Steam Whistles and Motor City Kitties
Visiting both Toronto and Detroit On a Frigid Week in April
I never thought there would be a name for the thing I’m doing with baseball. While at the time visiting all 30 Major League Baseball stadiums (What ever happened to the word stadia?) seemed novel, there are literally tens of thousands of people who are on their own quests yearly. My adventure started in 2022, when the then-unbalanced schedule plopped my Mets against all five California teams in a single season. I was then off to the races, not necessarily to see the Metropolitans, but rather better understand how each of the 30 cities “do” baseball.
Last week I caught at a game at both the Rogers Centre in Toronto and Comerica Park in Detroit. In the latter’s case, I lucked out in seeing how the city of Detroit does Opening Day (more on that later). As for why I decided to visit Canada in April knowing full well it was going to be freezing and I hate traveling with a jacket? Well, let’s just say I wanted to get in before things could potentially change. I had visited Toronto twice before (both in summer) so this was my first “winter” experience, even though it was technically spring. The biting wind took me back to my days growing up in Brooklyn. This is great for nostalgia I guess, but nobody misses the winter wind in Brooklyn.
Snowfall was pretty heavy before game time and so while everyone was doing the smart thing and hurrying inside, I had to hit up my routine spot when I stop in “The Six.” Steam Whistle Pilsner, a beer that is only sold in Canada, has its HQ right across the street. And so, why not partake in frosty beverages while it’s 30 degrees outside?
It was a Wednesday afternoon game (thankfully played indoors under a roof) and so the Toronto Blue Jays have a promotion called “Work From Dome.” The website tries to market it as being able to work from the ballpark, but that seems wholly problematic. It ended up being more or less having quirky photo stations where you can theoretically show your boss you’re ‘in an office’ while being at the game. Observe:
The Blue Jays have something a few MLB teams already have (that more teams SHOULD do) and that’s a concessions value menu. Dubbed “Dugout Deals,” it is a reduced-price concessions menu that can be pretty enticing to those bringing families, are on a tight budget, or aren’t interested in the ballpark food arms race that yields such things like Cotton Candy Poutine.
Yes, I like my hotdogs with ketchup and relish. Come at me, bro!
What I liked most about checking out the Blue Jays so how unapologetically Canadian the franchise is. Now I’m not sure if that’s also in part of the current political climate, but the Jays do feel like you’re part of some Canadian Club (five points if you catch the reference there). The Canadian maple leaf is square on the logo, and the crowd cheers for the Canadian National anthem just as much as they are indifferent during the US anthem. I kind of want to see MLB try again with having another Canadian franchise in the league. Having a team in Vancouver, Montreal, Quebec City, or Halifax could be fun.
The next morning I grabbed a bus to head over to Detroit. Flights between the two cities exist, and they are a convenient 34 minutes in duration, but a six-hour bus ride through Ontario is only $40 so that’s the way I went. Shout out to Flixbus, y’all. When I got to Detroit, I had come to two revelations: For one, the city seemed “empty.” That is, it felt like there should be more people walking around during business hours in relation to the size and scale of the city. Secondly, Detroit Pizza? Waaaay better than that stuff they do in Chicago:
I know people from Chicago are going to be like “What does Flobo know? He likes ketchup on hot dogs,” but MAN. How does Chicago have TWO distinct styles of pizza (Deep Dish AND Tavern) and let Detroit just be better? Got my squares from Buddy’s and headed to my room for the night.
Now, for as long as I’ve been a fan of baseball I haven’t had the pleasure of seeing a game on Opening Day in person. Game time was at 1pm on Friday, but the party was on from 8am that morning. The crowds of people I had wished I had seen the day before were all out and about and they went hard for their Tigers. And in a lot of ways, it was kind of amazing to see. With all the talk of baseball “dying,” or wondering if Detroit is “back or not,” for at least one day you got your answer to both.
Local shops had Opening Day deals, Michiganders (Michiganians?) were walking the streets and having open conversations with strangers, and the whole spirit of the day was pretty great. Even though it was 2025 and this country has never been more divided, it truly felt like people were enjoying themselves and making sure other people were enjoying themselves as well. I know I did, Comerica Park had the GOOD pretzels:
Thankfully, the game-time temperature was in the low 50s for that game. Outright balmy, if you ask me. While the baseball action itself was great, I did have an issue. For some reason, there is oddly a critical shortage of the number of urinals at the park. I was on the top deck and when I saw how long the bathroom lines were, I tried to go to every bathroom on the way down and ALL of them were crowded! I gave up and stood in line at a restroom on the bottom level, but the vibe was killed for a moment.
I recommend both Rogers Centre in Toronto and Comerica Park in Detroit for a visit. Now that they’re only four parks left on my list, I’m looking forward to seeing how my final ballpark rankings are going to shake out. I would like to have pizza rankings too, but the city of Chicago wouldn’t like that one bit.