more expensive luxury suites) since the name remains the same while Shea is flat out being replaced (and it is obvious why it’s needed). The Yankees fans seem to be saddened by the replacement of the House That Ruth Built and its 85 years of mostly fond memories even though the new park is supposedly going to a replica of the old but over in Queens it’s a different story. Even with the memory of the Miracle Mets of 1969 and the infamous Bill Buckner blunder in game 6 of the 1986 World Series, most Mets fans are more than happy to be getting a new field. The replacement of Shea does not seem to be talked about outside of Queens whereas the closing of Yankee Stadium is talked about everywhere (at least everywhere in North America).

Despite the dilapidated look of Shea and the narrow stairs, walkways and concourse of Yankee Stadium, both ballparks are still fun to watch games at. A lot of that enjoyment likely has to do with the relaxed and fun atmosphere created by the stadium’s personnel rather than the actual buildings. At Yankee Stadium one of New York’s finest seemed to be right at home in the stands. He was seen sending text messages, eating peanuts, chatting with fans and posing for pictures (perhaps even taking some for others as well). At Shea, we had an usher that was authentically friendly and seemed like he would like nothing better than to grab a seat beside us and talk about the history of the Mets or the stadium or anything else we wanted to talk about.

In the end, I’m glad I went to Yankee Stadium before they sell off every urinal and toilet seat to help recover the costs of constructing the new stadium but I prefer comfort over nostalgia at sporting events and think a new stadium is needed. Once the Yankees start winning in the new building the old stadium will be locked into the history books. As for Shea, I feel for the Mets fans that had to sit in that building the past several years when it was way past decent. The new stadium should give more life to the fans and hopefully the team as they continue on another September fall from grace. Cherish the memories of old but enjoy all the comforts afforded by the modern day.

Today’s My Day!

No one has named an international day after me, nor have they named a national day after me, or even a municipal day but today is still my day. It all started this morning when two good looking people came to my desk, okay she was hovering just above the average mark and he could be described as being on the cute side of nerdy, but the appearance of the two of them signaled the beginning of my day.

Having a job where I don’t do any real work, i.e. work that adds any value to the company, I don’t get a lot of visitors so I was a little leery of the two at first. Once I opened up to them, they informed me I was getting an upgrade to my email. Let me tell you, it was like winning the lottery. I am one of only a few with this upgraded version, or so they told me. It sure did add some excitement to my otherwise dull morning. And the newer version is a lot softer on the eyes (the hard edges of the windows are now soft rounded edges and the colour is, well, let’s just say there is some colour now) and a lot more user friendly (i.e. idiot proof).

I was beginning to think the day couldn’t get any better when my dad told me that we will be getting a puck after game one of the Memorial Cup tonight. Getting giveaways at sporting events is always good. I bet you all are thinking this is too good to be true but there is more. Just a couple hours ago I learned that there is a big meeting at work and my bosses will be out of the office all afternoon, on a Friday of a long weekend.

Despite that amazing fact, there is still more and I think of this as the cherry on top of an ice cream sundae. I went for greek for lunch today and instead of getting a mere two olives on the salad I got three! That is almost unheard of. Every greek restaurant I’ve been to, which is only two so I guess my sample size is insufficient to yield accurate results, there have always only been two olives on my salad. Now that my friends is hitting the greek paydirt.

Life couldn’t get any better………

Welcome to my Universe

Yesterday someone asked how my universe was going. To that I basically replied nothing has changed and left it at that. I thought since I have not posted to this blog much in the past few months, I should expand on the status quo answer.

I stand by my answer that nothing in my life has changed. I still have the same job, same wife and same kid. Job still sucks, wife still works crazy hours so I don’t see her much and my son still doesn’t let me make dinner (although he is becoming quite the little man). The journey to and from work each day is perhaps the worst of all, although my actual job is a close second. People on the train still smack me with their purses, bags, newspapers, feet, arms, elbows, and their entire body in general. Unfortunately, no super models have smacked me with their breasts on the train but there is still hope. Once off the train and on my feet, people still cut me off (to which I end up walking on them or tripping them up because it is hard to stop a hippo once it’s in motion), and people still walk into me (sometimes just shoulder bumps and other times the result is a little more amusing, to me). When I get to work I continue to do mindless work that I have to explain to those coworkers I work closely with several times a week.

As for the few hours of fun I get at the end of each week, I still travel up the QEW to see the Bandits play at the HSBC Arena in Buffalo, I saw my first hockey game at the Air Canada Centre last week, and I was able to attend Friday Night Fights at the Rogers Centre (the Jays home opener). Why are there fights at a baseball game? I don’t know. I guess the ‘fans’ were outraged that they paid money to watch these men, who make more money per pitch then they make in a week, play a child’s game. Oh wait, I forgot to mention the idiot that wanted to race me and my 4 cylinder car down the 407 in his/her (couldn’t see the driver) midsize V6 car. I should have raced; I just know I would have won.

