Up To The Heights

TORONTO -- My family and I scaled the heights today, visiting the CN Tower in Toronto this morning, the world's tallest freestanding structure -- it now has a "glass floor", where you can stand on glass and look down with nothing underneath you, which is extremely cool.

Then, we watched the Cubs scale the heights to first place in the NL Central with a stirring 4-2 win over the Blue Jays at Skydome (and yes, you're not supposed to say "The Skydome", just "Skydome".

But first, I had to do something fairly distasteful -- spend over $200 (Canadian) on replacing my Oakley sunglasses, which I inadvertently left at National Airport (and I refuse to call it "Reagan" airport) in Washington on Friday. Too bad, since I really liked these, and bought the very same ones to replace them. At least I can get the Canadian GST tax back on the purchase.

The Cubs hit Doug Davis early and often, scoring four runs in the first two innings, and made it hold up. The bullpen was really good today in relief of Mark Prior (who should have escaped with no runs, but an error by Eric Karros allowed an extra out, which gave Carlos Delgado a chance to hit a two-run homer. That guy can hit -- right now he's so hot I might consider the Barry Bonds treatment, walking him every time he comes up. That must have been what Joe Borowski was thinking when Delgado came up in the 9th representing the tying run, and Borowski gave him a semi-intentional walk, followed by Josh Phelps' game-ending forceout.

The Toronto fans today were lively and enthusiastic about their team, and the 33,167 was one of the largest crowds of the year, probably brought out by the nice weather and maybe the arrival of the Cubs, even without Sammy Sosa. I doubt the Carlos Delgado Celebriduck brought out too many people, but you never know. Those things are very odd; the Cubs gave away two of them last year, Moises Alou and Sammy Sosa, but none this season are scheduled. There were a small but loud contingent of Cub fans today again, including Jeff & Krista, who are driving back to Chicago tomorrow. Mark & I will be at the series finale, with the Cubs alone in first place after the Red Sox' 8-4 win over the Astros today.

After the game we rode the Toronto subway, also clean, fast and efficient, to our friends' house in the burbs, where we had a nice dinner of grilled salmon, and where I'm writing this, believe it or not, on my friend's iBook -- a computer that I've never used before, and which is kinda hard to use when you can't copy/paste URL's -- I've hand-typed all the links in today's post.

More later tomorrow, or Monday after we get home, and then I'll write more on the ballparks in Baltimore and Toronto, which I've seen before this year, but it was very cool to see the Cubs play in both of them for the first time.

We got heckled a bit by the Toronto fans, and all I could say after the win was, "Gee, they sure treated us nicer in Baltimore." I was kidding, of course, and they all laughed.