The bus ride from Toronto to Niagara Falls takes a little over an hour and a half. You pass through towns such as Mississauga, Burlington, and St. Catherine’s (hometown of Rush’s Neil Peart) before reaching Niagara. I was expecting to be disappointed, but no such luck. Sure, the place is touristy, but I’m from SoCal, so I’m used to that. Once you get past the kitsch, the actual falls are overwhelming.
After literally soaking in the falls, we drove through the town of Niagara-on-the-Lake, which depending on your point of view could be described as “quaint and charming” or “silly and pretentious”; use whichever you apply to La Jolla. On the upside, the tour included a wine tasting, so we were able to sip some of the local product before heading back to Toronto.
Somewhere along the way, I struck up a conversation with a couple of Diamondbacks fans who were on our bus. Being fellow Americans, and not wishing to appear overly boorish in front of our Canadian hosts, we set aside our allegiances and had a nice chat, during the course of which we agreed on three things:
- Niagara Falls is spectacular
- Nobody wants to win the NL West
- It is much easier to watch a baseball game in which you have no rooting interest
Was there a point to this? I think somewhere around here I’m supposed to transition from our trip to Niagara Falls to how poorly the Padres are playing. That was the idea behind the headline, right? Maybe the Tigers metaphorically pushed our guys over the edge. Or we could be even less subtle and refer to falling in the standings. I don’t know; I hadn’t actually thought this far ahead when I wrote the headline (which itself has subject-verb agreement issues, but that’s a whole other story).
I’m lost. I don’t know how to get out of this. Let’s hope the Padres can do a better job getting out of their current funk.
I’ve wondered for a while if “streakiness” is something that can be attributed to a certain type of hitter. Some hitters out there do seem to be “consistently streaky,” if that makes any sense (Reggie Sanders and Shawn Green come to mind). Could it be that the core of our lineup are extreme streaky types, so the team offense will always be streaky as long as it’s anchored by those same guys?
We need Loretta back.
I’m glad you guys made the trip to the falls. When I went to Toronto, I decided, despite the 18 inches of snow that was on the ground in Niagara, to make the trip. Definitely worth it.
And I second the idea that it is much easier, not to mention better on the nerves, when you watch a game between two teams that you don’t really care about one way or the other.