Extra, Extra: OK Blue Jays, A SmartTrack Promise, and the Birds' Nest
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Extra, Extra: OK Blue Jays, A SmartTrack Promise, and the Birds’ Nest

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Every weekday’s end, we collect just about everything you ought to care about or ought not to miss.

Photo by williamself from the Torontoist Flickr Pool

Photo by williamself from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

  • Just in time for the Blue Jays playoffs, it’s time for a look at the team’s campy, nostalgia-laden seventh-inning stretch song, “OK Blue Jays.” That’s what separate publications thought, as CBC offers an oral history of the song, and Canadian Press provides their own wire service-friendly version. If only we could get duelling oral histories of Domer, the former SkyDome mascot.

  • Liberal leader Justin Trudeau pledged to fund $2.6 billion of SmartTrack, John Tory’s signature election promise. The promise would be funded from a $60 billion pool of money dedicated for infrastructure projects across Canada; Stephen Harper previously promised to fund SmartTrack as well. The NDP have not promised to fund SmartTrack specifically, while the provincial government has not pledged its share, and the City still has to work out where to get $2.6 billion without breaking through its debt ceiling.
  • Looking to watch the first Jays playoff game in 22 years? Well, you can head down to Nathan Phillips Square, where a big screen will show the game, and likely offer shots of the crowd after big moments in the action. The nickname for the public space, the Birds’ Nest, doesn’t quite have the same ring as Jurassic Park for the Raptors, but hey, there’s playoff baseball!
  • From today’s edition of 12:36: Mark Towhey is readying a media blitz for his book about Rob Ford’s rage. Uncontrollable, a tell-all by (or at least, ghostwritten with) Ford’s one-time chief of staff, now has a firm release date: October 27. It will be competing head-on with councillor John Filion’s thinkier book, The Only Average Guy, set for release on November 3. Towhey has a publicist lining up coverage, including an eight-page excerpt in Maclean’s and a Globe and Mail piece by Robyn Doolittle. And how many who’d vote for Ford in the next mayoral election will see or hear any of it? (Want more 12:36? Subscribe to it now.)

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