READING: Before his band's show tonight at the Music Gallery, Drew Daniel of electronic duo Matmos will be reading from his tribute to Throbbing Gristle's album 20 Jazz Funk Greats (as part of the 33 1/3 book series). This Ain't the Rosedale Library (86 Nassau Street), 1 p.m., FREE. MUSIC: The Eagles are a cover band. They cover songs by a 1970s rock group, also named The Eagles (weird!). The two bands are very similar,......

If there's an oasis of calm at Christie Pits, among the kids tearing by on their bikes or laughing at the splash park, it's the back-to-back baseball games taking place in the northeast corner of the park. In Intercounty Baseball League action—essentially an independent version of single 'A' ball—the Guelph Royals are taking on the defending league champions, the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Maple Leafs, now in their 40th season since Jack and Lynne......

The Rogers Centre is beginning to show its age—yet despite its advancing years, it's still lacking what we'd call "authentic" ballpark atmosphere. Which is probably inevitable, since the Stadium Formerly Known as SkyDome is a sorta-generic, poured-concrete monstrosity with a cool-looking ceiling; when compared with some of baseball's classic stadiums, its shortcomings are plainly evident. Given the circumstances, the Rogers Centre's employees are vital to making a baseball game in Toronto a more enjoyable experience.......

FILM: Tonight, as part of Yonge and Dundas Square's summer film screenings, Baz Luhrmann's version of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet will be showing. Spoiler alert: sad ending, apparently. Also, definitely check out the official website for the film, ostensibly made in 1996. Yonge and Dundas Square, 9:00 p.m., FREE. SPORTS: Over at BMO Field, Argentinian footballers Independiente are in town to play Toronto FC in an exhibition match. Can't find tickets (and don't feel......

MUSIC: It's a slow night for music in Toronto, unless you're a fan of some band called "Led Zeppelin." If this is the case, you should head over to the Molson Amphitheatre, where singer Robert Plant will inevitably play mostly new songs with vocalist Alison Krauss, and Zeppelin fans will regret having paid the outlandish $40 to sit on the Amphitheatre's lawn. With T Bone Burnett. Molson Amphitheatre (909 Lakeshore Road West), 7:30 p.m. $39.50–$99.50.......

At Friday's Jays-Yankees game, Alex Rodriguez got hit where it hurts when a pack of Jays fans—one who looks conspicuously like Seann William Scott—teased him with photos of Madonna. (Cynthia Rodriguez had just filed for divorce, her lawyer saying that she was "emotionally cheated" on by her husband with the singer.) Unfortunately, Rodriguez struck back by exploiting the Jay's only weakness: getting many runs scored against them. Toronto Public Health wants kids and teenagers to......

The Toronto Maple Leafs won't play a meaningful hockey game for another three months, yet we've already begun steeling ourselves against the impeding overexposure. During the past few weeks, Canada's sports media have begun ramping up their hockey-related coverage. We were horrified to discover, for instance, that TSN ran an hour-long "preview" of NHL free agency last week; we were equally appalled to find ourselves watching it in its entirety. Not surprisingly, the Maple Leafs......

It’s been (warning! understatement alert!) an interesting week in Toronto Blue Jay Land. Seven days ago, they were floundering under a lame duck manager. This week, the team is still floundering—but at least they're showing signs (albeit tentative ones) of turning things around. One week—six games—is a negligible sample size; it’s barely sufficient to draw any sorts of conclusions, let alone meaningful ones. Still, as fans, we’re cautiously optimistic. Cito Gaston was bound to......

Photo by John Griffiths. The CFL is a league of second chances. And, more than most teams, the Argonauts are willing to grant an opportunity to players who've discovered how unforgiving other leagues can be towards injuries and indiscretions of personal conduct. With the new season kicking off this evening, the Argonauts look to improve on last year, when the team finished first in the East, but fell apart in the playoffs. Despite an......

