Results tagged “baseball”

In 1993, CPG (Community Programs Group) began publishing The New Jr. Jays Magazine, an eclectic mix of baseball, sci-fi, health and safety tips, and overt product placement. The magazine was designed to develop the Jays’ younger fan base, and featured comics, baseball articles, interviews with fans and players, and movie, book, and video game reviews. For only five dollars a year, Jr. Jays club members received four issues, a personalized membership card, and several Topps baseball cards. In the words of Ed Conroy, the publisher of The Magazine, a monthly magazine for kids, and a former Jr. Jays writer, "You couldn’t make something like this today."

While Blue Jays fans may bemoan the disappointments of the past season, at least this year’s squad didn’t stink as badly as their predecessors thirty years ago. The 1979 edition of the bluebirds was the worst in team history, with a record of fifty-three wins and one-hundred-and-nine losses. Chances were good that the shirt modelled by outfielder Rick Bosetti could have performed better on the field than most of that year's lineup.

You gotta credit the Toronto Blue Jays: for once, they're actually treating their fans to a meaningful September.

In retrospect, the post-mortems could’ve been written back in May.

Vernon Wells is struggling. Everyone knows it, not least of all Wells himself. His body language is practically crying out, “Yeah, I know I’ve been sucking all year; I really am trying, though!” His face is screwed into an almost permanent grimace of frustration. Predictably, he’s begun squeezing at the plate—yet by trying so hard to bust out of his season-long slump he’s actually made it worse.

Alex Rios, ostensibly an integral part of the Toronto Blue Jays' future, is a Blue Jay no longer: Rios joined the Chicago White Sox this evening in exchange for...absolutely nothing, since the Blue Jays had put Rios on waivers late last week. Teams do this all the time, but it seldom leads to anything; apparently Chicago figures it's worth gambling on Rios's contract. Let us be the first to applaud this move if the money the Blue Jays are saving is reinvested back into the team. They're clearly in salary-dumping mode: since early July they've sent Rios, Scott Rolen, and B.J. Ryan packing, moves which suggest the necessity of freeing up payroll for next season. And Rios hasn't looked the same since he broke out in 2006; he might become a decent player, but it's looking less and less likely he'll develop into the franchise-calibre player Toronto expected him to become. Thanks for the memories, Alex, but we think your departure will actually make the Blue Jays better. Eventually.

We Torontonians like to complain how the Blue Jays and other Canuck franchises never seem to get their due from the Americans, so it’s nice to know that The Onion, the continent's most venerable fake news source, is paying attention.

It’s hard to believe, but tonight could be Roy Halladay’s last start as a Toronto Blue Jay. With the news that Halladay will file for free agency following the 2010 season, the Blue Jays are said to be weighing upwards of six serious trade offers for their franchise player; the leading contenders appear to be the Philadelphia Phillies, where Halladay would join a rotation that includes Cole Hamels and recently signed Pedro Martinez. The potential trade is big news south of the border; in Toronto, meanwhile, it’s given Richard Griffin yet another excuse to continue his bizarre, unilateral war with general manager J.P. Ricciardi. As for Halladay, he’s one of the greatest athletes ever to play in Toronto, and while other superstars have burned their bridges before leaving (we're looking at you, Vince Carter), there seems to be a sense that Halladay's earned the chance to play for a contender. Tonight versus Tampa, he’s still ours—maybe for one last time.

We won’t pronounce the 2009 Toronto Blue Jays dead…yet. But if the team’s going to accomplish anything this season—and even if they aren’t—then this is going to be a big week.

Each week, Torontoist examines the upcoming TV listings and makes note of programs that are entertaining, informative, and of quality. Or, alternately, none of those. The result: Televisualist.

Well, well, well: less than twenty-four hours after saying they'd listen to trade offers for Roy Halladay, the Toronto Blue Jays have given reliever (and former big-money free agent acquisition) B.J. Ryan his unconditional release. The news comes as a shock, even though Ryan hasn't been nearly the same pitcher since he underwent Tommy John surgery in 2007; it's certainly odd from a financial standpoint, since the team still owes him upwards of fifteen million dollars. With Ryan gone, Scott Downs seems poised to become the Blue Jays' everyday closer. Whether the team will create an entrance for him that rivals Ryan's electrifying charge from the bullpen remains to be seen.

There are times when the Major League Baseball season is an interminable slog. This is one of those times.

The 1982 Grey Cup game was not a pleasurable one for Toronto football fans. The major disappointment was not that the Argonauts fell apart in the second half and lost to the Edmonton Eskimos 32 to 16—it was the bone-chilling, rainy weather. Downpours caused fans in fully exposed sections of Exhibition Stadium to risk injury in order to find shelter. Among the fifty-five thousand people in the stands observing the miserable experience were Metropolitan Toronto Chairman Paul Godfrey and Ontario Premier William Davis. As the Globe and Mail observed, as Godfrey "surveyed the scene from his dry seat in Section 42 at the 55-yard line, the falling rain brought a twinkle to his eye. There must have been visions of a domed stadium dancing in his head.” While Davis sighed that the Argonauts "played well," Godfrey told a Star reporter that “if you ever needed proof of the need for a domed stadium, this is your day.”

It was twenty years and one week ago today that the Toronto Blue Jays played their first-ever game at the stadium formerly known as SkyDome. They lost 5-3 to the Milwaukee Brewers; Paul Molitor, who’d be the Jays’ World Series MVP four years later, got the first-ever hit at the new ballpark.

A spring weeknight. A fan planning to go to that night's Blue Jays game flips on the radio to check on the traffic heading to the ballpark.

It’s still too early to panic.

