SPORTSBEAT BY PETER JAKEY: Trip to Skydome

With the beginning of another high school sports season over the next month, there have been preliminary discussions about the establishment of an athletic boosters club in Posen. The matter was brought up at last month?s board of education meeting and now a meeting has been scheduled for Monday at 7 p.m. to see if there is enough interest in forming a group. Athletic director Cliff Kelly has contacted all the coaches to invite them to this meeting, which could end up being an organizational session.

There was a tremendous amount of support from the community when the boys basketball team made its run to the state finals earlier this year and there are other sports, such as track, which has needed financial help recently. A sports boosters organization would benefit the school, coaches, and take some of the burden off Mr. Kelly. The easy part is getting people interested at the onset, keeping them involved might be another story. Monday?s meeting in the high school library is the first step to seeing if the time is right for the startup of a booster club for the Viking sports programs.

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THE MICHIGAN High School Athletic Association has set Monday as the first official date for high school football practices to begin in the state. It?s hard to believe but the first games of the season for Rogers City and Posen are three weeks from Friday. It should be an interesting season for both the Vikings and the Hurons.

After the Hurons played a tough schedule last year, second-year coach Mike Kosiara not only has a schedule that will bring more competitive games, but he also has a very talented group of players coming back. Posen?s schedule is tougher this year. With the addition of Rogers City September 2, the road to six victories just got a little tougher. The Vikings rallied for three straight victories in their last games to qualify for the playoffs in 2004, which started a historic playoff run. There won?t be much room for error, but coach Glenn Budnick and his experienced coaching staff should have the troops ready, and it should be another great season.

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WHILE WORKING on Flashbacks for this week?s Advance, I noticed a Sportsbeat story from 10 years ago about my trip to the Metro Dome in Minnesota. It was the 12th time my wife Lisa and I had been to a Major League Baseball stadium. Before the 2004 season, there were only two stadiums added to the list since the trip to the Twin Cities: Coors Field in Colorado and Comerica Park in Detroit. It?s interesting to me that Lisa I equaled that 10-year total in the month of July. It?s hard to visit stadiums when your raising three boys, but they are getting older, and it is getting easier to cross some ballparks off the list.

The latest to go was the Skydome in Toronto last Friday when the Blue Jays hosted the Texas Rangers. It was the first time our family of five had all attended a game together, and obviously the first MLB game for my three-year-old son Luke. The fist MLB games for two of my boys have been at stadiums outside of Detroit. Aaron?s first game was seven years ago in Denver. They?ve been to the stadiums, but I can?t say they knew what was going on.

At the Skydome, which is actually known as the Rogers Centre, although locals were still calling it the Skydome, Aaron spent the entire game playing his Gameboy SP. We bought the lowest-priced tickets and sat in the back row of level five near the stadium lights, and the view was actually pretty good.

BRINGING THE video game was a money saver too, because Aaron didn?t bother us much about buying stuff. The game was the fourth Blue Jay game I?ve seen in Toronto, the most of any city. When we were still dating, Lisa and I, watched the Tigers play on back-to-back nights in 1988 at Exhibition Park. Unfortunately, the Tigers lost both games. The stadium is incredible. In addition to not having a bad seat in the house, the sites alone are incredible. Over our right shoulders was the CN Tower, towering high over the downtown Toronto skyline. You can see sailboats on Lake Ontario while visiting the concession stand, and to just look at the awesome roof of the park might be worth the price of admission alone. With the roof open, the park almost looks like a giant band shell. The company that landed the naming rights of Skydome is a media giant in Canada and they definitely have left their mark on the stadium, which was constructed for $500 million in 1989.

THE SCOREBOARD in center field, which is four stories tall and nine stories wide, is the best Jumbotron I?ve ever seen. At times, it was like watching TV in my living room. The Blue Jay website says it?s the largest video display board in North America. The sound system was everything Busch Stadium in St. Louis wa

sn?t. Sitting next to the speaker helped, but everything the announcers said came through crystal clear. And did you know, there?s a hotel and a restaurant out beyond center field? The game. Oh, that?s right, there was a game. The Rangers won 4-1.

It was Korean Night at the park. Toronto is a melting pot of many different cultures and many of the fans attending the game last Friday were waving Korean flags while cheering on the Blue Jays. There were two people making announcements during the game, one in English, the other in Korean. The game started with a mammoth leadoff home run by ranger Gary Matthews, Jr.

Toronto lefty Scott Downs had a career-high eight strikeouts in the game, and the only reason I?m mentioning that is because when he fanned batter number eight, it was announced that all 21,113 fans would receive a slice of pizza because Downs had reached the strikeout total. In order to get our pizza slices, we needed to redeem our ticket stub at the Canadian pizza chain. I didn?t want to give up my ticket stub, though. All in all, it was a great experience and I wouldn?t hesitate in going back. The view was spectacular, the prices reasonable, and even the popcorn was good.