Hawk On Fire

Image via Canadian Press We all knew it was coming, yet it still hits so hard. While never the biggest Hip fan, you'd have to be a complete cynic to deny Downie's impact on our country and its culture. A sad day. A rock star who never really acted like a rock star. His empathy and intelligence shone through in his lyrics. Nothing ever made me feel more Canadian than driving down a country road in the summer time with The Hip playing on the radio. When Gord found out he was sick, he didn't hide, or pity himself. He thought, in typical Canadian fashion, time to get on just like Terry Fox (who he wrote about in a song) and do some good before my watch ends. He toured the country, and said his goodbyes from the stage. His last concert was attended by the Prime Minister of Canada, and thousands of fans. Gord lived a hell of a life, and went out in the best possible way, under his own terms. If he had to leave the stage early, he was going to make damn sure it was a good ...

Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images As it turns out, it is pretty hard to start 6-16 and make the playoffs . This was a disappointing season. But there were some fun moments! Like a Morales walk-off . Or a Goins walk-off . Or Peace's walk-off Grand Slam . Or scoring 7 runs in the bottom of the ninth and Pearce hitting his second walk-off Grand Slam in just a matter of days. Or Kevin Pillar's catch , after catch , after catch . Let’s be clear - the playoffs were not out of reach after the Jays started 2-11. Nobody actually knew that for sure at that time. There was still loads of baseball left. It was early. They had time to make up the lost ground. And you know what? For a time, it looked like they were going to. Despite that miserable start, they were one game below .500 on June 2nd. Obviously they never passed the .500 threshold, but at that time, it really did look like they had enough in them to at least get back in the Wild Card race. So no, the season didn’t e...