So that is the long and short of my life.

Boredom Looms Large

Just a quick update on nothing really. These weeks are coming and going without any incidents (or at least nothing worth posting about) and without any real inspiration. I've been trying to follow the Mann Cup but since the games are being played in BC, I am unable to stay up to 1 AM to watch (not that they are being shown on tv) or even listen to the games. On the positive side, the Ontario Hockey League is only a couple weeks away and they are currently playing some exhibition games. The Provincial Jr. A's and the Jr. B's and C's seasons have begun as well so there is a lot of decent cheap hockey to watch. And if fighting is what you enjoy about hockey, there are no better fights these days then those in junior hockey.

Other than the anticipation of junior hockey, there is nothing exciting going on in my life. I will continue to update my quotes and hopefully soon, I will have more to say. So until then, I hope you all have found something else to do to occupy your time at work.

Let’s Go Bandits!

At long last the National Lacrosse Season is in full swing. The endless torture of waiting for the season to start has been replaced by pulse pounding, end to end excitement. Hard hits fast paced action and more goals in one game than the professional zebra racing (NHL) gets in a night. Okay that last part is a bit of an exaggeration but there still are a lot of goals.

Since the end of last season I have been sporting a Buffalo Bandits hat proudly but recently I have been questioned about it (being in Toronto that is to be expected even though ninety percent of Torontonians don’t have a clue what lacrosse is or that Toronto even has a team; thanks 905 for supporting the team). On Friday as I was leaving work, I was stopped and questioned about the aforementioned hat. At this time I proudly flashed my Bandits jersey, in a similar fashion to Superman revealing the S on his chest, and tried to explain why the Bandits over the Toronto Rock (that is Toronto’s team for those who don’t know). I don’t feel I gave a satisfactory response so I shall try to better it here and now.

I will start with why not Toronto. The team captain seems like he belongs in a nursing home rather than playing a sport other than lawn bowling (I mentioned this to the questioners Friday and they chuckled); the fans in Toronto are more concerned with being seen than watching the actual game (there are many exceptions but in a crowd of 16K they seem immaterial); the game announcer doesn’t seem to understand a thing about lacrosse or getting the crowd into the game; the sound system in the ACC is set up with way too much bass that one can barely make out any words when one speaks (and seeing as they have an in game announcer this feature is pretty important); and to top things off, they went ahead and traded possibly the best player in the league and the teams true captain (Colin Doyle) before the season started.

Now for the why to Buffalo. First of all, I like the way the HSBC arena is set up, the club seats are actually good seats; everyone involved seems to be very knowledgeable of lacrosse and are friendly; the fans are crazy and don’t need the announcer to start every cheer; the music is at a good level and the sound system is properly equalized; the Bandits have two of the best players in the league (Tavares and Steenhuis) and have a couple young guys who look like they will become stars in the league (Powless and Bucktooth); and overall it is such a better atmosphere in Buffalo. In past years I went to Buffalo and I felt myself wanting to cheer for Buffalo just because it was so electric in the HSBC.

This year I am torn between the two teams. I have been a Rock fan since 1999 when I happened to catch a game on tv one weekend while channel surfing but in the early ‘90’s I watched the Bandits on a local Buffalo station and have followed them since I was reminded of them in 1999. I recently came to the decision that Toronto is my team and once they wizen up and get rid of the geriatric case (Veltman) I will return to them. Until then I am a Bandits fan. Let’s Go Bandits! Wooooooooow!

Professional Athletes??

This past weekend I sat back and relaxed in front of the television and watched whatever sport was on at the time, which was primarily baseball. So I am watching these so called professionals playing a kids game and getting paid millions of dollars supposedly doing it in a professional manner. I would like to know MLB’s idea of professionalism.

First of all, there is the rag tag bunch from Boston, the Red Sox, and World Series Champions two years back. On first glance they look more like potential actors auditioning for a modern Bad News Bears team movie than members of a championship winning professional sports team. Hats on slightly askew with hair protruding from beneath at odd angles, pants with the crotches at the player’s knees and the legs dragging behind them and, no doubt, some arms covered in ex-wives/girlfriends names or the latest in barbed wire designs. Some other players throughout the league are just as bad but they seem to be scattered more so than the Red Sox players.

