As Moises Alou put the first home run into the stands last night I wondered why I do not follow the Giants or even the Mets whose pitcher gave him the opportunity to put it out so far? It was a glorious stroke and reminded me again of the Expos of the 80s and 90s - when Moises was captured in a bubble pack, as illustrated - teams that could have won but didn't for many reasons. The Giants and the Mets have a few of the remaining ex-Expos of that era and are good National League teams with great players who, despite Moises's game last night, usually play the more interesting little ball of bunting, double steals and batting pitchers. But I am only an admirer. And for that matter why do I like the Leafs even though they are awful and deservedly out of the playoffs where they have belonged most of my life? Hasn't yet of mismanagement and missed opportunity earned my release? If not now, when?
I don't really know but the answers are somehow connected to my response to Bob Rae entering the race for the Federal Liberal Party leadership. It is not so much unseemly or about the contextual sometimes crises of floor crossing as it is simply not the way it is. Despite the lack of a real front runner, I just don't see Rae having a hope - and I would likely have voted for him as a provincial NDP leader if I had been around. I may well have in the first Harris election for all I know. No, the decade or so of jockeying for place, the nucons pushing out the cons and the cons going Grit as the Grits go con and the reds moving right shoved over by the Greens, sort of, has me wondering...why is it that I still like the Leafs?
Comments
Hans - April 25, 2006 9:36 AM
It is a curious human trait that manifests itself in cheering for this team or that. Why did I cheer for the Expos but now could care less abouty baseball? Why did I cheer for the Rough Riders, then take a break, then start cheering for the Renegades and now will not watch a down of CFL football this year until the Grey Cup? Why did Bob Rae and Scott Brison change their spots and why do they think they can get away with it while their own ambitions rest upon the expectation of party loyalty of "grasroots" party members? Why is David Peterson essentially pledging his soul to ensure Bob Rae doesn't win the Liberal leadership? Maybe I'll ask my dog about pack behaviour....
Gordo - April 25, 2006 12:44 PM
I DID vote for Rae (through Gary Wilson) in 1990 and have a hard teim reconciling his current move to the centre. It just seems strange.
I can't imagine the Liberals having the cjones to choose him, though. He comes with a massive amount of baggage and resentment in Ontario. They were screwed from the moment the election was over: "We got elected? Crap! What now?" I don't know why anyone is surprised it got messed up. A party that doesn't expect to win and doesn't plan to win will fall flat every time.
Alan - April 25, 2006 12:55 PM
I simply do not see an upside and I'm not a Grit so it is not a partisan matter...other than wanting to see silly throngs waiving banners shouting "Iggy-Iggy-Iggy-Iggy-Iggy-Iggy-Iggy-Iggy..."
Jay Currie - April 25, 2006 3:53 PM
Watching the multi-vehicle pile up which is the Liberal Leadership race I cannot help but ask - what happened to this once dominant party? Bob Rae is hardly loved in Ontario and in the rest of the country is seen as first and always an Ontario politican.
For the Grits to have a chance after the CPC have had their time as a majority government they have to have something to offer which is not simply old ideas and a nod to the left. Taking a look at some Gen-X candidates rather than a leading edge Bommer like Rae would be a step in that direction.
(As for sporting loyalties, the only pro-team I pay any glancing attention to is the Hamilton Tiger Cats and this because they were an abiding passion of my father's. It is like "Oskaweewee" is somehow hard wired. Weird.)
Alan - April 25, 2006 4:11 PM
Oskaweewee<br>
Iggy-Iggy-Iggy-Iggy<br>
Oskaweewee<br>
Iggy-Iggy-Iggy-Iggy<br>
Hey, that works...
T-Bo - April 25, 2006 11:04 PM
Of the political issues which are addressed, I admit shameful ignorance. Though anyone has to be better then W.......
If the new candidate wants a humorous politcal spot, could we hear Bob and Ray for Bob Rae?
The Expos got less out of more than any team in pro sports history, I think, and made more dumb trades to boot, many driven by economics I suppose. But they were always fun to watch, even though the Big "Owe" wasn't a good place for baseball (a little better for football, I think).
Who couldn't love a team with the Harold Ballard influence? The last team to put players' names on the back of the jerseys, and then only by league mandate. At first he made the names the same colors as the jerseys and told the NHL it wasn't his fault if no one could read them!
I remember going on a tour of Maple Leaf Gardens a few years ago. There is a bronze disc or medallion, a tribute to Harold Ballard, embedded in the floor. The guide said that they always had trouble solidfying the ice around that spot. I noted out loud how that figured, and then feared for a moment that I'd blundered. But everyone laughed, so it was cool.
And then there was the time that the Beatles played the Gardens, on a brutally hot summer day, and H.B. ordered the water fountains turned off and that the drinks be sold only in large cups. No wonder he spent some time as a guest of the federal government in your fair city.
SayNay? - April 26, 2006 9:00 AM
Rae's entry says a few things about hopelessness:
() the Liberals are hopelessly adrift as a party, without ideas or principles, but with a functioning patronage-bought loyalty machine that, as Robert Fulford pointed out recently, any "personality" believes they can steer to power, if they can simply somehow grab the tiller;
(ii) Rae believes his former party are a bunch of hopeless losers.