In Canada they run television ads for the Blue Jays that bear the slogan "Baseball North: It's a Different Game Up Here." One of them features Jays' manager Carlos Tosca standing at the dugout rail as if he's watching the game. He looks around a bit to see if he's being observed, then slips a flask out of his pocket and takes a swig. The flask is marked "MAPLE SYRUP." Another has the Jays jump out of the dugout as if celebrating a walkoff home run. They grab the Gatorade cooler and try to dump it over the manager's head, a la a football celebration. A solid frozen orange cylinder falls out and whacks him.

Americans on vacation in Toronto will find that they have entered a parallel universe, much like the world they know but with slight differences. The yogurt here isn't Dannon, it's "Danone." Giant, brightly lit FORD car dealerships are ringed with Canadian flags. The sports television network features a nigtly recap show with familiar theme music and "SC" logo: Sportscentre. But is "the game" different up here?

I'm still in Toronto as I write this, here for the World Science Fiction Convention and to teach some writing workshops. I had my first visit to the Skydome today, to see the Yankees take on the Blue Jays. Overall I'd say baseball up here is different: it's quieter.

I left the hotel with corwin this morning at 10:30, and we walked the three blocks to the Skydome from our hotel under overcast skies. The main thing we noticed about the walk down Front Street toward the CN Tower and the ballpark was that the sidewalks were dotted with people, almost all of them in Yankees gear. We also encountered several ticket scalpers (up here they call them by a name one finds in the World Series stories in the New York Times from the 1920s: speculators) right outside our hotel, which seemed quite far from the ballpark for that kind of action. But, well, I suppose those guys know where the hot spots are.

Approaching the ballpark from Front Street on foot means approaching from the outfield side. A walking bridge takes you over the railyards, between the Skydome and the CN Tower. Yankees fans everywhere. As you cross the bridge you can look up to see a giant sculpture of baseball fans spilling out from their own balcony boxes--a woman waving, a man with a camera, a young boy with a glove. The next thing we noticed after the sculpture was the long line of people waiting to get in at the gate in front of us.

Our destination was the Will Call window to pick up our pre-bought tickets. A helpful souvenir shop employee directed us to Gate 9 for that. A quick look at the map showed that, as usual, we were directly across from Gate 9--in other words as far away from that spot as possible. But we had plenty of time and we wanted to see the Skydome, so... we walked all the way around to the home plate side, retrieved our tickets, and left one for our friend Eric Van, a lifelong Red Sox fan we know in Boston who couldn't pass up a chance to see a major league game, even if it was the Yankees playing. Eric, despite his intense, inborn hate of the Yankees is fun to watch a game with because he is one of my favorite number-crunchers and always has some interesting theories about this or that player. (My own theories tend to be less numbers-based, like my theory that the Red Sox can't win a pennant without a 'real' second baseman.)

Now it was time to get in line. I was astounded by the number of people lined up, waiting to get in at every door all the way around the park. Most were wearing Yankees colors but we finally saw some wearing Blue Jays hats and shirts as well. I thought I had seen a horde of Yankees fans the time I went to Baltimore. But this was a mob of huge proportions. I abandoned my plan to hurry down to the dugout and try to get autographs. The crowd was just too big and we were too far back in line. Are Canadians that different, I thought, that hundreds of them typically start lining up an hour before the gate opens?

As we entered the park though--slowly, as security guards performed the de riguer search of our bags and purses--it became clear that there was an incentive other than Yankees batting practice causing the long queues. Monday was Aruba Tourism Day, and the first 5000 fans at the ballpark received a pair of binoculaurs! They're pretty nice binoculaurs, too. Not as powerful, of course, as the Bushnells I brought with me, but quite respectable as a giveaway. They were marked with the logos for both the Blue Jays and Aruba, "Where Happiness Lives!"

By the way, I've been to Aruba, and it's a wonderful place. And big leaguer Sidney Ponson, late of the Orioles and now of the Giants, is from there. So you'd think that the head of Aruba tourism might have thrown a decent first pitch. But no. It wasn't entirely his fault. First they put down a "cheater's" pitching rubber for him in front of the mound, and then he didn't even get to throw to a real catcher, but to a Blue Jays mascot I can only call "Hip Hop Blue Jay," complete with baggy pants and backward baseball cap. HHBJ crouched far in front of the plate, really way too close to catch a decently thrown ball. Mr. Tourism lobbed the ball wide and HHBJ had to lunge for it. ("Lamest first pitch ever," was Eric's comment.)

corwin and I walked the concourses before the game. There is not a lot of "unique" food to be had at Skydome, not compared to Safeco Field, Coors Field, or Pac Bell Park. There was a stand selling Philly cheesesteak sandwiches, a stand selling "beer nuts" (candied peanuts), and lots of the usual ice cream, hot dogs, and nachos. We bought a bag of mini-donuts made hot and fresh in a nifty machine reminiscent of a Krispy Kreme machine but very tiny--the whole thing is only about four feet long and makes donuts the size of silver dollars. They have one just like it as Legends Field in Tampa. Then for our protein we had sushi.