The player’s actions themselves are not much better than their dress. Helmets and bats flying everywhere after a strikeout, f-bombs being dropped equally as frequent, and managers and players alike throwing tantrums at every bad call made by the umpires (which seem to be increasing) with no apparent punishment. These “professionals” don’t really seem to be very professional now do they? What would happen if a lawyer called a judge a cock sucker because he didn’t agree with a decision? He would be thrown in jail for contempt. Or if a manager told a director he made a boneheaded decision? The manager would likely be fired.

It’s time to bring the professionalism back to professional sports. If these multi-million dollar players can’t respect the hand that feeds them, then it’s time to replace them with those who will.

The Stanley Cup

While the NHL playoffs were going on last spring I was reading a book published by the Federal government about the first 100 years of Canada. Being one of our national sports, hockey was discussed and more importantly how the Stanley cup became the trophy given to the best NHL team each year was also mentioned.

Here’s a little history lesson: the Stanley Cup “was donated in 1892 by Sir Frederick Arthur Stanley, Lord Stanley of Preston and son of the Earl of Derby…to be presented to ‘the championship hockey club of the Dominion of Canada.’” This trophy was first given out to amateur hockey clubs since there was no professional league then. Once a professional league was started, the Stanley Cup was taken for the league champions, after much debate I’m sure. Somehow this league evolved into, or was taken over by another league, and became the National Hockey League (this aspect isn’t too important to my rant).

So the NHL continues to use the Stanley Cup as its annual award. Let’s look at this a little more closely now. The NHL has pretty much been taken over by the USA, at least the business side has been, and did they not also want nothing to do with England a couple hundred years ago? I am not a history expert or anything, but did the USA not battle England for their independence.
“In 1814 we took a little trip
Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip.
We took a little bacon and we took a little beans
And we caught the bloody British in the town of New Orleans”
I’m sure these lyrics by Johnny Horton (The Battle of New Orleans) reference the war.

So the USA wants nothing to do with England, the NHL has been taken over by the USA and the Stanley Cup was given to Canada for the best Canadian hockey club by an English Lord, why does the NHL still get to use the Stanley Cup? Why does the USA still want it? Do they think every time an American based team (at least half full of Canadians) wins the Stanley Cup it is like a small victory over England?

Whatever the reason is, I say the Stanley Cup should be returned to Canada, where it belongs, and have the NHL find some other piece of metal to play for.

But as it turns out (if you check out the website referenced above) the original Stanley Cup is sitting in a vault the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, Canada! The Stanley Cup that the NHL teams play for is just an imitation of a Canadian treasure. Ha!

Blue Jays Season is Officially Over

For all those Blue Jays fans out there who still thought a playoff spot was attainable, you can put those thoughts to bed for another year. Instead of trying to better the team at the trade deadline, J.P. did nothing. Even though the Jays were about 7 or 8 games back from the then division leading Red Sox, they still had a chance to play October baseball. I guess J.P. misses his mommy and would rather be with her than here in Toronto playing for the MLB championship come October. Whatever the reason there were no trades from him at the deadline.

So now with about 6 weeks left in the season, J.P. trades Hinske to the Red Sox for a player to be named later. Okay so Hinske isn’t a superstar or anything but he still fills a need that Boston has and by doing so he makes Boston a better team. With this trade, J.P. totally ignored the one basic rule; don’t trade within your own division, especially to a team you’re contending with to make the playoffs. The Jays received nothing in return except the assurance from the GM that there will be no playoff baseball this year.

In the end, this season has been no better than last year, except they are spending more on player salaries. I think it is time to get someone who knows the game to fill the role of general manager of the Blue Jays. If I am not mistaken, next season will be the fifth year of J.P.’s five year plan so if he doesn’t get the Jays into the playoffs in 2007, I say off with his head. If I am mistaken, J.P. should get the axe immediately.

Silly American Thing

The whole coin incident that happened in the NHL playoffs has reminded me about another quirk that happens at some sporting events in the US when a team from a Canadian city plays a team in an American city. This only seems to happen for Canada’s national sports (hockey and lacrosse) but that may be because the lone Canadian team in both the NBA and MLB haven’t been involved in any post season play recently. This quirk is the chanting of U-S-A near the end of the game when the American team is in the lead.

The first complaint about this is that these games are not between teams representing the two countries. Just because a team is based in a city of one country does not mean it represents the entire country. The team can only be seen to represent the City it’s based from. There is likely several hockey “fans” in Toronto right now cheering for Carolina to win the Stanley Cup. And can you blame them since Bettman, the commissioner, is even cheering for Carolina, but that’s another story. The hatred Torontonians have for the rest of the country is no going to be put aside because of a game.

