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OT: MLB Thread

xposbrad said:
Especially if they are in the AL EAST, it might be your great great great grandkids that will be celebrating. Boston,TOR,NY will all have payrolls double what the expos will be able to put out.
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The Kansas City Royals went to game 7 of the World Series last year and are a playoff team this year. I'm pretty sure that a new franchise in Montreal could spend at least as much as they do on payroll. The Tampa Rays did pretty well the last few years in the AL East. The Pirates are a good team that doesn't spend a ton. It is possible to field a winning team without spending an astronomical sum of money to do it. You just need to be a well-run organization, have good scouts and good development. Plenty of rich teams with big payrolls but without those other elements fail year after year, like the Cubs.
 
TheCountofMonteCristo said:
I hate being told I am unpatriotic for not wanting them to win. Since I hated them on July 1, no reason to change on October 1.
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Contrary to popular belief this Jays run is not that captivating for the rest of the country... at least not yet. Scott Rintoul is a big Jays fan and he is always talking about them for a few minutes on his TSN1040 radio show but everyone that calls in either wants to talk about the Mariners or the Canucks depth chart.

Then when he does get some of his peers in the studio talking baseball they all reminisce about the Expos days when the country really loved a team from out east.

I'm indifferent to them winning since I don't watch MLB anymore. In the end though they are a Toronto team so I hope they fail. The last thing I want is for Rogers to taste some success. Let's go Bell.
 
Matt Sekeres on TSN 1040 is also a Blow Jays honk and accuses anyone who doesn't drink the Blue Jays kool-aid of being unpatriotic. Both he and Rintoul were impressionable youths back in the late 80's-early 90's when the Jays were relevant. My hatred of all things Toronto was by then already honed to a fine edge.

I was listening in the car yesterday and the Moj (who's closer to my age, maybe a year or two older than I) pointed out the difference. Back in the day when the Expos were the only team in the country, he became an Expos fan. But it never bothered him that other people were fans of the Dodgers, Yankees or whatever. No one ever told those non-Expos fans that they were being unpatriotic and he never felt obligated to root for the Expos simply because they were the only Canadian MLB team. But this Blue Jays stuff is different. The Toronto media is bashing everyone in the country over the head with the team and the clear message being sent is that not being a Jays fan makes you less Canadian than those who are. It's coercive and people are being made to feel as though rooting for the Jays is some sort of obligation; a litmus test for patriotism.
 
I absolutely can't stand Sekeres so it makes sense he is a Jays fan. I like Scotty (although he is terrible calling the Lions games) but even he must realize his listeners don't have the same desire to talk about a Toronto team in BC.

I know the Moj is a big Expos fan and he would quickly be rooting for them again when they come back.

It is the same argument concerning the Leafs games that are aired out here all the time. TV Execs in Toronto think the whole country wants the Leafs to do well and they show some less than convincing numbers that show people everywhere watch Leafs games but if that is all you show then of course you will add a few viewers here and there but to this day I know no one here that enjoys watching the Leafs. I know a lot of people don't like the Habs either but the hate is stronger for Toronto's team because it is being forced down the viewer's throats here.

It's even funny when the Leafs and Habs met during this year's pre-season. Sportsnet preps the game on SportsCentral talking about the Leafs and mentions at the very end they play the Habs like we are from Florida or something. You are a Canadian network not the Toronto network so how about equally talking about the 2 Canadian teams especially when one of those teams is considered a cup contender and the other is likely chasing the #1 draft pick in 2016.
 
That pre-season game was a Leafs regional broadcast, not a national one. At least the feed I watched online was from Sportsnet Ontario and it said "Leafs Hockey on SN". As such I had no expectation of hearing much about the Habs but I'll bet you couldn't tell the difference between a Leafs' regional telecast and a national one featuring the Leafs.

The reason why more people in BC hate the Leafs than the Habs is because when the Habs come to Vancouver the game starts at 7pm like all the other home games. But when the Leafs come to town the puck drops at 4pm Pacific time so that fans in Toronto can watch at a time that's comfortable for them. The Leafs don't even have to adjust their body clocks to play those games. People see TV networks bending over backwards to accommodate the Leafs and their fans to the point of inconveniencing local Vancouver fans at one of their own home games and they quite rightly get cheesed off about it.

I don't blame them one bit.
 
Lotusland said:
Contrary to popular belief this Jays run is not that captivating for the rest of the country... at least not yet. Scott Rintoul is a big Jays fan and he is always talking about them for a few minutes on his TSN1040 radio show but everyone that calls in either wants to talk about the Mariners or the Canucks depth chart.

