Blog

Early Thursday morning, Joe & I left Billerica, MA on our way to Syracuse, NY where we were picking up Richie & Richard Petrarca (our longtime friends & neighbors from West Grove). The trip to Syracuse was uneventful, Joe and I caught up on things, listened to some good tunes as we booked down the Mass Turnpike, cruising along in Joe’s minivan. At various rest stops we had to beat the women off with sticks as they saw two fine gentlemen exiting the high performance vehicle that is a Chevy Mini-van. “No, that’s not a Ferrari, it’s a Chevy… common mistake.”

Once we hit Syracuse, things really started to get interesting. We performed, what can only be described as a drive-by pickup when we got the Petrarca’s. In an effort to reduce the cost of parking, it was determined the outdoor parking at the Syracuse Airport was the cheapest place to leave a vehicle for a couple of days. Joe & I had to loop through the airport and on the way out, slow down long enough for Richie & Richard to jump the fence with their bags, enter our mini-van and then bust outta there before the local 5-0 caught wind. Syracuse airport has since installed these signs to keep motorist alert.

En route to Canada, with illegal parkers on board, various stories were told, many laughs were had. With what would be a recurring theme for the weekend, Richie began to treat us to Richie’ism that are now classic. I will sprinkle those quotes in throughout my story, starting with this one:

“What are Canadian gangs like? Do they have them, like Benny & the Jets?” ~ Richie Petrarca

At the Niagara Falls border crossing we ran afoul of the Law, eh? After reviewing our passports, asking us a litany of questions, wanting to know what we had to declare, do we have any weapons, etc., the crossing guard (they love being called that!) felt we were a threat to O’Canada’s national security and sent us over to the main building for a vehicle search with complimentary body cavity search thrown in. Apparently, four dudes traveling in a mini-van are on Canada’s watch list of shady characters… or, just possibly, and I’m going out on a limb here, he felt like we weren’t taking him seriously when he asked if we had any weapons and Richie flexed his muscles and said “besides these guns?” … I shit you not.

We find ourselves standing in the customs building, having been herded into a line of miscreants that moved at a glacial pace. Joe was understandably upset as this was totally screwing up the excellent time we were making. What made the entire exercise even more entertaining was the fact we were the only Caucasians in the entire building. I think Canada is racists, I mean, I know why we were in there, but everyone else was a family of East Indians or from the Middle East. Shame on you Canada! I guess the ACLU doesn’t have a strong presence up there. I’ll tell you another group of people that Canada hates, older gentlemen with full bladders! Mr. Petrarca needed to use the bathroom something fierce, but the Cannucks wouldn’t let him until we had processed through the line. For God’s sake people, I can see his eye balls floating!!! And then, just when he’s about ready to drop trough right there in the middle of customs, we are cleared to use the facilities and he is directed to a door that was right next to where our car was parked? Are you kidding me? When he got out of the car and said he had to go to the bathroom, he was told “Oh, you’ll have to go inside and ask them.” Shame on you again Canada… shame on you!

Joe: “Come on! Stay in your lane while driving!”

Richie: “Joe, it’s a Socialist country, they share everything, including the driving lanes.”

After answering some more questions by the Canadian authorities, we were allowed to leave with the Queen’s blessing. Now, fully into Canada, all those in our vehicle started to notice some “oddities” about Canada and her people. Namely the fact they’re all sticks in the mud without a creative bone in their bodies, but perhaps I’m putting too fine a point on it. Specifics you ask for?

• Instead of the universally accepted yellow or white traffic lane paint, Canada has decided to rock the boat and use a form of orange that burns your retinas. I understand the basic principle, we were in a construction zone at the time, but for us ignorant Americans there was a moment of panic when we thought we had crossed into some sort of French-speaking zone of the highway or something as equally nefarious.
• The names of Canadian stores and restaurants… zero creativity or liveliness. “The Beer Store” sells beer. “The Brick” is a home store. “The Keg” is a steakhouse & bar (not sure on the steak connection there). “Pizza, Pizza, Pizza” sells pizza. “Wal-Mart, eh?” sells everything.
• Conversations from average Canadians are boring and without emotion. Actual overheard statements:
  • “That play would have been awesome if he had caught it”, said without any inflection and a very drawn out cadence.
  • “Mayo makes burgers & everything else better”, clearly a falsehood on a massive scale. What makes it all the more astounding is they said it with a straight face and again, without any inflection. How can anyone lie like that without being animated?

“What’s a hockey stick for?” ~ Kurt Ladley (Note: You could hear hearts exploding in the bodies of any Canadian within earshot of that comment.)

