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www.insideHALTON.com | OAKVILLE BEAVER | Friday, September 27, 2013 | 28 Jon Kuiperij Sports Editor sports@oakvillebeaver.com Sports "Connected to your Community" A Labour Of Love by Jon Kuiperij Beaver Sports Editor Scott MacArthur eased back in his chair on the outside patio of an Oakville restaurant on a mid-June afternoon. Dark sunglasses masked the eyes of an exhausted man. MacArthur awoke that day in his Toronto condo at 10:30 a.m., got in his car 55 minutes later and drove 40 kilometres southwest to visit family and friends in his hometown. It was MacArthur's first day off work, including travel, in nearly three months. He wasn't scheduled to have another for three weeks. You won't hear him complain. "I was sitting on a patio like this at a coffee shop in San Francisco," the 34-year-old MacArthur said, reflecting on a day he'd spent two weeks earlier. "I'd walked three blocks from my hotel to this coffee shop on a decline of 40 degrees. It was a beautiful day. (TSN Radio afternoon host) Bryan Hayes and I were talking on the phone, and I thought to myself, `I'm sitting in San Francisco, California. I had dinner last night on the wharf.' "(Toronto Star sportswriter) Mark Zwolinski -- he's a great guy -- said on that trip, `Scott, it doesn't pay a million dollars. But it's a million-dollar job.'" Love for baseball runs in the family Three months later, MacArthur sat down to dinner in the Rogers Centre press box. He'd already been at the ballpark for four hours, arriving earlier than usual to record a twominute television hit with Toronto Sun columnist Steve Simmons. Following that, he had visited the office of Toronto Blue Jays manager John Gibbons to glean some information for a column he would write that night on young outfielder Moises Sierra. The work day would likely end around midnight. The Oakville Trafalgar High School graduate Scott MacArthur (centre) interviews Toronto Blue Jays manager John Gibbons during a media scrum last week at Rogers Centre. The 34-year-old MacArthur, a former Oakville Beaver intern, is nearing the end of his first season as Blue Jays beat reporter for TSN. | photo by Riziero Vertolli -- Oakville Beaver -- @Halton_Photog following morning, MacArthur would be catching an early flight to Boston for the Jays' weekend series with the Red Sox. Sunday marks the finish line of a long 162-game season, MacArthur's first as TSN's field reporter for everything Blue Jays. He's seen every inning of the Jays' moribund campaign, tweeted about every big play and development, posted nearly 200 articles to his blog, been interviewed a countless number of times by various radio stations across the country and filed occasional reports for TSN television broadcasts. It's a grind, the Oakville Trafalgar High School graduate admitted. But more than that, it's a labour of love. Baseball has long been the family game of the MacArthurs. Scott's father, Jamie, was once an executive vice-president of the SkyDome Corporation. Summer evenings and weekends were commonly consumed by Scott and brother Drew's involvement in the Oakville A's rep baseball program. Scott was also an assistant coach of Drew's team for a couple seasons, and he umpired through his teenage years. And whenever Scott, Drew, mother Terry and Jamie did manage to get away for a vacation, seeing a ballgame in other cities like Chicago, Atlanta and Baltimore was often at the center of the plans. "When you rank your favourite sports, often times it has to do with what season you're in or how your favourite team is doing," MacArthur said. see Broadcaster on p.29 AVIGAYIL CASHED IN $1,384 FROM HER CLOSET! #EXCITED www.TrendTrunk.com Cash in your closet today at TrendTrunk.com