Many of you have sat behind, beside, adjacent to, or perhaps even in front of (on a particularly unlucky day) that one doofus at the ball game who will not shut up, constantly exhorting his precious "team" to "win the game." He is only able to continue this abominable behaviour due to a combination of the celebrated Torontonian reserve and mild inebriation of his fellow fans. You've probably seen him at the Leafs or......

Today, to the surprise of absolutely no one, the Toronto Blue Jays fired their manager John Gibbons. Three other coaches, including the ever-popular Ernie Whitt, were also let go. Gibbons's replacement, at least for the time being, is none other than Cito Gaston, the man who led Toronto to back-to-back World Series championships in the early 90s. We’re still absorbing this announcement—and while we'll have plenty more to say about it in the coming weeks,......

Photo by Andrew Z. There are few emotional highs like watching your horse galloping down the homestretch to win by a nose in a blur of colour and kicked-up dirt. Even losing money when your wing-and-a-prayer long shot leads the race only to falter badly in the final turn isn't so disappointing when you consider the entertainment value of riding an emotional roller coaster. Once a sporting and cultural institution, horseracing has lost some......

Every Saturday morning, Historicist looks back at the events, places, and characters—good and bad—that have shaped Toronto into the city we know today. 1979 Topps Rico Carty, 1978 Topps Jesse Jefferson and 1978 Topps Jim Clancy baseball cards Stories about the early days of the Toronto Blue Jays tend to focus on their debut in 1977, highlighted by a snowy opening day. Despite a mixture of cast-offs, free agents, and untested rookies that landed the......

It's halfway into Bike Month, and Mother Nature's unpredictable weather has already tempted you to take the TTC. Starting today, ditch the bike for the weekend and take the ferry to Toronto Island instead to watch other people pedal for the 16th annual Cycle Messenger World Championships. Unlike traditional bike tourneys, the various events—including skids, bike jumps, and a cargo race—seem designed to test adrenaline as opposed to endurance. Testing the true skills of......

Last week Gothamist reported on Major League Baseball's plan to place forty-two 8-1/2 feet tall Statues of Liberty covered in the logos of past and present teams around New York City in preparation for the All-Star Game on July 15th at Yankee Stadium. As this is the final season for "The House that Ruth Built," the MLB brain trust figures this campaign will provoke excitement for the game and provide spinoff revenue in the......

We're as intrigued by "The Hockey Theme" saga as any Canadian sports fan—but with the story becoming increasingly surreal (not to mention trivial), we've decided it's time to focus our attention elsewhere. Like Switzerland and Austria, for instance, where Euro 2008 kicked off last weekend. We're big soccer fans (or "football supporters," if you'd like), and so naturally we're well-chuffed about the tournament. However, we're also of the opinion that those of us who are......

Hey, CBC—you wanna come over to Torontoist's house and play a little Texas Hold 'Em sometime? CBC got called on their Hockey Night in Canada bluff today as rival CTV announced that they've struck a deal for the rights to the HNIC signature tune. The news comes four days after the kind-of public broadcaster announced they were pulling out of negotiations for the storied 40-year-old theme, and mere hours after they suggested that they......

Ladies and Gentlemen of Toronto(ist), This posting is to notify you that, as part of bike month, Streets Are For People cordially invites you to a smashing game of polo à la bike, tomorrow evening at 6:30 p.m in Trinity Bellwoods Park. That's right folks, a game of mallets, balls, and two-wheeled horses by the gazebo in the park. Suggested attire is fancy, yet fun—so we say, ladies, lace up your corsets, but eschew......

The first Toronto running of the Idiotarod was held on Saturday, with six teams racing through checkpoints from Grange Park to Bellevue Square Park. The event, organized by Wero Creative, was a great success, with competitors braving torrential rain to reach the finish line with carts, if not sanity, intact. More photos after the jump.......

Analyzing Sleater-Kinney lyrics can be a fruitless task, but we're pretty sure they had the Toronto Blue Jays in mind when they wrote this line: "Rollercoaster, want to go back to the way things were." The way things were, say, in the late 80s/early 90s, when a winning baseball team was like a birthright 'round these parts. From 1989 to 1993, the Blue Jays won four division titles and two World Series championships. Since......