Now, as late as this spring, sushi at the ballpark seemed still like a novel thing. At Legends Field they introduced the "Matsui 55 Roll" (a big "caterpillar" roll) and I ate one in March feeling quite tickled about it. ("Check it out! I'm eating sushi at the ballpark!") But maybe it's just something about Canada that can make the exotic seem commonplace? Or maybe it's just that sushi at the ballpark IS commonplace, now! I've been to ten different major league facilities in the past two years, and Fenway Park is the only one that DOESN'T serve sushi. Heck, we can buy sushi in the deli case at the local grocery mart now. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Anyway, it seemed normal to see a sushi stand there.

The one thing I will say about the sushi from the EDO stand in Skydome is it's the freshest and best ballpark sushi I've had yet. (I think the sushi stands at Safeco Field probably are better, but I didn't try them yet.) We had a nice spicy tuna roll, and some veal gyoza. Yum. Okay. Ready for baseball.

Skydome--or is it The Skydome? the signs and banners here go back and forth between one and the other--does not have some of the bells and whistles one associates with the new mallparks and ball palaces. It does have some pitching cages and some kids play areas, fairly wide concourses when compared to Yankee Stadium or Fenway, but not when compared to Camden or Coors. B-i-i-i-i-i-g, w-i-i-i-i-i-i-de Jumbotron over center field. And impressively large women's rooms. (Sorry, I can only speak for the one gender here.) Overall, it's "a clean, well-lighted place" for baseball.

One of the unique features, of course, is the Rennaissance Hotel, which is built into the outfield. Rooms facing the playing field go for something like $300/night, but we could see fans up there with their curtains open, watching the game. Eric, with his own high powered binoculaurs, counted at least twenty. Most of them were Yankees fans who had hung their Jeter shirts and encouraging signs in their windows. I hear a rumor that there is a special Yankee suite in the hotel for even more dough, that is outfitted with Yankees memorabilia.

Sadly for us, the overcast never turned to rain, so we didn't get to see the roof close. It remained open throughout the game, which meant we were treated to near-constant flyovers of military show planes during the first three innings. Somewhere nearby, perhaps for the 125th Toronto Exhibition, an airshow was taking place, which meant that planes with thunderously loud engines would zoom over quite often. ("What is this, Shea Stadium?" I said to corwin. For those of you who have never been, Shea's proximity to LaGuardia Airport can be quite hard on the ears, too.)

Also sad for us was the fact that absolutely everything in the game went as one would expect, except for the first at bat of the game. Now, normally when one goes to a baseball game, one can expect the unique pleasure of being startled by something. You can often see something you've Never Seen Before! I've had the extreme good fortune to see a no-hitter in my lifetime, but many smaller things amaze as well--circus catches at the wall, home runs called foul by the umpires and then reversed and let stand, runners in botched rundowns tripping and falling three feet short of scoring the tying run.... (and all these were in just three games a few weeks ago in Baltimore!)

Just yesterday in Boston Derek Jeter scored a run when by rights he should have been out three separate times--once on the pop fly that dropped in between CF Kapler and 2B Walker, once on the throw to second by RF Nixon when Jeter stretched the little pop into a double, and once on another strong throw from Nixon to the plate when Jeter tried scoring from second on a liner to right and succeeded. Sox catcher Doug Mirabelli ended the Yankees first inning rally by picking off a straying Juan Rivera at first base. As Mel Allen woudl have said, "How about that!" Later, the same Mirabelli botched a 3-2-3 double play with the bases loaded, getting the force at home but then airmailing the ball into right field and allowing two runs to score. Or how about Roger Clemens, in his Yankees road grays, getting a standing ovation so loud and long that he had to come out and tip his cap to the crowd? Not something you see every day, no.

