Roof That Peach

And by very exciting, I mean sort of interesting. In addition to being the latest salvo in the escalating war between TSN and Rogers, the debut of TSN RADIO 1050 in April will also potentially piss off TSN talent who may now be called in during current off-hours to do guest-spot rotations, and only increase the amount of hockey talk on Toronto’s radio airwaves.

While their initial lineup includes a home for Argos football, their other early properties include Euro 2012 soccer and golf. I did not realize golf was still broadcast on the radio in 2011, but it sounds as intense as a coke-filled orgy in Ibiza after six days of no sleep.The former 1050 CHUM will also carry Dan Patrick’s and Jim Rome’s shows, programming that Toronto Sports Media astutely pointed out is nothing more than a niche market in the splintered, half-assed sports town that is the T-dot. However TSN appears to be in this radio thing for the long-haul, and apparently Leaf game rights — currently held by AM 640 — are up for grabs in April. TSN will likely bid a large sum for, and win those rights.

The ultimate result is more endless hockey banter. Does anyone recall the sports media in Toronto, or even Canada, before the birth of what was then called CTV Sports Net in 1998? It wasn’t as mind-numbingly hockey-heavy. That’s partially because our beloved Internet was still in its infancy, there was only one sports TV and one sports radio station, and the Blue Jays were still contending.

And aside from the Jays dissolving from mass-consciousness, something happened along the way. A stark realization among execs that only hockey (specifically Leafs) brought in really, really good broadcast ratings in this market. It’s why what’s now called Rogers Sportsnet has been trying to mirror TSN for 13 years — and in most sensible opinions, failing.

Any hopes of increased basketball or soccer talk on “Sportsnet Radio The FAN 590″ will soon evaporate. But as we know, it’s all a power game. The real interesting angle about this is former TSN president Keith Pelley essentially being at the helm of Sportsnet now.

But then again, what’s local terrestrial radio? Howard Stern gave up on that years ago. If you don’t like it, turn on SIRIUS — or the Internet.

Thanks for the memories. You are a class act, perhaps the classiest ever to manage a World Champion. But why you didn’t fucking play Rob Ducey in that opener of that series against the Red Sox in late September of 1990 is beyond me. That bastard came into that game hitting .317 as a call-up, yet you went back to that season’s old standby, benching Ducey, starting George Bell in left and putting a 21-year-old Olerud back at DH. Is it any wonder we lost that game, and ultimately 2 out of 3 in that series? Then we watched the Sox win the division by two games. Never fucking mind we traded McGriff and Fernandez for Alomar and Carter in the offseason and won back-to-back titles in ’92 and ’93, this has been sticking in my balls since I was 14. See, here’s what that lineup would have looked like that night if you weren’t such a motherfucking stickler:

MOOKIE WILSON CF

JUNIOR FELIX RF

KELLY GRUBER 3B

GEORGE BELL DH

FRED MCGRIFF 1B

ROB DUCEY LF

TONY FERNANDEZ SS

PAT BORDERS C

MANNY “MANUEL” LEE 2B

In all seriousness though, thanks for the memories Clarence. I believe you are the all-time face of the Toronto Blue Jays, and they should rename Blue Jays Way to Cito Gaston Way.

Rocco Rossi’s attempt to make a major statement Monday by announcing his intention, if elected mayor of Toronto, to finish the Allen/Spadina Expressway by tunneling from Eglinton to the Gardiner will almost assuredly not provide the shot in arm his campaign desired. The idea is certainly bold — but among other things, too bold for Toronto. While there’s no doubt that the city has needed a north-south freeway connection on the west side of downtown for decades, it’s just never going to happen. In Toronto, only activists unite and vote over major municipal issues. While this will certainly get attention from people, it won’t galvanize anybody to actually go out and vote for him. In fact, it will only increase the resolve of the anti-car activists and residents of Forest Hill and the Annex — the same people who killed the original Spadina Expressway in the early ’70s.

