As a sports fan, nothing is quite as depressing as when your local team publicly concedes that it has no realistic shot at winning before its season even begin. Even when it is true and meant to cushion fans by hedging their expectations, it is still a repugnant maneuver because it violates the basic decree that fan-team relations are built upon: you have got to give them hope.
Sports are a form of entertainment, a means of distraction for the every-man that hates his job and his mortgage payment. He wants to escape to a simpler time and place for a few hours a night and it is the team’s position to provide that. Certainly they should provide it at least before Opening Day.
That is what “There is always next year,” is built upon: the idea that something better lies ahead.
One look at the Rogers Centre in downtown Toronto though shows evidence of a team that is not offering hope, that is not vending optimism.
In fact, it would be hard to even suggest they are selling a pipe dream given their marketing campaign.
For the past several seasons, there have been massive murals that have adorned the side of the Rogers Centre showing the team’s best players in action, doing what they do best: Roy Halladay staring down his next out, Vernon Wells making a diving grab in Centrefield, BJ Ryan’s eyes aflame as he glares at a potential game-winning batter.
These images are massive, standing several dozen stories in height and spanning the width the side of an average building. They are designed to project confidence in the team’s roster, to present its best players as deserving of this sort of idolization.
When several players from last season’s team left via free agency, including AJ Burnett, several of these murals needed to be replaced and updated. Surely the team would sell us images of new deserving stars, new prospects, and give us new figures to trust with out baseball hopes and dreams as Opening Day approaches.
The Jays response: leave one of the spaces for those banners completely bare and decorate the other with the visage of Cito Gaston.
That is what the Blue Jays are selling their fans this year. An empty space on the side of the stadium among their stars and a manager that is known as an awful game foreman.
Gatson’s competency has been completely romanticized and mythologized by a city (and really, a nation) of baseball fans that forget that nearly twenty years ago, he was successful almost in spite of himself and his lack of in-game strategy.
If the Jays want to rely on images from the past, if they want us to recall the glory days of the early 1990s and the back-to-back championship the franchise won (the last major titles won by any team in this hope-starved sports town), they would be better served having images of Joe Carter and Devon White on the side of the stadium. At least this would be directly asking the fans to look to the past. Instead, we are asked to do so indirectly, by staring at the visage of a mediocre coach in a new portrait that disingenuously asks us to look forward to now, to the future.
Having Gaston appear there, as well as in the promotions for season-tickets, and the flyers for single-game seats, and the TV ads for ticket packages (etc, etc, etc,) is an indictment of the franchise’s current state, its plans for the future, and its ability to recognize its past.
At least the empty space beside Gaston’s image, where a mural of AJ Burnett once resided, is clear. It is direct.
We have no hope to sell. We have no optimism to offer. We play the Yankees, Red Sox, and Rays 19 times each. The year is over…only it hasn’t even started yet.
So much for Next Season. Time to put my “Back-to-Back” VHS back on. At least in watching that I won’t be asked to confuse my memories of what was once great with the trainwreck that is yet to come.
#1 by Samuel Cassady on April 3rd, 2009
Excellent article, and I particularly liked to acknowledgment of those damn murals that, you’re right, just seem to spew blind worship. I almost feel bad for those little kids walking around, proudly wearing their Jays caps and wanting to be like Vernon Wells (joking…not even the ignorant little kids actually want to be like Vernon Wells.)
But about the Cito predicting failure, well, I’ve come to appreciate this statement. It’s honest. And, if we’re expecting the team to lose, when the Jays actually do pick up the odd win the fans are going to automatically sprout playoff possibilities… without ‘the season’ campaign adds blaring in their ears.
I also like how you noted Cito, Cito representing a part of Jays past when the team was competitive. This year, it’s all about losing with style, grit, and a pathetic blue collar.
#2 by Blake Murphy on April 3rd, 2009
all i have to say – http://toronto.bluejays.mlb.com/tor/ticketing/back2back.jsp
#3 by Samuel on April 3rd, 2009
Wow.
#4 by AJ on April 3rd, 2009
But what about the new elecronic billboard? It’s so bright and shiny that it keeps me up at night! Is it an LCD? The cash the org dropped on that probably could have been better spent on a middle reliever or a utility man, no?
#5 by Tieja on April 5th, 2009
Nice article.
I had no idea about the banners, that is pretty shameful. Although, I can’t altogether be upset about it, because Toronto can’t keep naming poster boys if their future in the city is uncertain.
But what is this about the electronic billboard though; how does that stand up to the missing images?
And as for Cito, I understand the nostalgic quality behind that. But, all in all, a stupid move giving him a billboard.
#6 by Trev on April 6th, 2009
I do so love the reality that its Opening Day and it is snowing throughout our fair city. Nothing screams baseball season like a nice dusting…I suppose it sticks with the Jays tradition from their inaugural season though.
Concerning the billboard, my best guess is that Rogers’ hand was forced when MLSE upgraded the scoreboard inside the ACC last fall. Given that that screen was less than 10 years old, compared to the decades old one outside the Dome, it would be pretty pathetic if the Jays hadn’t followed suit. Being that I live in the condo building right beside the screen, I too can attest to its insansity-inducing brightness at night, and would be shocked if there haven’t already been complaints.
Cue Rick Pitino rant: “Joe Carter isn’t walking through that door, George Bell isn’t walking through that door…”