July 29, 2003
The drive from Acadia to Montreal was a study in changing landscapes. Maine’s coastal beauty gradually gave way to the dense forests of the state’s interior, then to the rolling hills of New Hampshire’s White Mountains. The transformation from New England to Quebec happened subtly at first - English road signs gaining French translations, then becoming predominantly French. The countryside began to feel distinctly different too - the architecture shifting from New England colonial to something more European, farmhouses with steep roofs and bright colors replacing weathered barns.
As we wound through the mountains, the terrain sparked memories of The Last of the Mohicans - those misty valleys where Hawkeye and the Mohicans moved like shadows through the wilderness. The dense forest pressed against the highway much as it had against their frontier trails, and in the late afternoon light, it wasn’t hard to imagine how these peaks and valleys had once harbored both refuge and danger. The landscape seemed to hold its ancient stories close, even as our modern vehicle carried us swiftly through territory that had once taken days or weeks to traverse.
Our late arrival at Olympic Stadium - thanks to Jack’s stubborn resistance to my navigational suggestions - turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Five dollars bought us premium seats in a stadium that was more echo than audience. Olympic Stadium - “The Big O” or as some locals called it, “The Big Owe” - was a concrete cathedral built for the 1976 Olympics and never quite suited for baseball. With only 7,500 fans scattered throughout its massive expanse, it felt like watching baseball in an empty spacecraft.
The bilingual announcements added a layer of exoticism to the ordinary rituals of baseball - every “strike trois!” and “home run!” becoming a lesson in French. The game itself was a masterclass in pitching. Livan Hernandez worked his magic for the Expos, his crafty style perfect for the artificial turf and stale air of Olympic Stadium. But Scott Rolen, who would indeed find his way to Cooperstown two decades later, played the spoiler role perfectly. His home run in the second inning surely echoed through the nearly empty dome, and his game-winning sacrifice fly in the ninth felt like a gentle reminder that even perfect games sometimes end in defeat.
While Jack and Mike opted for hotel rest, Montreal’s nightlife beckoned. The city’s famous strip clubs provided an education in both anatomy and economics - apparently every dancer was working her way through university, or so the story went. The evening’s final act involved sharing an elevator with a young woman who found my attempts at French either charming or horrifying - the line between the two often blurs after a night out in Montreal.
Looking back, there’s a bittersweet quality to that Expos game. Within a year, they would become the Washington Nationals, and Montreal’s baseball story would end. We didn’t know it then, but we were witnessing the end of an era - one of baseball’s great experiments playing out its final innings in a too-big stadium, in a city that deserved better, in front of fans who cared deeply but couldn’t save their team.
That night in Montreal marked another kind of transition too - we were heading home soon, though we didn’t want to admit it. Each stadium visited, each mile driven, each inside joke created was bringing us closer to the end of our epic journey. But for now, there was still tomorrow, still more road ahead, still more adventures to find.
July 30, 2003
Morning found me restless and eager to explore Montreal while Jack and Mike slept soundly. In the hotel elevator, I’d apparently attempted some clumsy French with a woman named Liz the night before - a fact she reminded me of when we crossed paths again the next morning. My embarrassment at forgetting our encounter melted into an impromptu breakfast together, where she listened intently to tales of our road trip between sips of coffee. Though brief - she had meetings to attend - it was a serendipitous encounter that perfectly suited the spontaneous nature of our journey.
I spent the morning wandering the city, including a visit to Saint Joseph’s Oratory, Montreal’s striking homage to St. Peter’s Basilica. By the time I returned, Jack and Mike were ready to continue our adventure. The drive to Toronto revealed another side of Canadian culture entirely. Our crude cardboard sign - which had drawn nothing but eye rolls and occasional disapproval south of the border - found a surprisingly different reception on Canadian highways. A woman steering her sedan one-handed managed a playful flash of her bra, while further down the 401, a passenger gave us an even more uninhibited display, her friend at the wheel howling with laughter. The familiar ritual of American road trips - gas station snacks, endless playlists, and highway games - had taken on a distinctly more adventurous Canadian flavor.
Toronto’s skyline emerged as dusk approached, the CN Tower standing sentinel over the city. Our triumph at reaching our destination was short-lived as we discovered the city bursting at its seams. The confluence of a carnival and the Rolling Stones tour had transformed Toronto into a fortress of “No Vacancy” signs, forcing us to retreat to the suburban outskirts. When we finally found a hotel, I presented a 50% off coupon at check-in, only to be met with pure Canadian bewilderment. The clerk, embodying every stereotype of Canadian politeness, apologetically explained that he’d never seen such a coupon before, eh? Despite its obvious validity, he remained charmingly flustered by this apparent anomaly in his system. We agreed to sort it out with management in the morning, too tired to press the issue and already amused by this perfectly Canadian encounter. Tomorrow would bring the Blue Jays game, but for now, we just needed sleep.
