Sitting up behind home plate in the Vancouver Canadians’ “Press Booth” — aka a fold-out table and a black polyester table at Nat Bailey — I couldn’t help but feel a serious feeling of gratitude. “WE MADE IT, MOM” was my first thought when we got the email from Tyler approving us to cover the Canadians for the year.

Growing up as a local Toronto kid, just a 20-minute bike ride down the Christie Hill to the dome, I had always dreamed about being on the “other side”. Like every ten-year-old kid, you naturally aspired at some point to be some rendition of a pro athlete or maybe a bat boy (I’d still take bat boy).

After having the fortunate privilege of admiring the “stinky era” (for reference, that’s 1994-2013), I still found some legends to admire: Roger “the Rocket” Clemens, Roy Halladay, and of course, HOF snub Carlos Delgado (fight me on that one). I quickly realized that while I loved baseball, I was far too skinny and unmotivated to have what it would take to be a pro athlete. My aspirations were quickly refocused to super fan, even though as an adult you will often hear me refer to myself — and I made sure I said MY SELF — as a “softball stud”.

As I progressed into my 20s, my love for baseball continued to grow, some might say to an unhealthy level. Motivated by my grandfather to never miss a game, I found a way to spend my savings screaming and yelling through the new dark days right into what we thought was “THE OUR TIME ERA” in 2015-2016. We all know how that ended — shout out to Alex Anthopoulos, my fellow Greek god.

Without going too far forward and letting you know all my secrets of how I feel about the current state of the Jays, I want to stop and reflect on where we are now: in a small-town vibe stadium at Nat Bailey, on the other side of the country (sorry, Mom), with my first media credential, where I can’t stop thinking about how we finally made it to the other side of the field… Childhood checkmark achieved…

Stay tuned for all the Vancouver Canadians & Seattle Mariners content and follow me on my journey on the “other side” of the field with Down By Two and Crier Media. Hoping to bring you a fun and maybe sarcastic outlook on everything baseball