Watching Dominicans Play America's Pastime in Canada

 We thought we were heading to a regular old game at Nat Bailey Stadium (oh, on Scotia Bank Field) to watch a bunch of Central and South Americans play triple-A ball for the Toronto Blue Jay's farm team, the Vancouver, Canadians. There were a few surprises, however. First: this was single-A ball, and it showed. Second: this wasn't any regular old game, but the second game of a three-game final series with the Tri-City Dust Devils, from Washington State, for the Northwest League Championship title.

Third: there were more Jewish names on the roster than Latino. The only player from south of the U.S. border was the Venezuelan, Fuenmayor.

This was clearly single-A ball. Not nearly at the level of the Iowa Cubs (maybe more like the Chicago Cubs). While the board showed only one error, there were many miscues all night.

They did have instant replay on their fancy schmancy Scotia Bank scoreboard, as evidenced by this wall climbing play by the third baseman, Salas (from California).

As the night wore on in oddly amiss surroundings, I look down and, wait, who is that? Is that Cubby? How does one represent a Canadian? I would have thought a moose or a mounty, or a plate of poutine. But no. They stole our mascot.

When they flashed him up on the replay screen, there he was in his permanent smirk. That "C" on the cap wasn't a Cub's "C" but a Canadians "C." Really? 

However, just when I thought I was back at Sec Taylor watching the Cubs, I had to go get another beer at the Sushi and Asahi beer stand.

And then there was the fifth inning race between the giant food items. Not the usual slice of pizza, hotdog, and cheeseburger. This race was between a sushi roll, a B.C. roll, and what appeared to be a giant blob of wasabi.

The sushi won.

I've been receiving a lot of entreaties to "stop with the food porn already." So I thought I'd show you what we had for lunch one day last week. While this veggie burger (the Foundation Burger) doesn't look all that bad, it truly was mediocre.

Patty's choice, the Molton Tofu, was equally bland. Clearly, this landmark Vancouver vegetarian restaurant, the Foundation, was just phoning it in these days. 

Oh yeah. After a 5-3 loss on our Saturday game, the Canadians thrashed the Dust Devils 9-2 Sunday for their first-ever Championship.