At worst the platform was hideously ill-informed, because for the cost of something like this you could build a real subway network. At best it highlights a very real problem — gridlocked streets that make walking and cycling dangerous. But big ideas are not something Toronto does. As I’ve said before, this isn’t China or the United States of the last century. Toronto’s biggest problem was that it boomed in the 1960s and early ’70s, a time when reformist ideas were taking hold. That’s why the Spadina and Crosstown freeways were never built. Other North American cities, like New York and Chicago, boomed in the 1880s and early 1900s respectively, or when the industrial age was firing up. That’s why New York has 468 subway stations and Chicago has a complex network of elevated trains and double-deckered streets. Montreal? They just have better infrastructure because they’re in Quebec and that’s where the Feds need to constantly grease wheels.

Because of that and many other reasons, Toronto is left with outdated everything, from the low VIA platforms at Union Station to exposed hydro wires to a transit system the current mayor admits only properly serves a city half its size. And it will never change because imagination doesn’t work here in terms of government. That’s what makes Rossi’s plan so crazy. If he at least focused on an issue that held some immediate relevance — like Downtown Relief Line over Transit City, or burying that other expressway, the Gardiner, rather than tearing it down — he might have been taken seriously by somebody. But come on, a mind-boggling massive project? In Toronto?

I’ve been getting upset about stuff like this for more than a decade now, but I also reached the point long ago where I knew what Toronto is. It’s simply the type of city that would rather fawn over local media reports about how it’s portrayed in a movie like Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, than come out and support it’s national team in planet Earth’s second-most popular team sport. That’s not meant to be a shot or a sarcastic remark, it’s just the truth. It is what it is. I took the above picture during the fourth quarter of Friday’s France-Canada basketball game, night two of back-to-back pre-World Championship exhibitions that drew 2,225, about 300 less than Thursday’s game.

Canada Basketball has always deserved a fair amount of blame for its overall incompetence, specifically its inability to market the product. However you also have to take into consideration the fact that Toronto is Canada’s number one basketball market. While it’s unquestionably a frontrunner, flavor-of-the-month loving city, the reality is if you can’t draw a healthy crowd for a national team game here, where can you? We know Canadians as a whole don’t hold hoops in particularly high regard: Basketball telecasts in this country are regularly outdrawn by curling and poker. But seriously, 2,200 fans? And some of them were actually from France, like the family next to me. I can take the usual shots about how most Canadians are so blindly wrapped up in our dominance of ice hockey, a sport nobody knows nothing about outside of seven nordic or semi-nordic countries. A sport called ice hockey in most of the world, so as not to confuse it with field hockey. But I won’t. Because it is what it is.

As for Friday’s game itself, Canada destroyed a Tony Parker-less France 85-63, playing with a 20-point bulge most of the night. And speaking of bulges, it dawned on me that Raptor fans need to thank Michael Jordan or Larry Brown or whoever it was who kiboshed the deal that would have landed Boris Diaw in Toronto. Team Canada looked good, Leo Rautins kept rotations up all game despite the rout and constant foul calls, so everybody averaged about 18 minutes. I get the impression watching Robert Sacre though that the guy should be a hell of a lot more dominant than he is.

—

Saturday’s about-face by the McGuinty government on MMA virtually guarantees a UFC event in early 2011, or March at the Rogers Centre as some are suggesting. It’s huge news for MMA fans, but a typical political flip-flop from a premier who doesn’t seem to know up from down these days. Many expected this to drag on past this fall’s municipal election in Toronto, where a newly-elected mayor would likely have put pressure on the province. But whatever, it’s done now and the rumor mill is calling a GSP/Josh Koscheck card here. Now Dana White can focus all his efforts on New York state.

