I’ve had many arguments about who the greatest Blue Jay of all time is. There are really only two answers to this question: the wrong answer and Tony Fernandez.

It’s always Tony. Don’t argue the point because you are very, very wrong.

Part of me thought maybe Tony Fernandez might forever be the greatest Blue Jay, at least until “The Trade.” For the first time there is another player who could compete for the spot.

Ladies and gentlemen, let’s welcome Jose Reyes to Toronto¹.

Now, I’m not saying it’s a guarantee that Reyes will surpass Fernandez in Jays greatness, but he’s the first guy who has a legitimate shot at it. He’s good in the field, excellent on the bases and is one year removed from an NL batting title. He’s also a fun-loving guy who RA Dickey has said a lot of nice things about, and we’re all about trusting everything RA Dickey says about anything these days. He’s even a shortstop, just like Fernandez and shortstop is the most mathematically likeable position on the field. It’s true. That’s why we were so bitterly disappointed in Yunel Escobar’s shitty 2012 season².

Jose Reyes also has six years and a $114,000,000 left on his contract, so no matter what, we’re probably going to be watching him for awhile. But I’m okay with that. I love Tony Fernandez as much as anyone, but I kind of want this for Reyes. I want him to be “the guy” when we look back at this team in two decades, much like Tony’s the guy from the 80′s³.

Of course, Jose Reyes’s hamstring may also explode, leaving us with an Izturis/DeRosa platoon at short, in which case Tony Fernandez’s legacy is probably safe and the 2013 season looks a little less championship.

When I was in Toronto last summer to catch a Jays game, I looked very hard for a piece of Mike McCoy gear. Sadly, Mike McCoy isn’t the sort of player they make t-shirts for. And that’s sad, because Mike McCoy is currently my favourite Blue Jay. Sadder still, he’s no longer even on the 40-man roster and it’s going to be a fairly calamitous season if he sees any time in the major leagues.

Why do I love Mike McCoy? Well, it’s no secret that I love scrubs and fringe players. I cried when John McDonald was traded to Arizona (and again when he re-upped there for another two seasons) and I was angry when Travis Snider got shipped to Pittsburgh. My favourite players are the guys who aren’t necessarily very good, but they make you want to root for them. John McDonald and Travis Snider are easy to root for.

Mike McCoy is easy to root for.

Over the last two years Mike McCoy has made the Vegas-Toronto trip more than any human being in the history of forever. And I’m sure he was looking forward to wearing a path between Buffalo and Toronto this season, except that likely won’t happen. Which is weird, because as far as 25th guys go, you could do a whole lot worse than Mike McCoy. See: Mark DeRosa.

Mark DeRosa is 35 years old and, frankly, the whole thing feels a bit too Omar Vizquel to me. Not that he isn’t a good guy—from what I can tell, he is. But Mike McCoy deserved better than he got and I’m going to have a hard time not pinning that onto DeRosa, as illogical and unfair as that clearly is. McCoy been the quintessential “Company Guy” for the Blue Jays and while my particular brand of loyalty-above-skill baseball strategy won’t land me the GM job for any team, major league or otherwise, I would have liked to have seen him given a chance on this Jays team, the one with a shot at winning something. Which isn’t to say it won’t happen. It’s a long season, and if Mike McCoy has proven anything, it’s that he’s there when you need him.

I didn’t get any McCoy gear last summer (though I did pick up an Encarnation shirt, which was an okay consolation prize), but he did somehow end up starting the one game I was at. And he managed a double, which was the high point in an otherwise shitty game. Most people didn’t really care. I gave him a standing ovation. Because I love that Mike McCoy; he’s easy to root for.

Earlier this week, Mike Milbury, who is inexplicably still "analyzing" hockey for NBC, called out Alex Ovechkin. He questioned Ovechkin’s defensive play. He questioned Ovechkin’s heart. He questioned Ovechkin’s manhood, which is a pretty sad and possibly dangerous view of gender for someone to be pushing on TV, but that’s a post for another time.

He said that Ovechkin, who is having a shitty year by Ovie standards and makes a fairly easy target, "failed" the superstar test and should be "ashamed of himself."

Let me repeat that for those in the cheap seats: Mike Milbury. Thinks Alex Ovechkin. Should be ashamed. Because of the way he plays hockey.

Let’s review Mike Milbury’s hockey credentials, shall we?

