Entering the season, the Blue Jays knew they would have a hard time drawing fans in the middle of a recession. But this?
You had to know that this was coming. In what amounted to a perfect storm the final two games of the Blue Jays homestand against the Minnesota Twins were attended by the two smallest baseball crowds in the 20 years of the Skydome/Rogers Centre.
I say a perfect storm because, traditionally, the games following Labour Day, with the kids having returned to school and summer vacations now just pictures in a photo album, have always seen attendance dip.
Just not like this.
And with the Blue Jays playing some of their worst, most uninspired ball since the mid ‘90s, people aren’t willing to spend one dime to come to the park and pay for over-priced parking, souvenirs and concessions.
So the fringe fans are now staying away, taking a wait-and-see attitude towards this team. I still see the same core fans on a daily basis: the lady with the clock for a hat, the humpty-dumpty guy who says hi to everyone with an annoying voice, the green flies. But for the casual fan, this is an indictment of a floundering franchise, still without a permanent president/CEO, what appears to be a lame-duck general manager and an ownership group that appears disinterested in doing what it takes, financially, to right the ship.
As it stands right now, the franchise will continue to be directionless until Paul Beeston finally picks his successor at the top and then the dominoes will fall in order after that. J.P. Ricciardi’s future which is tied directly to Roy Halladay’s future – both of their contracts expire after 2010 – will, hopefully, be dealt with as soon as possible so that plans for next season can start being drawn up.
What all this has done is create the first ‘Chicken Little’ syndrome in franchise history. Callers into the post-game show on the Fan590 in Toronto are starting to believe that the Blue Jays, if this mess doesn’t get cleaned up pronto, are going to go the way of the Montreal Expos and leave.
That’s a little extreme, don’t you think?
In the Expos final season, their average attendance was 9,356 for an embarrassingly low season total of 748,550. Ten years after their 1994 run towards the World Series was snuffed by a player’s strike, Expos fans had enough and left the team to die on the vine. This situation surrounding the Blue Jays isn’t even close to being that dire.
Sure attendance has dipped this season by over 6,000 per game but that’s a combination of the team playing poorly and the fact that the recession has taken a lot of money out of people’s pockets. I’d be more worried if the TV ratings dipped on par with the stadium attendance but that’s not the case. The interest is still there, people just aren’t willing – or have the money – to pay to watch in person. It’s unfortunate, but it’s true.
A lot has to change before the sceptical public returns. They might want to start by changing the murals that adorn the outside of Rogers Centre, three of which – B.J. Ryan, Scott Rolen and Alex Rios – haven’t played with the Jays in over a month. Appearance is everything, you know?
SHAME ON THE SCHEDULE MAKER
As I’ve said in previous columns, I’m no fan of the current unbalanced schedule which is inherently unfair, especially to those teams in the Wild Card who don’t play the same number of games against common opponents.
But what it really sticks in my craw is that the Blue Jays and their closest geographical rival, the Detroit Tigers, only play two series a season. In fact, these two teams opened the season against each other at Rogers Centre and now face each other for the first time in 155 days. And remember, not only are the two teams just separated by 331 km but they were intense rivals from the Blue Jays expansion season of 1977 through the re-aligning of the divisions in 1998 when Detroit was transferred to the A.L. Central. Apparently, it’s more important to commissioner Bud Selig that the Yankees and Red Sox play each other on Fox or ESPN every other week than to have a level playing field for all teams.
TIME TO LIGHTEN UP
Not sure if you saw the highlight last weekend of Prince Fielder’s walk-off home run on Sunday against the Giants, but for the first time in my memory choreography came to the big leagues.
When Fielder reached home plate, he jumped hard on it and his teammates fell away like bowling pins.
It was a fun moment.
But since then, some of his contemporaries have had sharp words for Fielder and have hinted that there might be retribution in the future. It was fun moment with no disrespect to the opposition. For Torii Hunter to say that "if someone did that to us...he’d get crushed and we’d try to fight him," is what is unacceptable.
On the long list of things that should be debated – drug use, Pete Rose, pitchers throwing at hitters’ heads – this isn’t even on the list. What was meant as fun once again gets twisted around. Manny Ramirez gets caught taking illegal drugs and gets welcomed back like a rock star is more offensive than anything that Fielder did.
