Blue Jays fan Liz McGuire bleeds blue.
As most Blue Jays fans know by now Liz McGuire became a local celebrity last May when she took a 110 mph liner off of Bo Bichette's bat on the right side of her forehead.
McGuire, who stayed until the end of the game, experienced what appeared to be massive swelling on her forehead, followed by a black eye.
I spoke to Liz over the phone for about an hour about the ordeal, but mostly we just talked about baseball and how we both became fans of the game.
I figured everybody already knows about what happened to Liz, so lets get to know about Lizzy the Blue Jays fan.
Many fans think she is just a random band wagon woman who got smoked by a ball, because she wasn't paying attention to the game, and got her fifteen minutes of fame from it.
That couldn't be the furthest thing from the truth. Liz goes to forty games a year (yes 40) at Rogers Centre and she is not a season ticket holder.
I'm lucky if I've gone to forty games since my college days and believe me when I tell you I bleed blue.
Liz McGuire who is a Carleton University graduate is originally from the Ottawa valley and now lives about twenty minutes from Rogers Centre so I suppose that makes it easier, but still forty games a season!
I asked her when she became a Blue Jays fan and she told me her first words as a child were «Okay Blue Jays lets play ball» and that she attended her first game at the Skydome in 2009.
We talked about Vernon Wells, Jose Bautista, Scott Rolen, Edwin Encarnacion, Adam Lind and of course the late Roy Halladay.
It was refreshing to wax about Blue Jays baseball to a woman her age who turned out to be very knowledgeable about the game of baseball.
I explained to Liz that I went to my first game back in the early eighties with my late father at the Big 'O' who was big Montreal Expos fan at the time.
And that I didn't become a Blue Jays fan till 1987 when I saw my first Jays game at Exhibition stadium otherwise known as «the mistake by the lake».
But enough about me lets get back to McGuire. When we talked about the incident at Rogers Centre when she got nuked by the ball, I asked her what everyone's reaction around her was and she said at first it was horror then relief when everyone realized she was okay.
Fans were astonished when she refused medical help and then the stayed at the game.
What happened to the ball? A lady standing a few seats away picked it up of the concrete floor from in between the seats and was excited to get a souvenir not really showing any concern or empathy for McGuire.
So Liz asked her for the ball, I mean she did get hurt pretty badly from it, and the lady and her husband just laughed at her, refusing to give it up.
Liz and the surrounding fans weren't really surprised that the so called fan wouldn't give her the ball, but were stunned by their reaction of laughter.
I was shocked when she told me about it in our phone interview. I was like really? BOOOO!
We talked about her favorite player growing up Roberto Alomar and how unfortunate it was that in the end he turned out to be not such a nice guy.
We talked about why the Home plate lady got moved because of how expensive her season tickets became after the renovations and how there are so many empty seats behind home plate now because they are now corperation owned seats.
«When you watch the game on television the backdrop behind home plate looks terrible now because there are so many empty seats. At least when they were reasonably priced the seats were full and you could see lots of fans back there on TV, including the home plate lady.»
I have to agree with Liz it was a much more appealing back drop to watch on TV when there were actual fans back there.
I told liz it's always been a bucket list thing for me to sit back there but when she told me that club seats behind the plate were $1,100 that dream just died.
The Schneiders meats company that sponsors loonie dogs night at Rogers Centre gave Liz free executive seats behind home plate, lucky girl!
She also told me that they have a lounge with complimentary food and drinks, but not just any food, lobster, crab and all the fine dining you can imagine.
McGuire said «I was filling up on so much crab I probably missed 2 or 3 innings of the game.» Who could blame her I would too!
That's not the only perks she got, she was asked to throw out the first pitch at a IBL Toronto Maple Leafs home game.
Lizzy now has her own podcast called 'Jay Bird Watching' every thursday which is available on Twitter, Spotify and most other platforms, I urge you to check it out.
She recently had former Blue Jays starter Todd Stottlemyre as a guest and last Thursday Coty Clemens. She's killing it!
When McGuire's initial post went viral, the Topps Company reached out and immortalized her with 110 copies of her card. (110 represents the mph of Bo's ball that smoked her)
Her first order of business was to auction the cards off to raise money for the Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Centre. To date she has raised $5000, that is the kind of lady Liz is.
We waxed about players that could possibly be future Jays, complained about the current Jays front office and the lack of empathy they have for real fans like us.
We talked about how she probably wont be attending as many games as before if Ross Atkins and Mark Shapiro don't extend the face of the franchise Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
I mean why should she or any Jays fan for that matter, support a team with their hard earned money if they aren't committed to the fans by putting the best product possible on the field.
She added I'll still go to some games but with the average cost of tickets going for $65-$100 and rising she'll probably watch more games on TV this season.
The interview with Lizzy felt more like a baseball conversation with an old friend instead of a question period.
We shared about important games that we've attended and how much they meant to us, we talked about key moments in Blue Jays history, but mostly we talked about our love of the game and everything it represents.
At the end of our conversation she added next time you're in the City hit me up for a game, to which I responded abso*******ly!
I cant think of a better person or fan that I'd like to catch a game with than Lizzy McGuire.
| POLL | ||
DECEMBRE 14 | 149 ANSWERS Blue Jays fan Liz McGuire bleeds blue. Are you a superfan like Liz McGuire? | ||
| Yes Superfan | 95 | 63.8 % |
| Nah Fair weather fan | 33 | 22.1 % |
| No Bandwagon fan | 21 | 14.1 % |
| List of polls | ||
