Tag: hiking

Ken Carson, the Blue Jays’ first trainer has some memories from the first Opening Day:

“It was snowing furiously for Opening Day. Funny, everyone in Toronto says they were at Opening Day at Exhibition Stadium. If that were the case, the attendance would have been pushing four-million. The box score said the official attendance was 44,649. But it just showed that Toronto was the perfect city for baseball and anticipation was high because there had been so much buildup for the first season. Opening Day was special, especially for the Canadian people involved. There were media and TV people from my hometown of Barrie to talk to me. Also, there was a reporter, Ted Beare, from Brantford, where the Penguins held training camp, who came to interview me for his newspaper, The Expositor. Everyone wanted to be involved. It was snowing hard but there was no way we weren’t going to play. Some Chicago White Sox players were sliding across the snowy infield on top of the tarp. We won 9–5 and first baseman Doug Ault became an instant hero by hitting two home runs. The crowd chanted, “We want beer.” Beer was not legal at the ballpark in Toronto at the time. What a day that was. None of this meant that I was exempt from the pranksters. In about the fifth inning, Phil Roof got me yet again. He handed me a hot water bottle and told me to take it out to Bill Singer, our Opening Day pitcher. You can picture this. Bill is in his windup and I go running out with the hot water bottle. Nestor Chylak, the home plate umpire, calls time and asks, “Where are you going?” And I say, “To give this to the pitcher.” He tells me, “Get your ass off the field, the pitcher is the only one who isn’t cold.” I turn around to go back to the dugout and everybody on the bench is killing themselves laughing. I have been had again. We had four great umpires Opening Day. Nestor, the crew chief, who was eventually inducted into the Hall of Fame, Richie Garcia, Steve Palermo and Joe Brinkman. They all turned out to be good friends over the years.”