Run the risk of sounding like your bat-guano crazy uncle for caring about this, but it’s a simple statement of fact: A generation of fans have no recollection of Exhibition Stadium. Never saw a Blue Jays game there. Never saw the Argos there. Never saw Toronto Metros Croatia. Never saw that rite of ’80s summers, the Police Picnic.
If you’re in your 20s, you probably couldn’t figure out where the stadium once stood if you were dropped at the Princes’ Gates with a compass. If you’re 35, you might have some vague recollection of a trip to the ballpark as a tyke, bouncing on your father’s knee. Maybe. It doesn’t matter how much of a fan you are; it’s just the timeline. What went down at Exhibition Stadium is stuff you may have read about, that you’ve seen pictures of, maybe grainy videos with graphics that look like hieroglyphics.
So, a bit of personal history: Hundreds of times I and now-doddering thousands went to the Ex. And, no, those of us down on the turf 35 years ago for the Who’s Farewell Tour didn’t get a refund any of the dozens of times survivors of the band have reunited since. An object lesson to never trust advertising, the concert turned out to be a farewell to guilelessness, that’s about it.
I had some strange experiences at Exhibition Stadium, maybe the strangest was in high school back in the 70s when, at an all-comers 10,000-metre race on the track, my friend and I seized the lead on the opening two laps and only then realized that the field included Jerome Drayton, who had won the prestigious Fukuoka Marathon and owned the world record for 10-mile run. He was probably driving home while we were still circling the track, getting our lap times from the Bulova Tower.