Then when he does get some of his peers in the studio talking baseball they all reminisce about the Expos days when the country really loved a team from out east.

I'm indifferent to them winning since I don't watch MLB anymore. In the end though they are a Toronto team so I hope they fail. The last thing I want is for Rogers to taste some success. Let's go Bell.
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Interest throughout the country in the Jays has definitely increased over the last 2 months. No denying that. Just go on Twitter and see the locations of those posting their support. As a life-long Jays fan I am both annoyed by and happy with with the additional support.
 
Sure it has increased but not by how much Torontonians think it has.

Yesterday I saw Sportsnet air a commercial that says all of Canada is watching the Jays, which at one part shows a guy driving a grain combine harvester in Saskatchewan with a giant Jays flag flowing in the back. I mean please...

I remember at the start of the season how the Rogers marketing people created a 60-second love-fest video of the Jays trying to demonstrate how much the whole country followed the team and part of it showed the massive crowds in Montreal for the 2 exhibition games as if people went to those games because they love the Jays.

No matter how much Rogers force-feeds Jays action down the viewers throats or spins commercials like a political ad, the hype does not meet the reality.
 
It's not that complicated... it's the middle of July, you come home from work and say f*ck it, I am not cutting the grass tonight. I just want a cold beer and watch some live sports on TV. So you turn the TV on and the only thing on is this baseball team with the eye catching blue jerseys with a red maple leaf . You watch a couple of innings one night, then maybe a couple more the next...and before you know it, you wanna know every night what this team is up to.
 
Does it really bother you guys that much? So many paragraphs on the Jays talking about how little anyone really cares about the Jays...
 
For those of you who have RDS, there is a special on Eric Gagne tonight at 8:00 Eastern. Looks interesting based on the previews.
 
hockeylover said:
Does it really bother you guys that much? So many paragraphs on the Jays talking about how little anyone really cares about the Jays...
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What bothers us is not caring about the Jays but being unable to turn on our TV's, radios or internet without being bombarded by them. If i lived in Ontario I still wouldn't like it but I would at least understand it because out there the Jays really are the home team. What I don't understand is why I have to put up with it when my house is (according to Google Maps) some 4,347 kms away from the Rogers Centre.

I know what Toronto fans are like. I used to live there. I moved out of Toronto to get away from those people. I chose Vancouver because it was the furthest major Canadian city away from Toronto and its fans. With that much distance between myself and the teams/fanbases I hate, I shouldn't have to see or hear about them every 5 minutes. But thanks to the so-called "national" media, I have no choice. So yeah, it bothers me.

And it especially bothers me when certain members of the local Vancouver media decides to hitch a ride on the bandwagon. Thankfully they are in the minority. There are other local media types who remember that in 2011 when the Canucks were the only Canadian team in the Stanley Cup finals, Toronto fan was solidly behind the Bruins as they were behind the Rangers in 1994. Toronto expects and demands the loyalty of fans from coast to coast but doesn't feel obligated to return the favour.
 
I wouldn't care if all the Jays talk was on the Leafs board.

I do understand that there are Habs fans who are Jays fans and that is fine but don't be like a HNIC exec and think that means everyone is suddenly a Jays fan because they have made the playoffs. I was at the game in Atlanta the night they won their 1st WS. They beat the Braves which is always good but it didn't make me a Jays fan... and flooding the airwaves today won't do it either. This has been tried and still goes on with the Leafs out here in BC and across the country. It was shameful for a public broadcaster like CBC to always air the Leafs on Saturday nights outside of Ontario when other Canadian teams were also playing and being televised locally by CBC. Spread it around because we don't mind watching the Leafs lose every few weeks but week in and week out gets redundant.
 
WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou said:
The Kansas City Royals went to game 7 of the World Series last year and are a playoff team this year. I'm pretty sure that a new franchise in Montreal could spend at least as much as they do on payroll. The Tampa Rays did pretty well the last few years in the AL East. The Pirates are a good team that doesn't spend a ton. It is possible to field a winning team without spending an astronomical sum of money to do it. You just need to be a well-run organization, have good scouts and good development. Plenty of rich teams with big payrolls but without those other elements fail year after year, like the Cubs.
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I am constantly amazed at how you are a pie in the sky guy re a franchise that never won a damn thing and was lower than .500 the majority of the years it existed given how you rip the Canadiens a new one for losing a preseason game.
 
2 win streaks of 10 games or longer just to get them to the finish line. Every other time a team did that it lost in the World Series. The Jays won't beat the Cardinals, home field advantage or not.
 
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