Numbiotic: My Winter Tour Experience

I have some mixed feelings about writing this because I feel a bit like a fool. I have no real reason to feel foolish, other than I put a lot of effort into something that’s a bit square. It’s me feeling disappointed because I couldn’t do something kind of lame, and also caring about not doing it. A lot. 

So my first experience with the Jays Winter Tour was a bit of a disaster. I’d never been to any of the events before, but I hadn’t been to TO in a little while and meeting Dickey had been something I’ve wanted to do for a while. And I was going to blog about the whole thing. So I made the effort to get there. I drove to the GO and got on the train. It was still dark when I left my house. It was cold.

I had been warned that it was going to be busy, so I got there two hours before the dudes (Bautista, Dickey, Pompey, Loup and Redmond) were going to show. The lineup was long and oddly hushed. It stretched from Pink/Victoria Secret entrance to the Queen St. entrance (where you cross the street to go to The Bay.)

I find one of the staff people and ask him where the back of the line was, and he points to it and tells me “You can’t join it. You’re too late. We’ve cut it off.” And I feel sort of numb and idiotic (numbiotic). He tells me people have been lining up since 5 am, like 1- that was an option and 2- that was sane. And he doesn’t allow me to even line up, just in case. I had brought a magazine. I was prepared to wait. And the place was crawling with security, from the Jays and also the Toronto Police, so I didn’t feel comfortable not doing what he told me.

I also didn’t argue, “Don’t you know who I am?” which always works well.

I felt uncomfortable and they were really aggressively going after people they suspected were trying to cut in line. I said hi to my friend Liz, who made it in line, and we both remarked that the whole vibe was weird. People were mad. Kids were upset. There was that kid in his Bautista beard that was denied. And this wasn’t right before the event started. This was hours.

I heard that later people were allowed to join the line, the signing went on a little longer and Bautista gave a trip to a guy who was one behind the cut off at the end of the event, which makes me feel even more strangely bitter about it.  Not because someone got a vacation (although that would’ve been fine, I guess), but because there was no clear boundaries. Rules changed.

And this is a terrible insight into my mind, but I don't like being able to see how bad something is, knowing how to change it and having no power to do anything about it.

Why the Jays insist on planning things so poorly, I’m not sure. They should start by not having the two most famous players on the same ticket plus the new local kid. Especially not in that venue. That’s just a recipe for idiocy and the event being crazy. They really seemed to piss off as many people as they made happy. That's not a good ratio.

Send Dickey with the other two pitchers to one location, and Bautista and Pompey to another. Have people choose. Have one in downtown Toronto and one in, I dunno, Mississauga. It would've been less crazy, fewer disappointed fans and more people seen.

I almost thought that there shouldn’t be a signing in Toronto for the Winter Tour because Toronto gets served in that sense during the summer. Have the players go to Hamilton or other spots in Southern Ontario. I know they went to London (the one time I wasn’t in London last winter), which I think is good. I would also put some sort of parameters on the thing, and not just vaguely say “First come, first serve.” 5 am should not be an option. It was dark and -15.

It should be, “Fans can start lining up at 8 am and we are taking the first 500.” Or whatever number.

So people can have some sort of idea, and aren’t set up for disappointment. They could arrive, see the number of people and have some idea. The Jays could tweet something like "We're at 350 people" so people would know to not even leave their house.  It’s about managing expectations.

The Winter Tour is a great idea. The boys wearing matching toques, drinking Tim Horton’s coffee and eating snacks out of the little brown bags from Tim’s while  sitting next to a Mountie was so Canadian, it was crazy. They just needed someone playing Chilliwack.

It's such a stupid thing to be disappointed about. But I am. And it sucks.

I'm going to write about the Jays maybe being in on Shields and some of the other pitching options tomorrow. And also maybe about Daniel Norris' hair.