Let’s get a couple of things straight.
Paul Beeston would not have grown grass at Rogers Centre and Alex Anthopoulos would not have signed David Price and to believe otherwise is to indulge in magical thinking.
But lord, there’s a lot of that going on right now.
It is understandable, to a degree, that following the memorable months of August, September and October, fans of the Toronto Blue Jays, including the many, many thousands who were late arrivals to the party, would want things to stay just exactly the way they were — the trade deadline magic, the unstoppable surge into a playoff spot and right past the Yankees, the “Thank you Alex!” clincher in Baltimore, the comeback against Texas, the bat flip – never get tired of that – and pretty much everything up to the final out in Game 6 against Kansas City.
Let’s do all of that again, with the same guys in the same places, because we all love everyone and they all love us.
The fact that professional sport doesn’t work that way was always going to be problematic. So was the fact that Beeston’s exit as president of the team at season’s end was pre-ordained.
And when Anthopoulos assessed his options and decided that he’d rather not hang around and work for a new boss — even after the owners, albeit belatedly, threw term and money at him in the hopes of keeping his smiling, reassuring presence in front of the fan base — the emotional dynamic got even trickier.
Forget for the moment that precisely a year ago, those same fans were grumbling about the fact that, in the wake of the Marlins trade and the R.A. Dickey deal, Anthopoulos had gone out and signed an expensive free agent catcher and traded for a third baseman because … well, they had those already, didn’t they? What about a “proven closer”? What about an “ace”? How could he be so oblivious to the team’s greater needs?
And Beeston? Well, the Jays hadn’t won a thing since Pat Gillick departed in 1994, and no one held a candlelight vigil for him, though in hindsight perhaps they should have, given how he won at every subsequent stop.
This was about feeling, not thinking. The old guys, by virtue of the timing of their departure, are like rock stars who die prematurely, forever young and beautiful and vital, whose bloated, disinterested middle aged selves will never be seen playing a county fair or a Las Vegas lounge.
And the new guy, whatever he did, was always going to have a tough time fitting in. He looked different, he sounded different, and why did he pronounce his name that way?
What Shapiro has actually done during his short time in Toronto is leave the front office largely intact (surprisingly so, though it’s early days), acknowledge that the Jays weren’t really in the Price sweepstakes (nor was anyone else other than the Red Sox, who offered $37-million more than the next highest bidder), and when asked acknowledge that installing real grass in the dome wasn’t ownership’s highest priority.
Sorry, that’s not arrogance. That’s honesty.
You might wish that the Jays were going to be gifted with a $200-million payroll, but this owner always has and always will run the team as a bottom line business (one that provides a few added benefits, in terms of brand affinity and being a media content factory.) Don’t like that? Blame them, perhaps, but you’ll be blaming them for something that was equally true a year ago or five years ago or 10 years ago.
As for grass, people within the organization have been saying quietly for quite some time that the possibility of it ever being installed was somewhere between a longshot and a pipe dream. The cynical take would be that talking about grass rather than baseball was a great way to distract cranky consumers who until, say, the last week of July 2015, had grown restless and unhappy with the people running the team.
No one knows to this day whether it could work, and if it could how much it would cost. Blame the owners again, if you like, for choosing to spend their money (or not spend their money) on other stadium improvements, but they might point to the full houses that were happy to watch the Jays play on a rug in September and October, and to all of those places where baseball is being contested in pristine settings lousy with photosynthesis, and yet the pleasing aesthetics alone somehow haven’t made the turnstiles spin.
Yes, the bottom-line. Priorities. Hate away.
But the messenger, to this point, hasn’t had a whole lot to do with any of that.
Shapiro must wonder about this strange, angry place, a mere half-day’s drive from the city where he worked his way up to the top of the Cleveland Indians’ organization, where he was widely respected and generally liked.
Honeymoon?
Not even close.
He’s been tripped walking down the aisle.