Mulliniks’ Moustache #19 – Anthony Gose

Anthony Gose - Blue Jays centrefielder of the future?

If Winston Churchill was a baseball fan* – and alive in 2014 – surely his famous quote: “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma” would have been used to describe Anthony Gose. *My five seconds of Wikipedia research tells me he wasn’t. THEREFORE IT IS FACT!

Much has been made about Gose, the young speedster and he of the tantalizing baseball skills. On July 29, 2010, he was one of then-new-wunderkind-GM Alex Anthopoulos’ first acquisitions, swapping slugging first baseman Brett Wallace to the Houston Astros for a then 19-year-old Gose (as a maybe-only-interesting-to-me aside, Gose was actually traded with his current Blue Jay teammate J.A. Happ from the Phillies to the Astros before immediately being sent to the Blue Jays for Wallace).

Mulliniks’ Moustache #10 – Beer & The Blue Jays

Allow me, if you will, to paint a picture:

Imagine a sunny, warm summer afternoon. The sun is high in the sky, bathing you in brilliant sunshine. You’re watching your beloved Blue Jays, surrounded by a friendly, well-mannered and unnervingly quiet crowd. In your right hand is a hotdog, topped with your favourite condiments – ketchup, mustard, sauerkraut, onions. In your left hand is another ballpark staple – peanuts in the shell. You settle into your seat. You decided to wear short-shorts today, so your upper thighs are a tad raw due to the warm seat. That won’t dampen your spirits though!

You delicately devour your food as the first pitch is thrown – a strike on the outside corner. Enjoying the first inning, you realize your salty treats have made you thirsty. What’s the tried-and-true, time-honoured way to remedy such a situation? The third piece of the baseball food Holy Trinity – a cold, refreshing beer. You know you’re going to pay through the nose for it, but that’s just the accepted way things are done when you’re taking in the ol’ ballgame.

“HEY! Beer guy! Gimme two!” you bellow to the man doing the Lord’s work.

He saunters over.

Mulliniks’ Moustache #9 – Toronto Blue Jays 2014 Opening Day Lineup

For better or for worse, below is your Opening Day 25-man roster for the 2014 Toronto Blue Jays.

Starting Pitchers

RHP R.A. Dickey

RHP Drew Hutchison

LHP Mark Buehrle

RHP Brandon Morrow

RHP Dustin McGowan

Bullpen

RHP Casey Janssen

RHP Steve Delabar

RHP Sergio Santos

LHP Aaron Loup

LHP Brett Cecil

RHP Esmil Rogers

RHP Todd Redmond

RHP Jeremy Jeffress

Starting Players

C Dioner Navarro

1B Edwin Encarnacion

2B Ryan Goins

SS Jose Reyes

3B Brett Lawrie

LF Melky Cabrera

CF Colby Rasmus

RF Jose Bautista

DH Adam Lind

Bench

INF Maicer Izturis

OF Moises Sierra

C Josh Thole

(This was straight up stolen from torontosun.com http://www.torontosun.com/2014/03/26/your-2014-blue-jays-roster)

Mulliniks’ Moustache #7 – Ricky Romero & The Yips

No, that’s not a band…although, it’s a pretty awesome name for one! I CALL DRUMS!!

Anyway, to the task at hand: Blue Jays’ fans sixth-favourite* left-handed pitcher – Ricky Romero. We've all had a front-row seat to watch the fall and rise and fall of Ricky Romero, from first round draft pick, to near-bust, to All-Star on the cusp of ace-dom, all the way back down to (barely) a AAA pitcher.

Personally, it’s been difficult to watch. Romero was a lefty bulldog, taking the ball every fifth day without fail. Even when he was struggling, he never made excuses. Despite reported arm and knee issues, which were/are so bad that John Lott from the National Post reported recently that Romero had stem cells inserted into his knee to help alleviate the pain. Romero simply went to the mount and pitched – poorly at times – every fifth day and was always accountable, which is refreshing from a professional athlete.

From all accounts, the root cause of Romero’s problems are all mental – a kind of/sort of mild case of The Yips (see also: Sax, Steve; Knoblauch, Chuck; and Ankiel, Rick for more dramatic examples of The Yips). For the uninitiated, TheYips is baseball nomenclature for rare situations where players simply lose the ability to perform seemingly mundane, “Baseball 101”-type tasks – like throwing a ball from second base to first, or from the mound to home. It’s not easy to watch players suffer through The Yips. Case in point: Rick Ankiel, a 20-year-old lefty phenom who, in part, led the St. Louis Cardinals to the 2000 NLDS. In his first career post season start, he literally and figuratively fell apart. He threw six wild pitches in the third inning alone and had five walks overall. Incredibly, the Cardinals won the game, despite Ankiel’s struggles. He made a couple of subsequent appearances, but for all intents and purposes. Ankiel was done as a Major League pitcher.**

Mulliniks’ Moustache #6 – Rogers Centre Fan “Quirks”

Opening day is just around the corner, so I figured now was the optimal time to touch on a few specific instances in regard to the in-game experience at Rogers Centre.

There are three things above all else – “quirks” if you will – that confuse, confound and annoy me about Blue Jay fans at Rogers Centre. I’ve tried for years to figure these out and frankly, I’m stumped. While I have been to baseball games at a couple of other stadiums, I haven’t been to enough to gauge if this is a Toronto-only phenomenon. However, I don’t recall experiencing these phenomena elsewhere, so I feel pretty safe in assuming these are Toronto-centric issues.

In no particular order, they are: