One step at a time

As far as first dates go, Monday night's rendezvous between the Toronto Blue Jays and a handful of prominent bloggers at the team's annual State of the Franchise address was a successful one.

And although both parties are curious to see where their relationship might lead, they won't be jumping into the hot tub together any time soon.

Still, the decision by the team to not only invite 10 of them to Monday's event -- but grant them access to club executives as well -- suggests that after years of playing hard-to-get, the Blue Jays have perhaps now become the pursuer.

"The world has changed and so too has the way people consume information," said Blue Jays vice-president of business operations, Dr. Stephen Brooks, the man behind the initiative. "It's important for us to be respectful of that and these people write about the Blue Jays, so we felt they should be there to help tell the story, good or bad."

In the eyes of one of the bloggers invited to attend, Monday represented a welcome shift in attitude after years of feeling perceived as nothing more than web-based muckrakers.

"It sounds like to me they don't think we're the enemy anymore, which is nice," said Tom Dakres (@bluebirdbanter), a writer for Bluebird Banter. "I sometimes had the feeling that they hoped we'd go away. They weren't really responsive to requests."

Darkes, an Edmonton native now residing in Calgary, was unable to attend on Monday but is hopeful it means more opportunities to speak directly with the team are forthcoming.

"I'd just like a little more access, that'd be nice," he explained, adding he'd like the opportunity to participate in conference calls for the media. "I know they've got to balance what they give me with what the mainstream media wants, so I understand that. But I'd like a little more."

The Blue Jays say better communication with the blogosphere is the goal, they're just not sure yet what that will involve.

"It's unchartered territory in a lot of ways," said Brooks. "It's just something that we have to manage as we go. I'm sure there will be some events when it's not appropriate (to invite bloggers) and credentialed media are really the ones that should be there.

"But as we go forward on a case-by-case basis and the nature of the event, we'll make those invites as we think they're warranted."

The Blue Jays say they haven't contemplated fully accrediting bloggers for the 2012 season, but they are also not ruling out doing so in the future.

And while greater access to players and staff might be the goal of some bloggers, others believe maintaining a healthy distance between them and the ballclub is essential to their work.

"If the prospect comes up of being down at the Dome, it's not something that I personally am going to jump at the chance to do," said Andrew Stoeten (@andrewstoeten), author of Drunk Jays Fans

As one of the few who have managed to successfully parlay their Blue Jays blog into a paying gig -- Stoeten is now a full-time employee at The Score -- he could probably get credentials through his network, but as he articulated in a recent post, access might actually work against bloggers in some cases.

"It's an old blogger's saw that part of the reason our medium was able to take hold as it did is because we offered an unvarnished opinion on the clubs we followed, without being clouded by the privilege of access or the necessity of maintaining professional relationships with players and club officials."

But to each his own, he told sportsnet.ca earlier this week.

"Some are looking at (their blog) as a means to a career, or to be part of the club that does that. To me it's more of a symbiotic relationship: we're doing things that the mainstream guys can't do sometimes and they're doing things that we can't do.

"It's an interesting relationship, but we're not one and the same, the bloggers and the mainstream guys. So I don't know about trying to break down that barrier and trying to be the same as them."

If there's one thing the Blue Jays, the bloggers and the mainstream media appear to be in agreement on, however, was the role the blogosphere played in creating hype surrounding the Blue Jays's new uniforms.

"Quite frankly, we did some things as a club that were geared towards creating some buzz," admitted Brooks. "We did a teaser video around the logo that was very purposefully done to a take on a life of its own around social media."