Bruce Dowbiggin is unusually suspect

There's a line we've always loved in the Gandharvas song "Downtime": "Some just want to smear themselves across something beautiful".

It's the first thing that ran through our head as we read Bruce Dowbiggin's column this morning in the Globe and Mail. Because when something kinda marvelous happens, apparently, the best way to react to it is to slap heaping globs of your grumpy old man goo all over it, lest someone enjoy the moment.

Dowbiggin's kinda pissed us off in recent months because of just how ill-suited he seems to be for the media critic role at the Globe. Stepping into the space that William Houston made a consistent must-read, he's done precious little reportage, while generally falling back on a grumpy old white dude routine, asserting that things were all so much better before when stuff was simpler, and we had two channels and a radio station and papers came out in the morning, and we were all happy to just sit and wait for our news and listen to very few authoritative voices. It was all so much better then.

Sorry, we just got a little weepy for a second. Or those tears might be as a result of our gag reflex.

Okay, let's not delay this any further, you guarana-addled, short-attention-span Twitter-gossip-porn-addicts. Walk with us, won't you, as we examine the turd-tacular brilliance that is Dowbiggin.

Halladay’s gem just what baseball ordered

Not "what the Doctor ordered"? Such restraint from the headline writer. How dignified.

Roy Halladay’s historic no-hitter was just the Doctor that baseball ordered.

HEYO! DOWBOY IN THE HOUSE!

Certainly the sport needed the jumper cables of Halladay’s gem...

Gems and jumper cables. We never tire of Dowbiggin's ability to mix metaphors.

...after another season of declining youth interest.

Ohh! Declining youth interest! Surely, there must be a number that Bruce will quote forthwith to validate such a statement.

TV ratings are stagnant, baseball’s stars don’t transcend the TMZ culture, and the taint of performance-enhancing drugs has left its image tarnished. Fairly or not, baseball has become yesterday’s game.

Okay, seriously. What the fuck is this "TMZ culture" that you speak of? TMZ, or Perez or Deadspin or whatever are just websites that some people occasionally breeze past. It's not an all-encompassing way of life or a worldview.

And moreover: How many sports stars actually "transcend" into that strata of household names? As much as we love sports in general and baseball in particular, these interests have always been niche pursuits. Everybody and your auntie knows and loves George Clooney. Not everybody knows or cares who Albert Pujols. Much like I could not care less about Kyle Somebody who's a NASCAR superstar.

Oh, and we're still waiting for some numbers to back this shit up.

Halladay’s gem in a Philadelphia uniform is, in many ways, a metaphor for the demise of Canadian baseball, which peaked with Toronto’s World Series wins in 1992 and 1993.

A metaphor!!?? Perhaps a mixed metaphor? Or just a bad metaphor?

And really: Can we give it a rest about how popular baseball was in 1993? Given the change in the sporting landscape in Toronto and across the country, it's hard to conceive of a return to that level of popularity. So why bemoan it? That was an extraordinary moment, but you wouldn't say that hockey's popularity dropped off significantly last year after the Olympics because 10 million watched the gold medal game, but only 1.5 million tuned in every week to the 7 pm Hockey Night in Canada broadcast, right?

In this nation, baseball has been reduced to a rump of one MLB club and a scattering of homegrown stars such as Joey Votto and Justin Morneau. Its postseason is largely relegated to cable TV.

What in the fuck does this even mean? A rump? TV numbers were up and have been up for the Blue Jays and baseball over the past few years. And cable TV is not a place to which sports are relegated...IT'S WHERE SPORTS LIVES. Baseball is no more "relegated" to cable than Monday Night Football has been relegated.

It’s a big comedown for a sport that defined the United States and Canada of the 1970s to ’90s. Baseball was a trendsetter that grabbed a generation of fans, popularizing fantasy sports via rotisserie baseball. Revolutionary thinkers such as Bill James were precursors to the blogosphere of today. The advent of free agency in baseball freed the stars of all sports to pursue bigger markets. And filmmakers like Ken Burns and Ron Shelton mythologized the sport through films like Bull Durham, and TV documentaries like Burns’s Baseball and music.

Okay, so we see what you've done here: You've exhausted every bit of baseball's history and its pop culture presence over the past 40 years into one heaping, steaming paragraph, perhaps so that we'll see that all was good and happy before, just as you pull the rug out from under us. Give it your best shot!