• Once beat a fan with a shoe.
• Tried to put Chris "Knuckles" Nilan into an NHL All-Star Game.
• Made one of his own players cry during an arbitration hearing.
• Used the phrase "Eurotrash" to describe a Russian hockey team.
• Mocked the consensus best player in hockey’s concussion problems and style of play (while also accusing that player’s coach of "wearing a skirt").
• Is demonstrably the worst general manager to ever run an NHL franchise, with a list of stupid trades and draft decisions so extensive that I’m not even going to bother listing them.
• While GM of the Islanders, he fired six coaches (eight if you count that he replaced himself twice) in 11 years, including Peter Laviolette who lead the team to two consecutive playoff appearances. It should be noted Milbury’s own career coaching record is under .500.
• During his tirade against Ovechkin, he said "inacceptable," which I’m pretty sure isn’t a word.

I don’t know, maybe Alex Ovechkin should be ashamed of himself, because if there’s anyone is an expert on shameful behaviour, it’s gotta be Mike Milbury.

Dana White is on record as saying that women would never fight in the UFC. It shouldn’t have surprised many people, since his persona (and possibly even the “real” Dana White) is aggressively misogynistic and has never seemed to have much use for women, beyond the UFC’s ring girls. But on Saturday night, Ronda Rousey made a liar out of him.

The UFC is in a strange place. Over the last two years they’ve signed a massive long-term TV deal with Fox, struggled with ratings on their flagship reality show and been forced to shuffle (and in one case cancel) cards due to an improbable number of injuries. Like any business, they’ve been forced to make decisions to meet these challenges. Some of these decisions are questionable, namely giving title shots to mouthy characters, like Nick Diaz and Chael Sonnen, instead of guys who win fights, like Johny Henricks and Chris Weidman. Others make sense, like expanding the number of weight classes to include smaller fighters. They’ve also re-tooled the Ultimate Fighter this season, upping production values and moving the show to Tuesday nights.

All of these things are designed to help the UFC keep growing and make money, because that’s what the UFC is supposed to do—make money. Dana White may be an asshole, but he’s also a businessman and he finally sees money in women fighting. That’s because Ronda Rousey forced him to see money in women fighting, or at least in her fighting.

Ronda Rousey is beautiful, funny, charismatic and well spoken. Most importantly, she’s talented. She puts on exciting (though short) fights and she wins (always in the first round and often in the first minute).

I’m not sure Rousey fighting in the UFC is quite the same as Jackie Robinson playing in the major leagues, but it is a big deal. Interestingly, like Robinson, Rousey seems to be doing this alone, even though her opponent, Liz Carmouche, also happens to be a woman (not to mention the UFC’s first openly gay fighter). No one seems to care much about her, she’s a footnote in this particular chapter of history, a supporting role in the script Rousey and the UFC are writing. There are a lot of obvious and, frankly, sexist reasons why that is, but we won’t worry about that right now. Rousey has earned her moment and it is an important one for women.

It’s not so much that women finally have the right to beat each other up on pay-per-view, but it’s that women are, for the first time, being given an equal spot in a professional sport. That it happened in the UFC—an organization that really follows the patriarchy to its illogical conclusion—is ironic and at least a little hilarious. It took this sport, with its alpha male figurehead and aggro fan base, to put professional female athletes on the same stage as professional male athletes, both figuratively and literally.

Women basketball players play in the WNBA. Women golfers join the LPGA tour. Unless there’s an MNBA or GPGA I’m unaware of, I’m pretty sure this indicates we’re still marginalizing female professional athletes. The default means male. In tennis, the men play for the Association of Tennis Professionals tour and women play with the Women’s Tennis Association, as if women, by default, aren’t professionals. It’s not dissimilar to why there’s Black History Month and no White History Month—”white history” is just called “history.” Yes, I’m arguing semantics, but language and meaning is important.

But Ronda Rousey (and Liz Carmouche) didn’t fight in the WUFC. Their organization is the same as the men’s organization. (I should note that Rousey’s title is the “Women’s Bantamweight Championship,” as opposed to the “Bantamweight Championship,” and honestly most people—including Dana White—are just calling it the “UFC Women’s Championship” since there are no other weight classes for women. So as important as this all may be, there’s still progress to be made. Also, a real test will be if the MMA media starts including Rousey and other women in the overall pound-for-pound rankings.) And Rousey (and Liz Carmouche) wasn’t just on the card, she was the headliner. It’s was her (and Liz Carmouche’s) show.