But at (the) Skydome, the Yankees were either suffering a letdown from the Fenway intensity, or Roy Halladay was putting them to sleep. Maybe a bit of both, but we expected Cy Young candidate Halladay to be that good. We also expected David Wells to be sharp for a few innings and then start to lose it as his back tightened up. And we always expect Jeff Weaver to give up a three run homer, no matter what. Well, for once we got exactly what we expected. The only surprise of the game was when Alfonso Soriano bunted for a base hit to lead off the game. I'd never seen him do that before, nor had I ever heard him do it on the radio. He then stole second, and scored on a Nick Johnson single. But that was the only run the Yankees got as the pitching, as described above, was not surprising at all. End result, 8-1 Jays.

You can't blame Canada for the fact that the game lacked suspense or surprises, and perhaps the placid nature of the game contributed to the quiet nature of the crowd. But there is something wrong with the fact that the only time the crowd seemed at all loud was during the between-inning "truck race" on the scoreboard. (The 500 level, our section of the upper deck, won.) There were times when we really did feel we could hear a pin drop. Even though the dome was open, sometimes it felt almost like we were indoors because of the quiet. Of course, then a jet fighter would swoop over and shatter the silence with thunder... But overall the crowd was quiet. Eerily quiet.

Some percentage of them were, I'm sure, Yankees fans like me who were holding back. The urge to yell things like "Wells, you fat tub of lard, throw a strike!" was very strong. This is normal rooting behavior in the Bronx, and at Fenway. In places like Bank One Ballpark and Coors Field, though, I usually find I am one of the few shouting such things. In Skydome, even I felt out of place doing it, like talking in a library.

Now my friend Kriss Barnhart, who is yet another die-hard Red Sox fan in my circle of friends, went on a roadtrip recently that included ballparks throughout the midwest and Toronto. Kriss also noted the placidity of the Toronto fans in her travelogue. Part of it is probably that Canadians, on the whole, are a very polite lot. Part of it probably also has to do with the fact that the Jays haven't sniffed the pennant race in a few years and enthusiasm is low as a result. Pleasant and utterly lacking in passion is a fair decription of the mood of the crowd, I'd say.

One other thing that Kriss noted, and was irked by, was the extreme prevalence of Yankees gear on sale in the Blue Jays gift shops. Now, most ballparks rotate in some stuff for the visiting team, but when Kriss had visited Skydome, it was to see the Red Sox! So why the Yankees stuff everywhere? She attributed it to loser Ontarians who have jumped on the Yankees bandwagon. I think that's a bit of a harsh conclusion when you consider that you can see Niagara Falls from the CN Tower on a clear day. When the Yankees come to Toronto, they come within close driving distance of a fair legion of New Yorkers, up-staters, for whom Toronto is a much shorter trip than the Bronx. Not to mention a safer, cleaner destination...

The result of the invasion of New Yorkers to the dome for any Yankees series is as I described before, tons of Yankees fans there to see their team. Yes, more than in Baltimore, where tons of folks drive down from the tri-state area, and more than in Oakland or Tampa Bay, two areas that are fair-teeming with displaced New Yorkers. Of course there are the "bandwagon jumpers" too, but we Yankees fans are used to them. After all, the story of New York is of people who become New Yorkers by the force of their own will to succeed. In New York, you fake it till you make it. There is always new blood coming in. You accept them as your own. But these Yankees fans, this northern upstate breed--not bandwagonners I think but mere distant New York state natives--have adopted the quietesse of their Canadian neighbors.

And no wonder, since they are made to feel so at home in the Skydome, fabled Yankee hotel suite or no. Why, the cover photograph on the official Blue Jays program guide, a magazine called PlayBall!, was of Hideki Matsui! (Yes, I bought one, and no, there's no corresponding article inside... just the photo on the cover.) The gift shops are packed with pinstripes. Even the scalpers outside were offering "Yankee dugout" seats. Personally, I felt not just catered to, but pandered to. After the sometimes hostile but always adversarial atmosphere we are used to at Fenway Park (even when at its most friendly), Skydome's overwhelming Yankee-ness was downright weird. Unlike in Baltimore and Oakland, where legions of Yankees fans invade for every game, in Toronto it felt less like an invasion and more like we had set up a colony.

