Mike Boon blogs his way to the 5th Paper Champions Award

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Mike Boon blogs his way to the 5th Paper Champions Award

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uploaded by mr.zoltanblack

And the winner is . . .

Week: #5 June 22-28 2008

Champion: Toronto Mike Boon

Pourquoi: Blue Jays Memories (July 16 2006)

Publication: Blog @ Torontomike.com

This weeks paper champion comes from way out in left-field at the old Exhibition Stadium on the CNE ground along the Toronto lakeshore. Toronto Mike www.mikeboon.com has been "blogging up a storm since 2002" and managed to help squelch a heated office debate regarding the performance of a certain Blue Jay’s left-fielder, George Bell, who swore he would not forego fielding to be the team’s Designated Hitter. These facts where not up for debate as three completely different generations of Blue Jay’s fans made up the debaters but one thing was unanimous, George Bell didn’t want to be a DH.

The debate was entirely less heated than I’d like to let on. The truth is I tenaciously proclaimed that the afore mention Mr. Bell had answered the call to the Designated Hitter position by hitting five home-runs on the opening day of the season from the very same DH spot he swore he would have no part of.

"Really" one of my co-workers exclaimed challenging the validity of my claim or at least that’s what my male ego had lead me to believe. Eager to prove to my co-worker that I was not full of hot air I whipped out my micro-pc and proceeded to check the facts via the omnipotent search engine. Usually these type of searches, especially of the sporting variety tend to return a host of WIKI sites and ESPN links, two tremendous sources for sporting news, facts and statistics.

So What does this have to do with Mike Boon and the paper champions award?

This time however upon receiving my search results I was confronted with a new form of historical sports capture, a finely tuned blog complete with Blue Jays postings. One specific post www.torontomike.com/2006/07/blue_jays_memories_1.html http://www.torontomike.com/2006/07/blue_jays_memories_1.htmlwas a hair-raising look back at 1988 and with every word the pictures, stories and smell of Exhibition Stadium returned to me. Once again I was a mere child enamoured by the like of Bell, Barfield and Fernandez.

Mike Boon’s recall is spectacular and I was wrong

For the record George Bell smacked three home-runs from the Designated Hitters position on opening day 1988 against the Kansas City Royal not five. God I’m a real wind bag.

Congratulation, Mike Boon you are this week’s "Paper Champion"

Zoltan Black