So Complicated: My Encounter with Avril Lavigne

I mentioned in my latest Bleacher Report article that I’d met Avril Lavigne. It’s true, I did, and it was one of the most awkward, ridiculous, stereotypical celebrity encounters of my life.

What happened was, I was with the Blue Jays in 2009, shagging balls in the outfield of the Rogers Centre during batting practice. Brandon League, who is one of the most I’ll try anything once guys I’ve ever met, a real trend setting hip cat with a cornucopia of tattoos to match, is playing catch with Avril in left field. Not surprising he’d be the guy, since, of all the Jays, he was the most Skater Boy of us.

I’m thinking. “Oh, this is cool. You get enough time in the show and you can play catch with pop-stars. I mean, I hate her music, but, still, how cool is it to say that you played catch with a pop-star? Totes bragging rights.”

In between batted balls, I keep gawking over at the pair because Brandon throws 96 mph and wild as !@#$ with all sorts of nasty movement. Hell, I wouldn’t even play catch with him. But, for Avril he’s really toning it down, which is just so darn cute that Avril’s publicist/agent/orbiting handler is eating up, cooing over the event like a grandmother would a baby video.

Meanwhile, Avril looks very, uh, not like she does in her videos and yet, she also kind of does. I guess what I mean to say is, she was wearing one of those long sleeve undershirts with holes cut into the wrists under a Jays jersey (standard for this type of thing), and she had streaks in her hair and a lot of make up on. But not like model-esque-airbrushed celeb at public outing makeup—caked on, like you would if you were in still high school, with acne, thinking “more is better.” I don’t mean to sound like a jerk here (that comes later). Pop-stars are up against a hell of a lot and I get that, but she looked grungy. Not manicured grunge, but burnout grunge, like she just woke up off the couch, grunge.

“Wow, she’s really into this look.” I think. “I respect the commitment.”

After they pair play catch for a while, ugly catch, like bad first pitch on a loop catch, Avril thanks Brandon and walks down the left field line, into the Blue Jays dugout, and plops on the bench. When batting practice ends, I jog off the field and into the dugout enroute to the hall that leads back into the underworking’s of the dome and the Jays locker room. But Avril is there, sitting on the jay’s bench, so, of course I slow down to take a closer look.

I guess I must have looked longer than normal. I will confess that baseball players try not to stare at celebs because we like to consider ourselves celebs and celebs aren’t supposed to stare at other celebs because that is sooo unceleb like. But I’m a fresh face big leaguer at the time, so a celeb in the wild, even one I’m not into, is still pretty cool. Unfortunately my gawking prompts Avril’s mother hen of a handler to say, “oh, hi, would you like to meet Avril?”

Now, I can’t say No, not really because it would be rude and mean. Yet, meeting Avril Lavigne feels like I’m, in some way, endorsing her. It also feels like a consolation prize because of all the celebs that show up around the Jays that I’d actually like to meet, she’s not on the list. For example, Geddy Lee—who Dave Bidini swears is a fan of my books— I’ve never met him! He’s a regular at the park and yet, not during my playing or broadcasting days have we crossed paths. That pisses me off something fierce. Then, that same year, U2 comes to Toronto to play a concert at the Rogers Centre—They took over our entire locker room to be their private backstage area and we didn’t get to meet them either! I love u2. What the hell, Blue Jays?!

But hey, here is Avril—the next best thing to Bono and the man who gave us Working Man.

“Of course I’d like to meet Avril.” I say, smiling to the handler and walking across the dugout to Avril, sitting on the manager’s area of the bench.

Avril is not there. I mean, she’s physically there, but, beyond that, the space is unoccupied. She sticks out her shirt-glove hand and shakes mine with all the firmness of a cotton candy.

“Hi, I’m Dirk, nice to meet you.” I Say.

“Hey Brandon.” Is her response…. I shit you not.

Now, at the time, I did look, kind, sorta, if you were upside down and recovering from a concussion, like Brandon League. We are both tall and we both had long hair. I ended up cutting my hair after that—not because I was so offended someone thought I looked like Brandon League—but because then Jays third base coach Brian Butterfield used to call me all kinds of names for it. But, if you’d just played catch with and shook the hand of the real Brandon League, how on earth could you not recall A) him, B) that you’d met him, C) what he looked like?

“Oh,” I say, “Oh, no. My name is Dirk. Dirk Hayhurst.”

“Oh.” Says Avril. She looks very confused by this.

Very confused.

So confused she just stares at me, saying nothing.

“Don’t worry about it.” I say into the vacuum of her dull-faced stare, “I’m sure you’ve met a lot of people and players, and it must be tough to keep track of them all.”

She nods her head slowly. “Yeah.”

More awkward silence.
I started wondering if there was something wrong with me, or if she was just screwing with me? I looked to the handler—beaming like flood lamp. I looked back to Avril—crickets.

“Okay” I say, “well, nice meeting you. I love your music,”—Oh, gawd no, did I really just say that? Oh, she just… oh…Dirk, you idiot! — “ take care.” I smile sincerely.

I go to walk away and, from behind I hear, and I will never forget this: “Bye, Brandon.”

Back in the locker room, I’m gob smacked. I walk over to Frasor’s locker, then grab a nearby Brandon League.

“Stand next to me, Leaguer.” Brandon obliges. “Fraz, Do I look anything like him.” Brandon is confused, I’m overly intense. Frasor looks us both up and down.

“No chance,” says Frasor, “you’re way uglier.”

—

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