Penton: Canadian actor disrupts Jays’ season
By Bruce Penton
Ever since Canadian actor Michael Cera started hanging around the Toronto Blue Jays’ clubhouse, and inviting players and management over to his house to see his man cave shrine to the Blue Jays, Canada’s only Major League Baseball team has stunk.
Toronto went all the way to Game 7 of the World Series last year and was a pre-season favourite to repeat as American League champions, but then Cera, a Blue Jays’ superfan, started interfering.
Why can’t Cera just sit in the stands at Rogers Stadium, sip his Labatt Blue or a $23 latte and leave the Jays alone? But no, he has to interrupt the Blue Jays mojo by hanging around the clubhouse, having rookie third baseman Kazuma Okamoto say hello to Cera’s mother on a telephone FaceTime chat when the Japanese free-agent signee should be out in the batting cage working on his swing. Okamoto is closing in on 25 home runs, but his batting average in the .230 range would probably be .250 or better if he wasn’t being bothered by Cera.
Then there’s George Springer, one of the team’s biggest disappointments this year. Last year, Springer belted 32 home runs and averaged .309 and, alongside Vladimir Guerrero, Jr., led the offence for the A.L. champs. This year, with Cera bragging to Springer about setting a viewership record on the livestream (11, when the old record was two. … hahahaha!), Springer is batting around .230 and won’t come close to even half of last year’s home run total. That’s Cera’s fault, because he took valuable time away from Springer’s workout program and batting practice regimen.
Later, manager John Schneider, Ernie Clement and Davis Schneider spend some time in Cera’s (fake) apartment and are impressed with his array of Blue Jays memorabilia. Cera also has a special corner of the apartment featuring the successes of manager Schneider, but it must have gone to his head because in mid-August, with the Blue Jays 15 games out of first place, Schneider’s status should read: FIRED!
The whole point of Cera’s work with the Blue Jays is to attract customers to purchase Rogers 5G+, satellite, and Xfinity internet connectivity. But if his marketing talents for Rogers are as effective as the Blue Jays’ results on the field, it might go down as one of the biggest duds in Canadian commerce.
The most annoying aspect of this whole Michael Cera-Blue Jays partnership is the infernal frequency of the ads during Blue Jays’ telecasts. Rogers owns the team, owns the stadium, owns the TV network and the house ads cost the company nothing. Presumably, manager Schneider and the Blue Jays players involved in the promotional work were paid handsomely for their advertising efforts. But what’s a couple of extra thousand dollars when you’re already making millions?
Cera is a prominent Canadian actor and musician who gained his early fame by portraying George Michael Bluth in the Fox sitcom Arrested Development. Come to think of it, perhaps Cera should be arrested for interfering in the Blue Jays’ development.
Jack Finarelli of sports curmudgeon.com, on Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer’s two straight four-loss seasons: “ Should that happen again, I suspect that the money-boys in and around Tuscaloosa will find a way to cough up the estimated $50M it will take to buy out Coach DeBoer.”
Eamon Lynch, of Golfweek.com., on an upcoming reassessment of LIV’s eligibility for world ranking points: “(By December), debating LIV’s fitness for ranking recognition could be as futile as testing the language skills of a corpse.”
Greg Cote of the Miami Herald, on the upcoming season for the Miami Dolphins, who are preseason favourites in only one of their 17 games: “The sign for this year reads: ‘Caution: Weird Season Ahead.’”
Cleveland writer Paul Haynes in his induction speech at the Baseball Hall of Fame: “I’ve never been to the ballet, but I have seen Omar Vizquel and Roberto Alomar perform their magic in the middle of the infield.”
Lynch again, on LIV personnel: “(The tour) is built around players who are (in some cases, though not all) unmotivated, unlikeable, untrustworthy or unknown.”
Janice Hough of leftcoastsportsbabe.com, an avid SF Giants’ fan and Dodger hater: “LA Dodgers lost their seventh in a row, 4-3 on a walkoff home run by the Arizona Diamondbacks. No punchline, I just like writing that.”
Headline at fark.com: “Woman sues Yankees for turning her into a Mets fan.”
Another fark.com headline: “Aaron Rodgers has reconciled with his formerly estranged family members. It is unclear from the article (in the Fresno Bee) if they went crazy or he went sane.”
Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chambree: “LIV golfers remind me of actors offered lead roles in a bad movie and think their performance can turn Ishtar into The Godfather.”
Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun: “Considering the little it took for the Dodgers to acquire ace pitcher Tarik Skubal, do you blame the Dodgers for apparently ruining baseball, or blame just about every other team for not making a more credible offer for Skubal?
Care to comment? Email brucepenton2003@yahoo.ca