"If any of you kids are thirsty, there's a conveniently placed fridge full of Vitamin Water. Just don't get up while the Pete Rose guy talks to LeBron"

However this Miami Heat triumvirate ends — and I’m betting that title(s) or not, it ultimately ends with clashing egos — this entire clusterfuck of an experience has been one of the most surreal sequences in sports history. The story goes the three of these guys made a pact at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing that they would do just this. And by doing it, LeBron James may become the man who could have been King. How he and Dwyane Wade plan on co-existing 40 minutes a game is anybody’s guess, but for the time being they can regale us about how they plan on being selfless team guys. You can also count on current Heat coach Erik Spoelstra being fired or re-assigned mid-season a la Stan Van Gundy. The glory that is Pat Riley’s ego tends to flare up every couple of years like a case of latent arthritis.

I don’t know Chris Bosh — the closest I’ve come to him is holding a tape recorder to his chest and walking by him once at Cheval — but there was a palpable sense in Toronto after the summer of 2008 that he had changed. Bill Simmons points out that presently, he clearly wants to be more famous than he actually is. From purely a basketball standpoint, going to Miami to be with Wade alone made sense — he never was a #1, no matter how hard some Raptors fans wanted him to be, and despite his deficiencies he would flourish playing low with a star in the backcourt. But the whole process made you wonder when the rumor came out LeBron had unsuccessfully tried to recruit him to Cleveland. He wouldn’t play in the rustbelt, plain and simple. It was abundantly clear he needed more glamour than that. Thanks to Mona Halem and the city itself, Toronto is celebrated among U.S. pro athletes (even if they don’t want to live here) for it’s multi-ethnic mix of women and upscale nightlife. The only NBA cities that beat it in that regard are Miami, New York and L.A.

By rejecting LBJ’s appeal to find a way to go to the Cavs, Bosh essentially made himself the catalyst of this union because it sealed LeBron’s days in Cleveland. Without a sidekick, he wasn’t staying. I suspect, as per the pact, James was aiming for Miami all along, until he got all sentimental about his long-suffering home region three days ago. You could tell he was uncharacteristically nervous on ESPN with Jim Gray, mumbling “this is tough” before dropping his destination. Why New York never seemed fully in the game is beyond me, although I think Donnie Walsh didn’t want to get involved in this scheme and instead went out and got something certain in Amare Stoudemire. As a result, these three guys will ply their trade in a city that is full of hot chicks yes, but whose team closed down their upper deck seating in a brand-new arena as little as eight years ago due to poor attendance. As a well-rounded sports fan’s town, Miami makes Toronto look like Boston.

And I can’t see how this is good for the game, given much of league’s financial shortfall since the economy’s near-collapse. The closest comparison to this union would be to the ’90s Bulls, an era that left many craving the rivalries of the decade before. You can bet this juggernaut will be marketed to point of numbness, but there’s also going to be a backlash from many of the league’s hardcore fans. If there’s a good thing, players on other teams will be gunning for them, which means some will actually try for a change. While David Stern might have intervened on the “free agency summit” you almost wonder if he should of stopped this. But he wouldn’t have, because he sees more global revenue. Countless kids in Indonesia wearing Heat jerseys. And that’s what he needs to bank on in today’s world.

How is it three guys deciding to play together makes you instantly dislike two of them? My opinion of LeBron, which was quite high, has hit new lows. Is Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert just angry or is there truth in what he wrote in that scathing rip-job of a letter in Comic Sans MS? And anybody who uses Twitter in the fashion Chris Bosh has the past few weeks deserves the “annoying” label, at best.

He brought Syracuse it’s lone national title. But I knew there always was more of a reason I liked Carmelo Anthony the most.

I’ve avoided discussing the Olympics at length because they have sort of sodomized me in my own occupational-specific way, but it’s time to take issue with a few things. As somebody who attends the Bryant Gumbel school of Winter Games fandom, it’s easy to dismiss this overpriced event as being best remembered for bad weather, faulty hydraulics, an Olympic cauldron with the Cold War-ambiance of Checkpoint Charlie and the untimely deaths of a Georgian luger and Richard Stabone (above). However, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that otherwise, things appear to have gone well. Not that I would have wanted to be in Vancouver for this. Manifest Destiny can kiss my ass. Plus I know a few people out there working on the broadcast end, and the second and third-hand stories about drinking and who had sex with who should suffice fine.