Losing streaks happen in baseball. As fans, we tend to overreact when they do—but the reality is, during the course of a 162-game schedule, there’ll be times when our team falls into a slump. That’s what’s happening to the Toronto Blue Jays right now: after sweeping the Chicago White Sox out of Toronto, they went to Boston and were promptly swept by the Red Sox. Yesterday, despite yet another pitching gem from Roy Halladay, they lost 1-0 to the Atlanta Braves; it was the first time all year the Blue Jays had been shut out. Should we read too much into this four-game losing streak? In a word, no. The Jays are still leading the American League East, and outsiders are starting to clue in that the team might just be for real. Today, meanwhile, they welcome Casey Janssen back to the mound for the first time in over a year. There's a long way to go, still a lot of baseball yet to be played, but that's just another reason to put the team's current skid into context.

The Toronto Blue Jays responded to their first series loss of the year by sweeping the Baltimore Orioles—their first sweep of the young 2009 baseball season. Richard Griffin sounded a note of caution prior to the series beginning, arguing that this year’s team more closely resembles the disappointing 2001 Blue Jays than the 1992/93 World Series champs, but it’s worth noting that the Jays—arguably the fourth-best team in their division—are the winningest team in Major League Baseball since Cito Gaston took over last June. Need further evidence that the tides might be beginning to change? Today, a Toronto sports reporter praised general manager J.P. Ricciardi. Between that and the sweep of the Orioles, the feel-good vibes of April may yet spill over into the next month.

When Jack Kent Cooke bought the Toronto Maple Leafs on July 4, 1951, the effervescent entrepreneur explained his intentions for the International League baseball franchise that had been losing games and fans for years. Cooke promised a return to winning ways to regain fans, but more importantly he promised entertainment. Under his guidance, fans would get their money's worth at each and every game.

Disclaimer: it's April 21. The Major League Baseball season is barely two weeks old; the Toronto Blue Jays have played less than 10% of their 2009 schedule. It's still way too early to be getting too far ahead of ourselves.

The Toronto Blue Jays are on pace for a 121-win season. This likely won’t happen—PECOTA’s projected seventy-three wins seems much more reasonable—but that shouldn’t take the gloss off of a series win over the Detroit Tigers which featured a blowout, a stirring comeback, and an impressive major league debut by Ricky Romero. (It’s hardly worth mentioning that they’re atop the American League East but...well, it’s still nice to see.) Crucially, each of the victories followed strong pitching performances. We’re still keeping our expectations in check, but we’re also a little tired of hearing “experts” predicting certain doom for our favourite baseball team (Sports Illustrated, for instance, has them finishing behind the Baltimore Orioles, which would be a disaster). Given that, we’re looking forward to the Jays proving the experts at least a little bit wrong this year. They’ll resume that quest this weekend in Cleveland with a three-game series against the Indians.

"Belt it" was a concept the Ontario government and Blue Jays slugger Rico Carty were well acquainted with as the 1979 baseball season dawned. Too bad the rest of the Blue Jays played like careless drivers during that season's opening game in Kansas City. Where the 2009 squad steamrolled over the Detroit Tigers last night, the 1979 team was like a deer caught in the headlights.

Opening Day is cause for celebration; it's a blank slate and a fresh beginning, the one day on the Major League Baseball calendar when everybody's on the level and when anything seems possible. And while it's likely to be a long year for Toronto baseball fans, that won't diminish the sense of occasion inside Rogers Centre tomorrow evening.

Pay no attention to Dunedin: the baseball gods delivered half-decent diamond action to the Rogers Centre this past weekend in the form of the World Baseball Classic. Designed to make up for baseball’s cut from future summer Olympic Games, the Classic staged its first few games in various cities around the world, and the first North American battle pitted Canada against the U.S. on Saturday afternoon. Judging by the over forty-two thousand fans who attended, Toronto’s sports lovers were more than happy to watch something other than the ailing Raptors and Leafs.

A.J. Burnett, last seen pitching for your Toronto Blue Jays, is now a New York Yankee. He and the team reached a preliminary agreement on a five-year, $82.5 million contract yesterday; in doing so, Burnett became Public Enemy #1 to Toronto baseball fans for the foreseeable future.

Fall is in the air in Toronto—and for our local sports teams, that means two things. One, just as it has for the past fifteen years, it means a premature ending to the Toronto Blue Jays’ season. Two, it marks the beginning of the Toronto Maple Leafs’ latest efforts at breaking what’s turning into a forty-one year-long hex.

The winning streak was certainly fun while it lasted. Steve Phillips of ESPN warned against getting too worked up over a late-season surge like Toronto’s—but then pointed out that the Jays weren't exactly beating up on bad teams. On the contrary, their ten-game winning streak encompassed two division leaders, a second-place team, and the always-dangerous New York Yankees. What’s more, the Blue Jays weren’t just winning: they were crushing teams. Their hitting, dormant for so much of the year, came alive; their pitching, which has been outstanding since Day One, was its usual excellent self. Things were going so well the team was actually rallying to win games, something they’ve been remarkably poor at doing this year. The stirring 7-4 win against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, which culminated in a Gregg Zaun walk-off grand slam, would never have happened earlier this season. (Either J.P. Ricciardi isn't completely clueless or Cito Gaston is a god; we leave it to you to decide.)

The guys at Drunk Jays Fans, one of the city's better sports blogs, are kick-starting a grassroots campaign to have former Blue Jays play-by-play man Tom Cheek awarded the Ford C. Frick Award. The award, which is given annually by the Baseball Hall of Fame for "career excellence in baseball broadcasting," is the equivalent of being inducted into Cooperstown. Throughout September, fans can pick their top three broadcasters from a huge list of nominees, and the top vote-getter will be included on the final ballot voted on by the Hall of Fame selection committee.