We got to the hotel, which was built into the Rogers Centre (Note the Socialist spelling of Center…) The Rogers Centre was formally known as the SkyDome and is truly a modern marvel. Our room faced into the stadium, so from our bedroom we could watch the baseball game. Very cool! Apparently they’ve had some trouble before, so a waiver had to be signed that we wouldn’t do anything lewd while in the room… not a problem! At this point all we wanted was to meet up with our dad & uncle who had flown up to Toronto together and were going to meet us at the hotel, and then grab a beer posthaste! Thus began our near constant consumption of Molson Canadian… or as it’s known up there, simply as Canadian. (Demonstrating once again the inability for anything remotely exciting or creative from Canada! Walk into a bar in the US and order “an American”. The bartender will look at you like you’re retarded. An American what?)

The following day, the group present (Dad, Joe, Uncle Rich, Richie & Richard Petrarca and myself) all headed to the top of the world via the CN Tower in Toronto. Quite the view from the top of the tower, as you can imagine. Afterwards Joe & I enjoyed what can only be described as the most un-sweet, nasty lemonade ever created. Wait to go Canada… you’ve ruined another American classic for me.

From there we toured the Hockey Hall of Fame, which was very impressive. I highly recommend you take the time to visit if you’re ever in the area, hockey fan or not, it’s pretty cool. One of the more notable attractions is an interactive one in which you can take shots on a goalie. The goalie is projected onto a movie screen and the computer determines the speed and trajectory of your puck and if it’s a goal or not. To scores were: Joe – 0 Goals, Cha – 0 Goals, Richie – 0 goals… Uncle Rich – 1 goal. He was just as surprised as we were. The next attraction was even cooler. You suited up as a goalie, got into the net, and a video of Wayne Gretzky would shoot pucks at you from various angles, with various speeds, etc. This was truly awesome! Here I could let my mad goalie skills shine and shut down all who would dare question my ability to stop anything thrown my way. I stepped in first, selected the hardest difficulty setting (All-Star Pro Super Fantastic Might as Well Just Call Him “The Wall” Setting…) and let the pucks fly. According to the computer, I was 5/5… I stopped everything! According to reality, I may have let a few slide over the line. But who am I to argue with a highly sophisticated machine like that?

“Joe Carter” ~ Richie, but then repeated by everyone on the trip. You had to be there…

We were now posed with a very serious dilemma. We had a ball game to watch from our room that night, and beer that needed to be consumed, but at $36 (Canadian) a six-pack (Again… I shit you not) we could ill afford to consume more than two beers a person. What were we to do? After asking random folks on the street where we could acquire beer in Toronto, we were directed to the train station where a Liquor Control Board or some other Communist sounding institution was located. Why a train station? I have no clue, but that’s where the LCB was. And unlike the LCB in the States, this LCB sells beer, not just bust up bars for serving minors. (Anyone remember the Olive Branch at 17^th & Market? ) Richie, Joe & Myself entered the LCB as three lonely guys looking for brews and exited heavily weighed down gents with a couple of cases worth of six-packs between them and about a 1 hunge lighter (still cheaper than the six-packs at the hotel). We hailed a cab back to the hotel and what ensued was an event I will not soon forget.

Picture this: Hotel room, copious amounts of beer, a partially working ice machine down the hall… but where to put the beer and keep it cold? The obvious answer is the bath tub, but that’s Filth McNast considering three dudes had showered in it that very morning. It’s often said that in times of desperation, true genius and men show their color and such was the case in my brother, Joe O’Connor. To witness a eureka moment is something of a religious experience. Joe stood in the room for a second, looking around for what he could use. It was as if I could see the moment when his plan came to fruition in his brain, a spark was seen behind his eyes, his fingers snapped and we all jumped into action! Joe removed his suitcase from the closet, he issued orders “Richie, go grab some large trash bags from the maids cart I saw in the hall way! Cha, go wet some hand towels down! Dad help me clear out this suitcase!” What were we doing, delivering a baby? I didn’t know, but I knew I had to follow his directions. I rushed off to the bathroom, wet down all the hand towels I could find and returned to the room. Richie came bounding into the room with trash bags in hand and a 3-foot Thai maid screaming obscenities at him. Joe promptly lined his suit case with the trash bags, and after a thoughtful injection by Richie, modified his original plan and put his entire suitcase into the trash bag, thus forming a watertight seal, resistant to leakage. We staked the beers, dumped the ice, I put my wet hand towels over the top to form a cooling vapor barrier. Everyone in the room stepped back and starred in awe… we had created something beautiful. McGuiver would be proud. Acting on instinct I gave Joe a ball point pen, a rubber band, a paper clip and a piece of Uranium. He created a low yield device, but that’s a story for another day.