The second complaint about the U-S-A chant is that the American based teams, at least in hockey and lacrosse, are still comprised primarily of Canadians. In fact, if you look at the actual numbers, American born players are still the minority on most teams. For example, the NLL Champions (Colorado Mammoth) had 8 Americans and 17 Canadians while the losing side of the championship game (Buffalo Bandits) shows 1 American and 25 Canadians (using the rosters on NLL.com). As for the NHL, only 7 of the 25 Carolina Hurricanes are American while 11 are Canadians (including team captain and one assistant captain) and there are 5 Americans and 20 Canadians on the 32 man roster of the Oilers (according to the respective team websites). There is likely a similar mix to most other teams for the most part, some may even have more “foreign-born” players but the Americans will still be the minority.

As proven here, the players on hockey and lacrosse teams based in American cities mostly consist of none-Americans. Given this fact it is improbable that the players represent anything more than the City where they are employed. The fact that a team plays their home games on American soil does not mean anything more then that and the fans of those teams shouldn’t try to make more out of it then that. If one wants to start a chant that splits the ears of all others in the arena and hopefully give the home team some advantage or more incentive to win, then please use the team’s name. The City’s name would do just fine too but whatever you do, do not chant for your country as no one playing a professional sport in North American is playing for their country.

Where Has All The Talent Gone?

Wednesday night I turned to the Jays vs Baltimore game and witnessed another brilliant defensive blunder (not quite as bad as the one pictured to the right though). I then began explaining to my wife how Wells' batting average is now going to decrease because of the error instead of staying where it was with a sac fly RBI but to my surprise the "official" scorekeeper had ruled the play a hit. That can't be, the ever so great TV commentator (Jamie Campbell) must have read or heard something wrong so I listened intently for a few more minutes waiting for the correction that never came.

Let me lay out the scenario for those that may not have seen this play. Wells hit the ball fairly well into centre or right centre causing the fielder to "chase it down". So the outfielder jogged towards the wall calmly, stretched his arm out to make a basket catch and missed the ball. How was that not an error? The outfielder had enough time to "settle" under the ball and make the catch instead of trying an ill-advised basket catch. Jamie Campbell even seemed to be slightly surprised that the play was ruled a hit and gave some reasoning he thought might have factored into the scorekeeper's decision. They all seemed to be a stretch.

This type of scenario seems to be happening way too frequently this baseball season. Doesn't anyone understand the game anymore? Or maybe it is I who doesn't understand. To the dictionary! An error in baseball is "A defensive fielding or throwing misplay by a player when a play normally should have resulted in an out or prevented an advance by a base runner." Now let's relate that to the play. Hmmm, preventing a base runner to advance....Wells should have been out not standing at second.
I think it's time to start hiring scorekeepers that actually know the game somewhat. If someone makes a boneheaded play they should be punished for it. Instead of that happening, the pitcher is the one being punished. Shame on the league for allowing such a travesty to happen, especially since they are already on shaky ground with the whole steroid issue. I think it's time for a new commissioner. Sorry Bud, it's time for you to leave.

Sad State of Hockey

I will keep this short. All winter long I have tried to give the NHL a chance but just couldn't find it exciting anymore. Hockey today has no flow or momentum. Just when a team actually starts to get something going the refs call a penalty or two or three. Maybe they feel neglected or something. I am sure many of you will disagree with me and that is fine, to each their own. I did however, keep an eye on the scores just so I could laugh at the Leafs fans. Poor, poor Leafs.

Now that the playoffs are here I was expecting some good hockey but again I was dissappointed. As a prime example of what I am talking about, last night I turned to the Edmonton/Anaheim game and watched it during the commercials of re-runs (yes everybody, I would rather watch re-runs of shows that I have seen several times over than an NHL game right now). So I had the game on for about 30 seconds and there were two penalty calls in that time. I don't know if anyone actually saw the infraction other than the ref either.

Congratulations Bettman, you have officially ruined hockey. Good thing they are still showing poker on tv, because that's a real spectator sport. Ha!

Barry Bonds - Hero or Fraud?

As Barry, or is it Mr. Bonds?, tries to hit his 714th career homerun to tie the Babe, there is a lot of negative publicity about him. The media that covers MLB (and those who don't know what a baseball is) has a history of trying to crush players personally when they are close to breaking any records set by Babe Ruth. Baseball is a game and records are made to be broken, similar to laws, so why does the media try to villify people trying to achieve greatness?