Shockingly, the success of the Games actually includes the performance of Canadian athletes. As of Friday morning, Canada had won 17 medals, which was only behind the U.S., Germany and Norway. The latter may be questionable, but we were never going to outperform Uncle Sam or the Krauts anyways (U.S. population: 300,000,000, German population: 82,000,000). We are actually ahead of noted Winter Olympic powers Russia and France, and to casually dismiss being ahead of China (population 1.4 billion) and South Korea (50,000,000) would be short-sighted. If there is a failure with the idiotically-named Own The Podium program, it was recklessly predicting that Canada would finish first.

Having said that, here are some concerns. One reason I dislike the Winter Games is they’ve further pigeon-holed Canada into being even more of a nordic sports-centric nation. The $120 million funding side of Own The Podium was a step in the right direction. The question is, will it apply for summer athletes too? A lot of Canadian sports fans have the memories of Alzheimer’s patients, but there was a time when Canada had a dominant sprinting program with the likes of Ben Johnson, Desai Williams, Donovan Bailey and Bruny Surin. It wasn’t a fluke. Perdita Felicien and Priscilla Lopes-Schliep have come along since, although Felicien ended up pulling a sadly familiar Canadian choke job in Athens. But will there be money for these athletes, or for say swimmers, rowers, ping-pong players, and by extension, basketball and soccer programs where we have decent raw talent?

The reason it’s important is because like it or not, Toronto will get the Summer Olympics one day. Whether it’s 2020, 2024 or 2068, it’s going to happen. It’s inevitable — once the IOC gets a Summer Games in Africa, they won’t have a first-time point to prove any more and Toronto will be on their short list. And if you think Vancouver would have been embarrassing without a Canadian gold, try that stunt in Toronto when the entire world actually is watching.

Furthermore, that I Believe song needs to stop playing very soon or I will manifest my rage in physical ways. Thankfully it will stop soon after Sunday. Sure, it may be a big hit on Canadian iTunes, but these Olympic anthems usually dry up as soon as Olympic fever ends, which should be by St. Patrick’s Day at the latest. In B.C., it will be when the reality of the cost overruns sink in. Just take comfort in this: When’s the last time you heard regular play of this Olympic anthem from Calgary ’88 (although it is an infinitely better song)?

Exactly. Go to hell, cursed Glass Tiger frontman-written melody.

For those of you who think Adam Giambrone’s alleged coitus with a 19-year-old on his office sofa will jeopardize his bid for Mayor of Toronto, think again. He’s still the only one of the declared mayoral candidates who will gain the full support of the city’s powerful unions. He will be elected in a landslide. The secondary reason for that is only 40% of those eligible actually vote in these municipal elections. This isn’t New York with it’s Bloombergs and Giulianis, civic pride and high turnouts. The unions and leftists will stake their claim with this baby-faced empty shell, and he will cakewalk to power.

By the time the election actually happens in the fall, all of the past month’s complaints about the TTC will be ancient history, buried behind “good news” announcements about suburban streetcar lines, fronted by the aforementioned baby-faced empty shell. Because we live in Toronto and we have no business aspiring for a better city, we should consider ourselves lucky that TTC union boss Bob Kinnear scolded us Tuesday and put us transit riders back in our place. Who are we to demand better service from a horribly outdated system? How dare “citizen journalists” capture on video once what happens roughly 900 times a day.

The one upside to Giambrone’s pending mayoralty is this – there will probably be more TTC jobs, not less. Screw modernization and smart cards. Who needs technology when you can pay a ticket collector $85,000 a year? Combine that fact of life with the desire in some powerful quarters to see downtown become more “bicycle-friendly” (translation: no cars) and the socialist worker’s dream of turning Toronto into 1960s Beijing will be closer than ever.