July 31, 2003
Toronto’s dawn brought resolution to our coupon dilemma - the morning receptionist honored it without hesitation, a simple solution to the previous night’s comedic impasse. But a new tension was brewing, one familiar to any group of friends on an extended road trip. The first real argument of our journey erupted over driving duties, with Jack’s growing frustration manifesting in some questionable navigational choices. Despite Mike’s seniority and my quiet agreement with his concerns, the simple fact remained: it was Jack’s car, and with ownership came the privileges of the driver’s seat.
The situation came to a head in the hotel parking lot. Mike, his patience worn thin, initially took the wheel with me relegated to the back seat, leaving Jack fuming on the curb. But thirty seconds and a circle of the block later, pride gave way to pragmatism. Mike silently parked, switched to the passenger seat, and we headed to the Skydome in a car thick with unspoken words, Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers serving as our salvation.
The SkyDome’s marvel of engineering - with its massive retractable roof and the Marriott hotel built right into the outfield where guests watched the game from their rooms - along with its energetic squad of Blue Jays cheerleaders in their summer uniforms, proved a welcome distraction. We got seats so close to right field I could practically count the stitches on the outfielder’s glove. Just two rows up from the field, the Blue Jays and Devil Rays players weren’t distant specks but flesh-and-blood athletes whose every grimace and muttered curse became part of our experience.
Major League Baseball Hall of Famer Yogi Berra once said, “If you watch baseball long enough, you’ll see something you’ve never seen before.” That day in Toronto, I experienced two firsts: getting a foul ball tossed directly to me and watching Mike Bordick play shortstop in his final season. The foul ball came our way during the sixth inning. A Blue Jay, I think it was Delgado, slicing one down the line that the ball boy scooped up before tossing it in a perfect arc into my awaiting hands. I clutched that piece of the game like a talisman, deaf to Mike and Jack’s pleas to “give it to the kid.” This ball was physical proof of my pilgrimage.
Even more meaningful was watching Bordick take shortstop for the Blue Jays, his cleats digging into Toronto’s infield dirt thousands of miles from the Oakland Coliseum where I’d first met him eleven years earlier. Back in 1992, I was 11 years old, and my father scored field passes for batting practice with the Oakland A’s through his job. My younger brother and I were starstruck kids when Bordick, then a fresh-faced Athletic, had paused to let us snap a photo with him.* Now here he was in the twilight of his career, and here I was witnessing his final season. The cosmic symmetry wasn’t lost on me. Bordick played well going 2 for 4 at the plate with an RBI.
The Tampa Bay Devil Rays provided worthy opposition in a nail-biter that had the crowd of 30,000 on their feet as the Blue Jays clawed back to within a run late in the game. Despite the electric atmosphere and the heart of Toronto’s lineup due up in the bottom of the ninth, including Bordick himself, who lead off the inning by grounding out to the shortstop. The ninth inning rally fell short, but the score seemed secondary to the unexpected moments of connection I’d found.
Leaving the city behind, we traced the curve of Lake Ontario toward Niagara Falls, the highway unwinding through a landscape where urban sprawl gradually yielded to vineyards and orchards. The late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the water, the lake’s surface a patchwork of diamonds that stretched to the horizon. At Niagara, we didn’t bother with boats or tours, content instead to stand before nature’s raw power, the roar of the falls drowning out any lingering tension. We tossed a baseball around in the mist-cooled air not a care in the world. While that was my experience at the moment, soon enough we would be back on the road with Jack’s leisurely pace - what Mike had taken to calling his “Driving Miss Daisy” approach - was clearly wearing on his nerves.
The sun had long since set by the time we pointed the car toward Pittsburgh, our next baseball destination. The night drive through New York state and into Pennsylvania became a blur of highway lights and Southern rock anthems, until somewhere in the darkness, the Escort’s odometer rolled over to 100,000 miles. For a moment, all tensions dissolved as we cheered this humble milestone together - three friends, one road-worn Ford, and countless miles of memories behind us. We finally found refuge in a hotel just outside Pittsburgh as midnight ticked past. Two more ballparks stood between us and the journey’s end, the finish line of our baseball pilgrimage finally in sight.
* see Farewell Professional Sports in Oakland on my homepage
continue with Part17: Pittsburgh, PA, 42 Days The Great American Road Trip