The Toronto Blue Jays continue to flirt with the .500 mark through the first two weeks of the regular season. And this is without having played any games against the three big dogs in the AL East. So, can all the moronic fans predicting an asinine 90 plus wins for this team please cool their jets.
If Toronto can stay within spitting distance of mediocrity until the first day of summer, then this 15th consecutive year of rebuilding should be deemed a success.
The big issue that has gotten a lot of traction over the past week has been the pitiful attendance number for the Jays’ first homestand of the season (save for the Home Opener when the Rogers Centre was filled with drunken hooligans like CSzem).
While I do think it’s a disturbing trend that the team is struggling to draw five figures in a building designed for 50,000, the situation isn’t nearly as bad as some media outlets would have you believe.
I don’t even want to address the idiocy of the comments made by that hack White Sox columnist and the reprehensible Alex Rios that there are no baseball fans in this country, baseball is dead in Canada, and the team should be moved to the United States.
Wasting my time writing about such ill-informed trash would be hazardous to my health.
The dearth of fans attending Blue Jays games this season has nothing to do with ‘the death of baseball’ in this country. It has everything to do with people not wanting to spend their hard-earned money on such a lacklustre product.
Canadian baseball fans are much smarter than Canadian hockey fans. How else can you explain the Air Canada Centre being filled to capacity for every single Leafs game when the team hasn’t been relevant in almost a decade?
Baseball fans will show up to the Rogers Centre when there is a good product on the field and there’s a legitimate possibility that the Jays will fight for a playoff spot. Also, every year the first couple of homestands draw horrible crowds. Why? There are a myriad of reasons.
I like baseball just as much as the next person, but if I’m going to spend three hours of my day at the stadium, then I need a couple of assurances: a hot sun, cold beer, and the opportunity to take my shirt off. They won’t open the roof consistently for another few weeks; once the warm weather is here to stay, the crowds will begin to increase. It’s a great afternoon activity for the whole family.
The team traded the best player in franchise history in the offseason. We will get over the departure of Roy Halladay, but it’s going to take some time. Also, the fact he might not lose a start the entire season isn’t exactly speeding up the healing process.
With 81 home games, baseball is a different animal than hockey or basketball. There is ample opportunity throughout the summer to see the team play. With hockey and basketball, you need to be proactive in obtaining tickets, but you can go to a baseball game pretty much any day or time you want.
At the end of the year, the team will still average 20,000-25,000 fans as they have for the last few years.
A memo to the Blue Jays brain trust: put a competitive product on the field and people will come. Oh, they will most definitely come.
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