Remember when David Beckham was supposed to make his Major League Soccer debut at BMO Field last year, then wasn't even on the substitute’s bench? Well, brace yourselves, transient sports fans: it’s about to happen again. Beckham—who's since made his inaugural Canadian appearances in specially-arranged friendlies in Vancouver and Edmonton—was supposed to be in town May 31 along with the rest of the Los Angeles Galaxy, the team who signed him to one of......

For a team that's accustomed to flying under the radar (partly because they're a Canadian team in an otherwise all-American league, partly because they're perpetually mediocre, and partly because they're in a division with two of the most self-absorbed franchises in professional sports), it's been an unusually eventful year for the Toronto Blue Jays so far. Last weekend they announced that Frank Thomas—the team's best slugger, #18 on baseball's all-time home run list and a......

Tomorrow, our lives come grinding to a halt until mid-June. The NHL playoffs are here—and even without the Toronto Maple Leafs (more on them in a second), that means there’s going to be meaningful hockey on TV almost every single night for the next two-and-a-half months. (That’s assuming you think it’s possible for sports to be meaningful, obviously; then again, if you didn’t, you probably wouldn’t be reading this.) Back in October we picked the......

The Toronto Maple Leafs have been mathematically eliminated from playoff contention. Which isn't surprising, given how poorly they've played for much of the 2007/08 season. What is surprising is that it took the team this long to make it official. Heading into this week's crucial home-and-home series against the Boston Bruins, the Leafs were still on the outside of the playoff picture looking in. A two-game sweep, however, would've brought them level with the Bruins......

Far be it from us to take pleasure in our favourite team’s misfortunes...but as much as we love the Maple Leafs, we had to laugh after Vesa Toskala’s incredible blunder against the New York Islanders earlier tonight. If you missed it, we’ve included the YouTube clip...which was probably unnecessary, since the play—a goal scored by New York defenceman Rob Davison from his own goal line, a distance of approximately 200 feet—is about to become......

The hosts of Re-Inventors, Jeremy MacPherson and Matt Hunter, put one of their "re-inventions" to the test against Olivier Jean, a speed skater and Olympic hopeful, at the Ricoh Coliseum this week. The propeller strapped to MacPherson's back was based on a patent registered in 1948 by Horace M. Morrill, who intended the device to "provide a portable manually supported propelling unit" for people on skates, boats or bicycles. The race, a promotional event......

Hope is a cruel thing for a sports fan: no matter how bleak the situation, as long as there's a straw in sight we'll happily clutch at it. Case in point: Leafs Nation, of which we're proud, occasionally defiant members. We've been flip-flopping over the Leafs all season long. A few weeks ago we'd written them off, then watched as the team put together an impressive run (which included comprehensive victories over the Ottawa......

Gas prices in Toronto are at $1.09 or more a litre today, reflecting all-time record oil prices of over US$108 per barrel. For all our driving readers, it might cheer you up to consider that it's still cheaper to fill up your car with gas than say, orange juice or Diet Pepsi. By the way, if you do decide to go with orange juice, remember that the pulp-free kind is less likely to gum up......

Torontoist visited Leaside Curling and discovered an array of curling enthusiasts that reflect the diversity and character of our city. (And some of its endearing eclecticism too.) With a handful of intimate portraits, Torontoist takes a peak at some of the people who help make Canada the curling capital of the world.......

Boozy Suzy is the undisputed champion of the Pillow Fight League. When she’s not downing beers, she’s downing opponents with her dreaded hammer fist. Boozy Suzy is also Suzanne Carte-Blanchenot, an event coordinator who has been involved with the Pillow Fight League since its inception. She has watched the girls-only league grow from a local curiosity to an international sensation that has been covered by Anderson Cooper 360º, Good Morning America, and ESPN: The......