As much as I praise the decision to add women to the UFC roster and think it really is a giant and necessary step forward for equality in sports, one fight alone isn’t going to make a difference. On its own, UFC 157 is a novelty. Dana White says he’s committed to making women in the UFC work—that there is a long-term vision and this isn’t an experiment. How soon he really makes that happen may depend on just how much money there really is in Ronda Rousey and how fast he can find legitimate contenders for her title. (Even more telling will be how long it takes Carmouche to get another fight.)

It also wouldn’t hurt if we all stopped talking about what Ronda Rousey looks like. Even I used “beautiful” as the first thing to describe her above (which I did because I believe the way she looks is a big reason the UFC is pushing her). I think Joe Rogan even referred to the fight as “the sexiest four minutes in UFC history,” though I may have that wrong—I wasn’t really listening and it caught my attention just as I was turning the TV off.

Baby steps, I guess.

Still, women now have the opportunity punch other women in the face for money on the biggest face-punching stage in the world. That’s something we couldn’t say a few days ago. Progress can look funny up close.

By NHL standards, Leland Irving is a Greek tragedy. Drafted in the first round in 2006, his career was full of promise. He was heir apparent to Kiprusoff’s throne.

A lot can go wrong in six years.

In 2007, he backed up Carey Price on Canada’s gold-medal World Junior team, seeing exactly zero minutes of action. In 2008, he was left off the Team Canada roster, which isn’t the sort of thing that’s supposed to happen.

He was good for the Quad City Flames in his first year of professional hockey, but there must have been something in the Abbotsford water, as a season later he not only lost his starting gig, but was busted down to Victoria in the ECHL. (Again, that’s Victoria. In the East Coast Hockey League. Who knew?) He returned to Abbotsford in time to make one playoff appearance, allowing three goals on seven shots.

2010–2011 seemed to be the year Leland Irving finally found his groove. He was great by AHL standards, and finally started to look like the future NHL starter someone in the Flames scouting department had assumed he would become. A year later, when Flames backup Henrik Karlsson got hurt, he finally made it to the show, and while he only managed a 1–6 record, his numbers were actually pretty good. (The Flames are historically notorious for putting up some stinkers when the backup goalie is playing. Between lockouts, goalies not nicknamed “Kipper” went 22–36.)

Which brings us to this season. During the lockout, Leland Irving not only lost his starting job in Abbotsford, he fell to third-string goalie status behind two guys you’ve never heard of. Despite this, Karlsson was sent packing to Chicago for a seventh-round pick and Leland Irving became the Flames’ number two for a condensed season featuring a pile of back-to-backs. Then the every Flames fan’s worst nightmare came true—Mikka Kiprusoff got hurt.

This was Leland’s chance. Fate had delivered opportunity. He was the man.

And he was fucking terrible.

The Flames floundered and poor Leland Irving proved he wasn’t the kind of goalie who would steal them games. After the February 9 game against the Canucks, my friend Jeff and I mused that we’d witnessed the end of a career that night. We were wrong, of course. Irving would play admirably in a shootout loss to the Wild, then he beat the Stars on the strength of a seven-goal outburst from the Flames offence. Then, six days after we thought we’d seen the end of Leland Irving, we saw the end of Leland Irving when he was pulled after four minutes and two goals versus the Blues.

I’m not even sure he bothered stopping at the bench, instead making his way directly to the dressing room and packing his gear for the trip back to Abbotsford.

I’d like to think Leland Irving has a bright NHL future ahead of him, but at 24 years old, it’s starting to seem unlikely. You want to root for the guy, but he’s basically now fifth on the Flames goalie depth chart, and that’s not counting Karri Rämö, who is now being tagged as the go-to guy in a post-Kipper era. I can’t see the franchise handing him another opportunity, and even if circumstance gave him another shot, the .883 save percentage he’s put up in the NHL this year (not to mention the .881 he’s managed in the AHL) doesn’t inspire much faith.

His contract (a one-year deal he signed just before the start of this season) is up at the end of the year and it’s safe to say Leland Irving doesn’t figure into the Flames’ plans for the future. Someone will give him a shot, though it’ll probably be in Europe. But I’ll keep my eye out—guys like Leland Irving tend to pop up again from time to time. And when he does, inevitably as a spot starter for one game on a team with serious injury problems, I’ll wish him the best. As long as it’s on someone else’s team. Because, wow, was he tragically terrible.

