Hockey season is over and that means the youngsters in Kingston are just starting to put away their skates for the summer. A lot of folks around here had high hopes for the Blue Jays this year, but they’re only a .500 team so far. People are blaming that on injuries, but let me tell you kids something, injuries happen to all teams, good ones and bad ones. The problem isn’t with injuries, it’s with the Blue Jays. They’re nothing but a bunch of girls. Take Lyle Overbay. That guy like got nicked by a pitch and he’s out for four weeks!

It reminds me of one night in Detroit in 1994, I saw Eric Lindros put a hit on Sergei Federov that you just wouldn’t believe. Federov wanted to pass the puck because he wanted no part of Lindros and like all Russians, he was afraid of taking the hit. To all you kids reading out there, if you’re crossing the neutral zone on a 2-on-2 break, then either dump the puck in across the blue line or be ready to take the hit. All that ballerina stuff that they teach the hockey players in Russia doesn’t help when you’ve got a 230-pound forward barreling in on you. Overbay should talk to talk to Steve Thomas about the year he gutted out three playoff series with the Leafs playing with a broken clavicle. Overbay gets some bruise on his hand when the team is struggling and he sits for two months? How can you expect the team to count on a guy like that, especially in the playoffs?

Let’s not even discuss the Blue Jay pitchers. Chacin, Okha, all those other skinny Latin players play this flashy style because they want the American scouts to notice them. They never bothered to learn the game’s fundamentals because they were too busy doing backflips in the sunshine in Venezuela or Jamaica or wherever they’re from. Plus you’ve got BJ Ryan who is making, what, 50 million and now he’s out for the year. 50 million dollars to sit at home? And for what, Tommy John surgery?

When I played semi-pro ball back in the 50’s, nobody even knew who Tommy John was. We had this guy on our team, Jacques Houlain who was a real tough son of a gun. Most Quebecers don’t have any guts but not this guy. He had desire, he wanted to compete. He felt a twinge one night in his shoulder during a tough 2-2 game so he got the trainer to reattach a tendon during the seventh inning stretch. We ended up winning 4-2 and Jacques went the distance. These days, you’ve got this guy BJ Ryan who feels a bit tight in the shoulder one day and the next day boom, he’s not pitching until 2008. Give me a break.

Are there any good role models on this Jays team? You betcha. You know who’s a gamer on the Jays? Roy Halladay. That guy had his appendix taken out and was pitching about two weeks later. The doctors wanted him to sit for another month but he wouldn’t hear of it, he wanted to get back on the field right away. That’s the way the game should be played, the way we played it back in my day.

One day I got to the park with the rest of the Kingston boys and we heard that our opponents for that day, the Bracebridge Prairie Warblers, had been in a bus crash. The bus had turned over into a ditch and those guys were in bad shape. Well, not only did they show up that day, but they beat us 5-4. I’d never seen a tougher group of players in my life. Their star hitter, Miller O’Shea, turned up in time for the 9th inning after getting his leg put in a cast. He came straight from the hospital and blasted a pinch-hit homer to beat us. And people think that Kirk Gibson was some kind of hero.

I want to talk to you kids about Justin Morneau. Now here’s a guy out of New Westminster, BC, a real tough son of a you-know-what. He’s the MVP of the league, and most guys, when they win that kind of hardware, they get soft. They turn into prima donnas. Now here’s this guy Morneau, he’s involved in a collision on the field, and he doesn’t lie there like one of those Russian or Dominican athletes, he gets right back up and heads to the dugout. There, he starts coughing up blood. He’s the MVP of the league but he’s still out there on the field taking the hit, coughing up blood, and refusing to come out of the game. Kids, you don’t get to be that kind of player through coaching, it’s something you’re born with. It’s something you inherit by being Canadian and playing in Canada.

Even his manager acknowledged it, let me read you what he said. Listen to this, kids, his manager, Ron Gardenhire, said “when you see Morneau down on the field, obviously he doesn’t stay down very often. He’s a big, strong hockey guy.” If you think Morneau doesn’t have a passion for the game, you’re nuts. And you know what else I heard? I heard that the umps didn’t want to let him back into the game after they heard that he was sick in the dugout. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times. The umps shouldn’t be making those sorts of decisions that can impact the outcome of the game. You gotta let the players play the game.

In the meantime, I’m hearing about Miguel Tejada going on the DL after hurting his wrist. This guy had a games played streak of what, 1400 games or so, and he decides to sit after getting hit by a pitch. Here’s a guy who has this big streak on the line, his team is slipping in the standings, and he simply sits. That’s what happens when you take a Dominican player over a Canadian one.

Even the Americans can’t get it right, like with Chipper Jones who had to be begged by his teammates to return to the lineup when his club is in the middle of a tight pennant race. Morneau is an MVP and he’s begging to be out there, but Tejada and Jones are also former MVPs of their leagues and they’re practically running to the bench. They won the big hardware and they went soft. Now some people argue that Tejada’s team isn’t very good so he doesn’t need to be out there and risk getting hurt anymore. Tell that to Sidney Crosby, who was drafted #1 by a terrible Pens team. You think Crosby wanted the pretty boy treatment? Forget it, he worked hard every night and now he just finished leading the Pens to the playoffs and winning the Hart Trophy for 2006-2007.

I just want to give my best wishes to Justin Morneau and hope that he’s back to 100% soon. And I might be sour on the Jays a lot of the time, but you know I’m rooting for them down in Toronto. I want all you kids to make sure you go to a few Blue Jays games before the summer is out. Buy your tickets at bluejays.com and tell them Grapes sent you!