I am sure that some of that welcoming, if not all of it, was driven by the Blue Jays desperate need to put fannies in the seats. (One upcoming promotion offers a $23 ticket to anyone who brings their dog to the game. Dogs get in free!) If those fannies happen to be wearing pinstriped pants, so be it. Our money's green. Or, well, pink and blue--after all, this is Canada. You get the point. The Blue Jays can use every dollar, whether Canadian or US, they can get, and if they can attract 20,000 Yankees fans to the park ten times a year, well... Here's some quick math. The cheapest seat at the Skydome is around $20. $20 times 20,000 fans times 10 games is $4,000,000. Four million. Add on how much in hot dogs, souvenirs, parking, etc? And premium prices for Yankees games? And the fact that most of the 29,786 present at the game actually sat in more expensive seats? You can see how it quickly adds up when the Jays are trying to get their payroll under $30 million. Raking in four million a year in Yankees fan ticket sales is a big chunk of that. Yeah, if I were a front office exec I'd pander to us, too.

Actually, though, this brings me to something I was remarking on to corwin before the game. About pandering. Because of course they want Blue Jays fans buying tickets, also. The Jays, like many teams, have a sort of "frequent flyer" progam, where you can join a club, get a little mag stripe card, and if you swipe the card every time you come to the ballpark you can win various rewards. I was watching a long line of people waiting to swipe their cards as we were touring the concourse before the game and commented to corwin, "Gee, when you go to see the Yankees, your reward is YOU GOT TO SEE THE YANKEES PLAY." It's the same with the Red Sox. You had the immense privilege of seeing one of the grand historic franchises of major league baseball do battle on the hallowed ground of Fenway Park or Yankee Stadium. In short: we don't need no stinkin' rewards cards. We don't need an additional incentive to come to the ballpark. Fenway has had something like fifty consecutive sell outs this year. At Yankee Stadium in the summer you can regularly find 40,000 people or more in the park on a Monday night to see the lowly Devil Rays.

Toronto used to draw the highest attendance in the majors, topping four millions people a year (higher than the most the Yankees have ever drawn) but apparently it was a fad to go to the Skydome and watch baseball. Now, they have to entice you with a free seat for your dog. Is it just that the team doesn't win? Is it the product on the field that makes the difference? Oakland has attendance woes, too, and they are a great team on the field, a great team to watch. But their stadium is hard to get to, and they compete with the Giants for prestige and airtime. In Toronto the stadium's wonderful, in a great location, and a technological marvel, and the next nearest team is a six hour drive away. But the people don't come.

I think when the Jays start to win again, the people will return, and so will the enthusiasm, but if my friends in Toronto are to be believed, the crowd will always be a quieter, more polite, less boisterous one than I am used to. I think corwin put it best. David Wells is not popular in Toronto. Among the reasons he was run out of town (traded to Chicago despite winning twenty games for the Jays...) was he made disparaging comments about how lousy the fans are here, sitting on their hands, too quiet, etc. Now here he is on their turf again, and were they giving him hell about it? No. corwin's point was that the crowd only proved Wells right. In Boston or New York or even Oakland or Seattle, he'd be hearing it, boos, catcalls, whatever, every time he stepped out of the dugout. I'm not saying that being nice, as Torontoans seem to be by nature, is not a virtue. It is. But in the world of big league baseball, that niceness, that politesse, is easily read by the players as a lack of caring about the team. If they don't feel the passion, they don't feel the love. I think Wells would rather be booed off the mound in Yankee Stadium by his own fans when he stinks (which has been happening a lot lately) than get a polite but passionless ovation from the stands when he wins.

I've used the word passion often tonight, but the more I think about it, the more apropos it becomes. Fandom is a love affair with a team. Fans respond to the passion of the players like Wells, like Paul O'Neill. Mike Mussina, for all his greatness, has not yet inspired Yankees fans to the kind of rapture one might expect for a man who pitched an almost-perfect game against the Red Sox and who pitched the unbelievable 1-0 miracle game in Game Three of the 2001 ALDS in Oakland, the game of Jeter's play and Jeremy's lack of slide. We love the Moose, but in a more bloodless way than the way we have embraced that bat-shard-throwing former Red Sock Roger Clemens. Moose keeps his emotions to himself. So we keep our distance, admiring him politely, glad he's not on the opposing team. We give the "mooooooooose!" call when he is on the mound. But for Mussina to be truly loved in New York, that takes a bit more intimacy, a bit more emotional openness than we currently have from Mike.

And of course one cannot discuss passion and the New York Yankees without bringing up George Steinbrenner. But I think I will have to leave off my discussion of love and baseball. It's late, after midnight, and time for me to get some sleep. Several minutes ago a streetcleaner passed by. Since then, the street has been silent. Like I said, it's quieter here. I guess that's not always a bad thing.