A view of the baseball diamond in the Rogers Centre is visible from a room at the Toronto Marriott City Centre Hotel in downtown Toronto on Thursday. The hotel is the only one in North America that is fully within a major league ballpark.Laura Proctor/The Globe and Mail
A lush green diamond unfurls beneath rooms at the Toronto Marriott Centre. From its floor-to-ceiling windows, guests are afforded a perch to watch the Blue Jays in action at Rogers Centre. If fortunate, they may also catch a ball tossed way, way up to them by an outfielder.
The club is the only one of 30 in the major leagues to have a hotel fully within its ballpark. From one foul line to the other, there are 70 rooms that overlook the field on three different levels.
When the World Series between Toronto and the Los Angeles Dodgers commences on Friday, those rooms with a view will be filled at rates ranging from $3,999 to $9,500 a night.
They sleep five people each. Room 450 – that’s the one for $9,500 – is a split level with a king-sized bed and a pullout couch. No game ticket is necessary. There are no long queues to use the bathroom. No long lines for concessions; room service is but a call away.
If Vladimir Guerrero Jr. or George Springer launch a long home run, the room shakes along with the rest of the stadium.
The restaurant at the hotel also has a lovely view of the diamond.Laura Proctor/The Globe and Mail
“It is one of the most unique experiences you can have in sports right now,” Ryan Soderberg, the hotel’s general manager, said on Wednesday as he gazed down from high above the outfield. “It’s a bucket list-experience for a lot of fans that come here.
“When you watch you feel like you are a part of the park. You feel like you are inside it because you really are.”
For the last year or so Blue Jays’ players have tossed balls up through open windows before the games. Guests wave to get their attention.
The throws can cover as far as 200 feet, mostly straight up with a little arc at the end. They are probably baseball’s longest curveballs.
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“It has kind of become a fun little game that we play,” Addison Barger, who plays in the outfield at times, said during media day on Thursday. “Whenever we are out there and have a couple of extra balls we try to do it.
“It is actually a very awkward throw and it’s not easy to do. It’s not a matter of arm strength, it’s a matter of touch.”
At times it takes Barger and fellow outfielder Davis Schneider a dozen throws to find their target. Each throw gets a little higher and a little closer.
Sometimes they go through the open windows and directly into rooms.
“We have been doing it the whole year,” Schneider said. “It started when we saw fans hanging out the windows. There is a little bit to it but I enjoy it if I can make someone’s day.”
Blue Jays give pitcher Trey Yesavage the start in Game 1 of the World Series
The hotel wraps around the north, west and east sides of the stadium. It was built into the former Skydome and opened along with it in 1989.
For their first dozen years, the Blue Jays played at wind-whipped Exhibition Stadium. It was very close to Lake Ontario and the elements posed a problem, especially in the spring.
The field was entirely covered by snow in the first Blue Jays game ever played there. A Zamboni had to be fetched from Maple Leaf Gardens to clear the field.
Soderberg has worked in the hotel business since 1998 and has run the Toronto Marriott Centre for nearly three years. He is a Calgarian and a lifetime Blue Jays fan.
Marriott general manager Ryan Soderberg says staying at the hotel to watch a Jays game is ‘one of the most unique experiences you can have in sports right now.’Laura Proctor/The Globe and Mail
“This is a dream job for a general manager,” he said. “And as a Blue Jays fan, I always feel like I want to pinch myself. It is the most unique property I have ever worked at.
“The Blue Jays entertain our guests for six or seven months every year.”
The only previous times the stadium hosted World Series games were in 1992 and 1993.
“I get multiple messages from people who want to talk about how excited they are to come here,” Soderberg said. “We still have employees that were here in 1992 and 1993 and they have been telling me how excited they are to re-live the experience.”
If a room for $4,000 to $9,500 seems extraordinarily expensive, consider that tickets for Games 1 and 2 available on the secondary market were selling for $2,000 to more than $7,000. A sardine-like standing-room only ticket is listed at $900. And if travelling, a hotel room is still necessary.
Unless you want to stay in the boonies it’s going to cost you. Want a room with a view? Bring four friends.