Take off to the great white north...

                                            It was October 23rd, 1993; my band The Keep were playing a show at T.T. the Bears in Cambridge Ma., opening for some band called, "Ghost of an American airman"...they were signed to Elektra records, apparently.  This date is significant for two reasons: 1) It was my friend Jesse's last show with us after 2/12 years, and 2) It was the last time the Toronto Blue Jays came close to greatness...We all know about the Joe Carter home run off of the Phillie's Mitch "Wild thing" Williams (and the announcer yelling "Touch 'em all Joe, you'll never hit a bigger home run in your life" ), especially if you watch MLB network too much like I do.  I saw the aforementioned shot in the club's bar before we went on, although my friend Alex kept telling people it was George Bell who hit it (He had left the Jays years before), and I had to keep correcting him.



                      Toronto got to where they were in the early '90s by trades and free agent signings...they traded Tony Fernandez and Fred McGriff to the Padres for Carter and future hall of famer Roberto Alomar... picked up center fielder Devon White from the Angels, signed free agent Paul Molitor (another future hall of famer), Dave Winfield (see Molitor), and got veteran hurlers with playoff experience like David Cone, Dave Stewart and Jack Morris.  These players, along with homegrown talent like John Olerud and Tony Fernandez (who came back after his brief stint with San Diego), were easily the best team in baseball, and won back to back World series titles in 1992 and 1993.  They looked formidable for years to come...and then, the strike happened.



               The 1994 strike almost completely killed MLB baseball in Canada; in fact, it pretty much sealed the fate of the NL's Canadian team, the Montreal Expos.  Montreal had the best record in baseball in '94 with a 70-40 record when the strike happened, and were drawing record crowds to Olympic Stadium.  After play resumed, they never could get the fans back;  revenue diminished greatly, and  they lost their T.V. contract. A few years later, they were reduced to playing a portion of their "home games" in Puerto Rico ...eventually of course, they moved the franchise to Washington. 



                The Blue Jays were also drawing record crowds in the early '90s. After the strike, they fielded some pretty good teams, and had such star players as Carlos Delgado and Pat Hentgen; but they couldn't keep up with the free spending Yankees and Red Sox.  When the cash poor Rays started competing a couple of years ago, and the Orioles decided to become a viable team again, the Blue Jays organization figured enough was enough, and decided to spend.  Of course, if you're going to gut another team, who better to start with than the train wreck known as the Florida Marlins...



               At the beginning of the 2012 season, Florida decided to first, change their name to the Miamim Marlins, which included a cap and uniform change.  This resulted in the UGLIEST uniforms since the heyday of the '70s and '80s Astros . They hired the most volatile manager in baseball in Ozzie Guillen, who probably misses Chicago more than anything now... Then they starting spending all the money they got from their new stadium on free agents like Jose Reyes, Mark Buerle, Heath Bell and so on...of course, those first two players are on the Jays now, along with another quality arm from Miami in Josh Johnson...Toronto didn't stop there though, deciding to pilfer from another wounded organization, the New York Mets...the Mets had been hurting for years, ever since the Madoff situation financially wounded the team.  No one thought R.A. Dickey would win the CY Young last year, but who would have thought that after he did, the Mets would TRADE him...

                  So, as it stands, the Blue Jays are looking pretty scary, at least on paper. It's still the American league east,  so even though New York didn't make many moves, and the Rays lost some players, and the Orioles could be a fluke, and the Sox made some weird -ass moves, there are no guarantees.  Every one's picking them to at least win the East, thinking that maybe Detroit is still the team to beat in the AL ( I agree), but, if anything, it shows the Jay's fans that they're going for it...it's like the ealy '90s all over again...now where's my cassette of Nirvana's "Nevermind" ...