The room was ready, the beer was cold, all that we needed was a crowd… and a crowd we got! Arriving that day were the other members of our Father & Son Baseball Trip.

All of these fine gentlemen were jammed into Room 420 of the Renaissance Rogers Centre, Toronto. The game started at 7:07PM, Cole Hamels was ejected from the game, Joe Carter was blamed for everything that went wrong, we had pizza and wings from Pizza, Pizza, Pizza, the Phillies lost 6-1, and we all waited for Saturday when we’d be sitting in the bleachers enjoying the game with all you could eat hot dogs and other goodies. The evening was a lot of fun, some great stories were told and jokes told. The only thing that could have made it better would have been a comeback win for the Phillies, but I guess you can’t have it all.

The following day was “game day” for us. We had tickets to the afternoon game and were sitting in the all you can eat section. Canada does a lot of stuff incorrectly, but they hit the nail on the head with this “all you can eat” section. For an extra $10, you get all you can eat: hot dogs, popcorn, nachos, peanuts & soda. It’s amazing how many hot dogs you can eat when they’re free. A gentlemen’s wager was placed, stating Richie would eat 9 hot dogs before the third inning. In turn he would get our admiration and a bottle of Tums. Apparently that wasn’t enough, so the fictional sum of $3000 was put on the table, to which he quickly agreed. Apparently he was not aware it was a joke number, because before consuming his 9^th hot dog, he wanted to see the funds. When no one in the crowd was able to produce $3K on the spot, he promptly refused to eat the last hot dog. Although he constantly reminded us that he could have done it if wanted too, but he wasn’t going to because he wasn’t getting paid… Guess we’ll never know Richie… I guess we’ll never know. Tsk…tsk…tsk…

During batting practice, the majority of our party jammed the front row of our section, directly overlooking the bullpen. Shouts for autographs, playful taunts to Chan Ho Park for his effeminate finger wave & further cajoling for Richie to eat the 9^th hot dog could be heard for all of batting practice. Two homeruns were hit to our section, the first was retrieved by Matt Quinlan, and I have to say the 7 year old he beat out for it looked pissed! Just kidding Matt, it was a clean grab. With the second homerun… well that was just a thing of beauty. I giant “CRACK” was heard throughout the park when Carlos Ruiz hit that ball. All heads in the stadium turned as one to follow its path, and who to their wondering eyes did they find waiting for the ball to be delivered into his outstretched hand? Me! It was a move worthy of Swan Lake… I looked up, gently reached my hand out with no thought to how fast that ball was travelling, and waited with perfect patience for my prize to be delivered. At the moment the ball hit my hand, time froze. I looked left and saw faces with unabated jealousy hoping I’d miss. I looked to the right and saw women dropping down on one knee to propose to me (sorry ladies, you couldn’t possibly compare to my wife). In front of me, my travelling companions were beginning the shouts of congratulations… and all of that shattered in a second when the ball hit my hand and blinding pain shot up my arm, my thumb swelled immediately to the size of my calf, the ball dropped and rolled a few feet. I pushed aside the nausea that was welling up inside me, reached down and picked up my pride and the baseball of the ground. So much for the ungloved catch of the century… maybe next year.

Now this was the ball game we came to see, and apparently the Phillies got the memo because they proceeded to trash the Blue Jays. With a resounding “schwack!”, the Phils defeated the Jays 10-0. As was expected of us Philadelphia Fans, we were sore winners and shouted obscenities at all the Toronto Fans letting them know how poorly their team played, and if any dared to shout back we offered creative ways for them to go fornicate themselves. I’m just kidding! We were gracious guests in their house and did not in any way, shape or form embarrass ourselves or the City of Philadelphia.

Riding the high of our big win, the entire party decided to visit Wayne Gretzky’s Restaurant in Toronto. If you ever get the chance, I recommend you go. It’s a mini-museum to the Great One, has awesome food and some of the most talented wait staff in all of Toronto. The crowning achievement of the menu was a 15-layer chocolate cake that has to be seen to be believed. It comes in on a flatbed truck, is lifted via forklift onto your table and comes with a complimentary heart bypass surgery courtesy of the Canadian Healthcare System. After downing our various dinners and sharing the cake with the entire table, we proceeded into the lounge to imbibe even more Molson’s Canadian. I think we would have stayed there all night, but alas it was an early morning rise for many to make their return journeys back to the United States.

With a heavy heart we departed the restaurant knowing this meant the end to our first trip, but discussions were already underway for next year and the location has been chosen. The trip was a wild success, I think everyone had a great time and will be coming back next year. Thank you all for attending and I look forward to next year!

Peace Always My Friends…

- Cha