Glenn Kubish

If I had a happiness and gratitude sonar, these would be the three pings from last week.   Three Things, episode 140:                               1. Experts   Before social media and the democratization of knowledge made everyone an expert, there was a class of people called, well, for lack of a better term, experts. Newspaper editors. Doctors. Politicians. University professors. Civil servants.   It wasn’t necessarily the best of times. Many other voices weren’t heard, lots of experience was somehow ruled to be of no value.   I worked in newspapers as the hierarchy of knowledge came crashing down on some bewildered gatekeepers who I can still see walking out through the debris of fallen pillars as the influencers sashayed in. Those technocrats are not the experts I want back, but I do miss some experts. Or, at least, one specific category of expert. I miss the disc jockey. I still pref...

Buckle up, baseball fans.  Last year about this time I filed a headlined image or two after  Blue Jays post season games. It was called Field of Memes , a nod, of course, to the now departed W.P. Kinsella.  Tonight, the Jays hosted the American League Wild Card game against the Baltimore Orioles. Marcus Stroman cruised through the first three innings and then got roughed up in the fourth by a two-run shot from Mark Trumbo, which erased the 1-0 lead written by Jose Bautista's solo homer in the second inning.  Defence by both teams was solid. Offense was provided by the Toronto fan who hurled a foaming beer can at Orioles outfielder Hyun Soo Kim as he corralled a fly ball in the seventh inning. Hey, tweeted, horrormeister Stephen King, whatever happened to polite Canadians?  The Jays repeatedly refused to win, hitting into inning-ending double plays and demonstrating, as if fans needed more demonstrating, that small b...

For Father's Day this year, I received a text message. Alex sent the text from Toronto during the Jays-Phillies game earlier this week. Centrefielder Kevin Pillar had just homered on the way to an 11-3 win. What a gift. The text message, I mean. Not Zach Eflin's fastball up and not quite inside enough that Pillar sent to the left field seats. Here's how I scored it. First, it's baseball. We talk baseball. Fathers and sons have long done this. We're no different. It gives us something to talk about. It's a lovely game. The players round the bases counterclockwise, like the planets. My father can throw a baseball. I remember a deep red glove he kept oiled. Second, it's the Jays. The boys and their mother and I are fans. A few years back we sat across from Bautista with the Rays in town. Last year, we went to Seattle. We still talk about the Jays-Rangers series and the bat flip. When we're together, and a TV is nearby, we'll watch the Ja...

It's the post season in major league baseblog, so here we go..... The 7th inning, three-run homeroics of Jose Bautista in Game 5 of the ALDS against the Texas Rangers, and the iconic bat flip shared around the Twitterverse, was the third weird thing with a bat to happen that game. In the top of the 5th inning, Delino Deshields, Jr, took a 91-mph offering from Jays pitcher Marcus Stroman in the teeth after a #buntfail deflection off his own bat. And into his own face. His pathetic look of bewilderment was recognizable to anyone who hasn't seen that their own meticulously planned move will explode, immediately upon being put into action. In their own face. Then in the top of the 7th, the bat again took centre stage, as Ranger Rougned Odor came home when Jays catcher Russell Martin's toss back to the pitcher struck the bat of batter Shin-Soo Choo and rolled live into the near infield no man's land. And then it was Bautista's bat flippant . Crazy bat shit,...