Of course, I’ve been wrong before. The Saints did win the Super Bowl. But I think Toronto politics is more predictable than a 4th quarter Peyton Manning pick 6.

On an aside, some of Giambrone’s alleged texts to this woman include nuggets like “I still think of you when I need … um … stimulation” and “I like you because you’re smart and interesting. You’re also good-looking naked.”

Based on that, I must say this guy actually might have more game than Tiger Woods.

Now zacktaylor.ca claims to have “naked photos” of the boyish councillor.

Specifically, 91-year-old Buffalo Bills owner Ralph Wilson, who phoned New York Senator Charles Schumer this week and told him he would not entertain moving the team to the new stadium being carved out of a hill east of L.A. Most of the football world is fairly certain at this point Wilson is senile, and if you watched his press conference in Toronto a few years back with the late Ted Rogers, you’d bet your testicles on it. That’s not the real issue though – like any Buffalonian can tell you, the fear is what will happen when Ralph succumbs. The Globe and Mail’s Stephen Brunt said not too long ago that the Bills will now be involved with Toronto forever – unless they move to Los Angeles.

Yet given the tepid response the “Bills in Toronto Series” has received in T-dot, would the corporation who bring you Sportsnet and Margaret Simon easily take a buyout on the last year or so of the $78 mil they paid if R-Dub dies, which at 91, unfortunately, is possible at any minute? With the city of Buffalo on life support itself, as a Bills fan I always said Toronto would be a more tolerable destination than L.A., but TO isn’t helping it’s NFL cause at all. The real salvation may be with Roger Goodell and people like Schumer – Goodell’s from Jamestown (known in Buffalo as the “southern tier”) and with the Giants and Jets at the Meadowlands, the Bills are the technically the only NFL team playing in New York state. I don’t bet on politicians however – and Schumer already looked like an ass 16 years ago when he and then-president Bill Clinton failed at trying to end the baseball strike.

UPDATE – In other Bills news, Buffalo fans have raised enough DONATIONS TO PAY FOR AN ELECTRONIC SIGN to try and convince Wilson into hiring Bill Cowher.

Earlier Tuesday I was on the verge of writing a diatribe about how the media won’t stop this Tiger Woods pile-on. (Short version: He cheated, STFW, he’s like 50% of the planet, it’s just hypocritical because he sells himself as a family man, if anything he’s merely an amateur because he leaves his voice on a message for a booty-call to sell to the highest bidder).

Then we discover that noted Toronto sports doctor Anthony Galea – who treated Tiger after his epic knee injury in ’08 – is under RCMP and FBI investigation after one of his staffers was allegedly busted at the U.S. border with HGH (Just an aside, I got pulled over for 40 minutes by U.S. Customs at the Rainbow Bridge in October because I wanted to go to Mighty Taco. My contraband cargo? A fucking steam mop from Wal-Mart I had forgotten to take out of the trunk. After DHS searched the car top to bottom and took me into that pavillion thing and asked me several questions that basically sounded the same, I was allowed to leave. Maybe one thing not to take over the U.S. border, Einstein: A PERFORMANCE ENHANCING DRUG). Naturally, an RCMP raid of Galea’s Oakville office soon followed.

The thing is Galea, who is well-respected (he’s no Dr. Nick or Jamie Astaphan) – after Caribana, he’s probably the second-biggest reason big-name athletes hit the T-dot for non-game-related reasons, happens to be on record saying he uses HGH (which is essentially legal in Canada) personally.

Yes, you read that correctly, and anything more is pure speculation. But explain that to that tornado of media hysteria that is about to smack you stupid. A particularly good summary can be found here.

On the topic of media, props to Bob Weeks from Score Golf for originally breaking the story, which was picked up and ran with by who else, the New York Times. Good to see the Toronto media outlets on top of their game as usual.