In '61 when Maris and Mantle were chasing the single season homerun record (previously held by the Babe), there was an uproar about a longer season. This time around the controversy revolves around a banned substance, steroids. The league knew about the use of steriods for years (at least a decade but probably more) and did nothing about it, in fact they helped the players hide it. After the strike of 1994 (the year the Expos were robbed of their World Series) attendance fell dramatically and the league was in desperate need of some trick to entice the fans to return. Lucky for them a natural born home run hitter named Mark McGwire flirted with 60 home runs in 1996 and 1997 and actually broke the single season home run record with 70 (before Bonds beat that a few years later). These home runs drew people from everywhere, coming out to see McGwire put balls into the Big Mac Land of old Busch Stadium. The league has found it's trick to get the fans back, home runs. Meanwhile, quietly in San Francisco, an aging Barry Bonds jumped on the home run band wagon and started pumping iron (and possibly with a little help) and building muscle. And why not, everyone else started to bulk up too and 32 home runs a season just isn't good enough anymore.

So now the league's attendance started to rise with all these mammoth home runs and the league was starting to blossom. The money started coming in and the league along with the team owners couldn't be happier. But then a question of steroids use in MLB came up and the league denied that there was a problem. MLB was drug free they said. But we all know the reality now. Now that the league has reached, and possibly even surpassed, pre 1994 attendance levels, the steriod use of ball players comes to light.

That brings me to my point...finally. Barry Bonds was one of many players that might have used steriods (I am sure he did but I don't know if there is any solid proof of that so I have to cover my butt) so why do we persecute him alone. After all it is a problem throughout the league isn't it? Ah, but not everyone is about to pass a baseball God on any other all-time list let alone the most sacred. We have to pretend we don't want to see this happen at all, especially by someone who might have used steriods, so the media won't let us forget that. The funny thing of this whole situation is that Babe Ruth isn't on top in career home runs so when Bonds eventually hits home run number 715 he will only be taking over the second spot on the all-time home run list.

So I ask, is Bonds a hero or a fraud? I consider a hero to be someone for us mere mortals to look up to so if Bonds did use illegal drugs then he isn't someone to look up to. So he might not be a hero. If we go by the definition of a hero, then it is possible that he is a hero of baseball. How about a fraud? I doubt that he is a fraud either, he did actually hit the pitches that ended up in McCovey's cove and on the other side of so many other fences in the Major Leagues. His home runs weren't deceptive or a trick, in fact the more recent ones were undisputably home runs. He isn't an imposter either, he really is a baseball player. Not a hero or a fraud then what is he? Just a human being that can hit a round ball with a round bat and do it well. I heard somewhere the hardest thing to do in this world is to hit a round ball with a round bat squarely. Hmmm!

Whatever we classify him as, I still say cudos to him for getting so close to the all-time home run record and giving the baseball world something big to talk about, something that doesn't happen everyday.

The Zebras Are Out Of Control

I really wanted my first post to be about something fun or witty; something to make people think, but unfortunately it is going to be a rant....and it isn't going to be about the striped horses of the picture.

The zebras I am referring to in the title are sports officials. Those men or women who are in charge of keeping the game moving smoothly and ensuring the players are following the rules. They are supposed to blend in to the game and be invisible to the audience. After all people didn't pay way too much money to see a bunch of zebras skate or run around (as much fun as that would be), they can go to the local zoo and see that for $10 or less (maybe a bit more in TO but the difference is worth it). In no way are the officials there to take away from the players or the game itself. Or are they? Did I miss a memo?

A few mistakes here and there are to be expected, they are human after all, but to miss obvious penalties or to call them so lopsided it seems the one team is shorthanded the whole game, is absolutely ludicrous. No professional sport is free from incompetent officials. Take the National Hockey League for the most blatant offence; Saku Koivu, a star player; on a French Canadian team, hmmmmm, gets a stick in the eye and none of the four on ice officials saw it....he was skating towards the net with the puck for heaven's sake. That disgusted me so much I stopped watching hockey.

So I turned to Major League Baseball. I can't cover everything but what is a strike? Apparently it changes from umpire to umpire and can even change for the same umpire in the middle of any given game. The most recent blunder I saw, if you can call missed calls a blunder any more, happened in the White Sox game two weekends ago I believe. A batter was in the middle of a swing and the ball hit him in the chest and was given first base. The thing that the announcers were questioning was whether the batter was able to check his swing. It doesn't matter! From what I recall, correct me if I'm wrong it has been several years since I've played, if a batter is in the motion of swinging and the ball hits him, it is a foul ball. He could have corkscrewed himself or barely taken his bat off his shoulder when the ball hit him, it is still a foul ball.

One last rant and I'll end this post. I went to the NLL championship game and Buffalo was shorthanded ten times compared to Colorado's one. Does that sound right to you? It doesn't to me.

It is time to take the power back and control the zebras before people start going to poker matches instead.