Hi.

It’s been awhile. You look good.

Anyway, we’re thinking of starting this thing up again. Consider yourself warned.

For the second year in a row the Blue Jays have shipped my favourite player off to another team. It’s a tragic habit. Or course, it probably wouldn’t happen if my favourite players weren’t utility infielders (I still love you, John McDonald!) and guys that were in the minors ten days ago. But Travis Snider is different. I feel like I’ve watched the kid grow up in a Jays uniform and I’m sad I won’t get to see him succeed in one, if he ever manages to figure it out.He’s just 24 years old, so I think we’ll look back at this deal and decide Alex Anthopoulos sold low, but these things happen. Now the question becomes: Who is my favourite player?

Jose Bautista is too easy and, speaking honestly, his death-stare kind of scares me. Colby Rasmus has a certain rube charm, but right-wing American nutbars also scare me these days. Plus, you know, daddy issues. Brett Lawrie is awesome, but too bro to be a favourite. Yunel Escobar doesn’t scream favourite either. JP Arencibia would likely be a leading contender, except I don’t want to get too attached. My favourite player could never be a pitcher not named Jesse Litsch, and I can’t even remember what that guy looks like.

I suppose that leaves me with Edwin Encarnation. The big lug. I do love that guy, and his recent contract means he’ll be around for a little while to come. Goodbye, Travis Snider. You will be missed and I wish you nothing but the best in the NL. Now I have to go get a new jersey.

Again.

Fuckers.

A couple years ago I was reminded of a love that had been neglected for over 15 years. I had gotten into baseball during the Great Baseball Card Market Crash of the late 80s / early 90s. Partially I was interested simply because it seemed that every 14-year-old boy was into baseball cards at the time, and I wanted reasons to be accepted by my friends. But I also genuinely loved watching the game, and doing things like comparing stats on the back of my dozens of cards with the ones shown on TV during games. (This was before Yahoo implanted chips in our brains that updated stats as the plays happen.) And then, just as suddenly as I became interested, I lost interest. Turning from 14 to 15 changed my interests from baseball and video games to angsty talk about girls, angsty music and angsty angst.

Then, during the 2009 pennant race, my interest was renewed by the Twitter banter of two baseball loving assholes, who’s shit-talking rivalry was incomparable. John Gruber (a Yankees fan), and Mike Monteiro (Phillies, all the way) tore each other apart live, as the games happened, and I couldn’t help but watch the games live, as they did. It was just FUN because it was a winning combo, them being extremely informed baseball fans — as demonstrated on the sports blog they both contribute to, American McCarver — and sharp with rude Philly wit that the city is famous for.

During these games I developed an affinity for both teams. It was the most baseball I’d watched in 15 years and I felt like these were the players that were helping me enjoy it again. But in particular I was enjoying watching the Yankees. The skill of Jeter, the almost oxymoron-like sportsmanship of someone like A-Rod, who I’d only known as being an asshole from uhh… we’ll say TMZ, the virtuoso pitching of Mariano Rivera… (whom Gruber’s tweets helped me appreciate especially) all these huge names that baseball fans more or less ignore because they are ubiquitously discussed, I was becoming fond of.

This winter I was riding around in a friend’s car and a song came on the radio, two notes into it my friend got excited — “Have you heard this song? This song knocks my fucking DICK OFF!” and cranked it. Moves Like Jagger, a song universally hated by young and old blared. I don’t listen to the radio and I’d not heard it yet, so the song knocked my dick off too, and I’m not embarrassed to say that I still don’t mind it. This is what happened while watching the 2009 World Series. The Yankees “knocked my fucking dick off” and now I’m stuck with this love for a team that is universally despised. So what to do? Every time I told my baseball fan friends I liked the Yankees I’d get the eye-roll. “Of course you’re a Yanks fan, you’re new.” was the universal response.

When I was a kid I liked Nolan Ryan, but it confused me when he went from the Astros to the Rangers. It created a dilemma: Should I shift my alliance just because he moved? It was all new to me then too.

I also watched a lot of Tigers baseball when I was a kid. Growing up in Regina, our US cable channels were all from Detroit, and so the bulk of the games I watched were from there, with the odd Jays and Expos game thrown in. My step-brother was, and is, a fan, and I like the idea of Detroit as a city. The Tigers are also just a fun team to watch… they seem be an obvious choice, but there’s the looming question that overshadows my dilemma.

What about locality? None of these teams are especially close. The only team that I could possibly call “local” is the Blue Jays, but Toronto is as distant as any other MLB city, in fact mores than most and I bristle at the thought that just because I’m Canadian, I’m obligated to pay tribute to a distant capital. I watch my baseball through MLB.tv, which considers all of Canada “in-market” for Jays games, so if they are in fact my team, I can’t even watch their games since I don’t have cable. It’s a problem of logistics, but still valid in my opinion. How do I love a team who I can’t watch?

Despite somewhat identifying a Yankees fan, I dislike the idea of being dismissed as a stupid newbie. I do like the Jays, but I hate the idea that as a Canadian I’m obligated to be a Jays fan, also the blackout thing would be untenable. Tigers might be my only choice, but I haven’t kept up enough with them to even know what they are like. (I suppose that’s what spring training games are for.) I posed the question of who I should align myself to to Monteiro last year and I got a one word reply, “Jays”. Sigh.

Two weeks pass. During that time spring training ends, and my baseball pool draft happens. These things come and go without me making any decision. I posed the question to Twitter, and got a range of answers, of which two polarizing thoughts stood out.

@myownbiggestfan @ctoverdrive@NEWSBOYCALLSEN@camhoff@poploser The poetry of sports is in rooting for David over Goliath.

— Tyler Hellard (@poploser) March 31, 2012

@myownbiggestfan Without villains there are no heroes.

— Cam Hoff (@camhoff) April 10, 2012

Did I want to become the one that got jeered at? Did my enjoyment of the Yanks go deep enough that I could endure the heckling?

I don’t generally hang out at the mall, but I found myself there last weekend. Like teenagers, my friends and I hung out for hours. As our visit was drawing to a close I, in the sort of numb, sad emotional state the mall tends to put me in, spotted a store full of ballcaps and drifted in. Apparently I wanted to buy one. In retrospect I think walking into that store was my way of telling myself to man up and make a decision. I guess I subconsciously thought that looking at the wall of embroidered logos would tell me which team I would invest my time in. It totally worked.

A large part of the enjoyment of watching and sport — as any sports movie will tell us, is the appeal of rooting for an underdog. I’ve always prided myself in appreciating being a champion for the underdog at any other time, but I hadn’t yet come to terms with this in my new-found enjoyment of baseball. (It should be noted that I do not watch or partake in any other sports normally, so I have a new-found appreciation for them in general.)

Baseball fans pride themselves in a game that hasn’t changed very much since around 1895. Tradition is a key ingredient. Yet another lesson to be learned from movies. How many baseball movies reference real-life games from at least 30 years ago? Pretty much EVERY SINGLE ONE. How many times a game do announcers spout off stats from players that most of the audience never got a chance to see play? I’m not saying that other sports don’t have tradition, or even that baseball is the best example of this, just that it’s important.

I walk into the store, (remember, I’m still at the mall) I look at the wall of hats and realize the choice was made for me ages ago, I was just confused. I was never going to choose the team that is baseball’s polished marketing machine. Of course it was always going to be the gritty team that I had a past with, as minor as that past might be. I want to wear a hat that people know I chose because I chose the team, not because Jay Z wears it too. I’ve never been the popular kid in class, and I’m sure as hell not going to start trying to be him now that I’ve finally grown into my “grumpy old man” demeanour. I’m not going to suddenly think it’s my thing to cheer for the guys who are ridiculously over-rewarded by life.

The Tigers were always the obvious choice. Their last World Series win was in 1984, and during that time Tigers games would get played with regularity in my house. That along with the fact that my step-brother has always been a fan, I guess fulfils the “tradition” aspect for me. Detroit itself embodies the underdog archetype, so there’s that. Also, they are good. I didn’t want to choose a team because because I like lost causes. Choosing the Cubs, which would carry less stigma than the Yanks, would have been for even more wrong of a reason. So there you have it, I’ve gone with my gut, and it happens to agree with my brain for once.

I do owe the Yankees a debt of gratitude. I have a new-found enjoyment of something that I had forgotten about because of them. (Them, and Gruber, and Monteiro.) They are a great team, and are so much fun to watch. So all of this isn’t to say I’ll suddenly stop appreciating the fun of an A-Rod/Teixeira double play, it’s just that now, if it’s against Fielder, I’ll be pissed.

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