To a generation of baby boomers, baseball was hipper than thou.

This is possibly the stupidest sentence ever to appear in the Globe and Mail. And they once accepted content from Rebecca Eckler.

First, Brucey, you're misusing the term "hipper than thou". It's a pejorative, and that's clearly not how you're using it here. And secondly, stop reducing shit to the motherfucking baby boomers versus other generations. That is the most tired line of thought perpetrated by LAZY, ARROGANT, SELF-ABSORBED boomers who can't conceive of a world that they don't define and own.

Go to a fucking ballgame, and look at the make up of the crowd, because you'll find that those of my g-g-g-g-generation outnumber the older crowd significantly. And there are kids, and snot nosed teenagers, and 20-something texters, and all sorts of folks. Look beyond the press box, and beyond your own shoes.

But as the postseason started in 2010, MLB seems a shopworn commodity. While its website is respected, MLB’s media profile lags behind the NFL, NCAA and NBA in stickiness with the celebrity generation.

STICKINESS! GLADWELL! BOO-YAH!

Again, this argument is in no way backed up with any numbers. And "media profile" seems to be a clever way for Dowbiggin to hide behind vague terms in order to build his straw man argument.


Televised baseball has produced no media stars since Bob Costas and Pete Gammons.

This all depends on how you define "star", because frankly, we put a whole host of names into that realm. Jon Miller, Joe Morgan, Buster Onley, Ken Rosenthal, Matt Vasgergian, Joe Buck...Whether if you care for what they are selling or not, they are recognized faces of the sport amongst the cognoscenti. Plus, Gammons was never a household name beyond sports fans, and Costas made his name by being ubiquitous, not necessarily just as a baseball guy.

And moreover, the game has evolved significantly over the past 20 years, to where the LOCAL tv guys are the stars within their own market. Baseball is a niche, just as every sport is a niche, and within it are 30 other niches, each with their own star system.

Even Burns is kicking the body, blistering the sport over its steroid scandal in a new documentary.

Blah blah blah steroids blah blah blah.

Baseball’s failure to connect is often attributed to the steroid culture that soiled its reputation. In reality, the malaise can better be traced to other causes. Principally, baseball has lost the African-American community. Only 9 per cent of MLB players now are black. Even more crucially, baseball has been passed over by the NBA, NFL and NCAA in the African-American community, a crucial driver of the larger American youth culture. LeBron James’s move to the NBA’s Miami Heat epitomized that void, dominating headlines in the heart of the MLB season.

Baseball is 9 per cent black, in a nation that 13.5 per cent black. There's undoubtedly a discrepancy there, but is the marginal lack of interest amongst one population group is not exactly what we'd be hanging our argument on. (Though we suspect he's done so because it seems like a bit of an unassailable one...Won't someone think of Jackie Robinson's legacy?!)

But what has always bugged us about that discussion around the number of black players is the fact that the true multicultural evolution of the league isn't accurately captured. The Latin and Asian influence are nowhere to be found here.

As well, baseball’s video games are not as sticky with younger generations as those of other pro leagues, which introduce sports to the video/Internet generation.

Again, with the sticky. But we're not seeing anything to back this up. Is this because his kids prefer Madden?

Here's the real crux of the problem with MLB video games: They pulled them out of EA Sports, and now no longer have a decent single game that covers all platforms in the same manner that EA's Madden or NHL games do. So you have people split between two franchises (The Show and 2K), which doesn't allow for that transcendence that Dowboy seems so fond off.

There’s more in the generation gap. The length of baseball games – often pushing four hours – turns off kids who crave the NBA’s accelerated experience. Late TV starts on the Eastern seaboard mean postmidnight finishes. Soccer has replaced baseball as parents’ preferred sport for their kids in many communities. And the relentless Yankees/Red Sox obsession gets a bit old. Which is the best way to describe MLB’s following. Without new stars to transcend the culture, baseball is seen as your father’s game, a sport of yesterday.

Speaking of long, you've probably checked out on this post by now. If you haven't, or if you've returned after a solid five minutes over at Bangbros, then welcome back. Tissue?

This last paragraph is once again a lot of anecdotes that are not connected, but are forcefully mashed together into one heap. All of it amounts to a bunch of vague, unsubstantiated observations used as a club to hammer away at a point where there is no other solid argument available.

Which, to be frank, is what we'd expect from one of those dirty blogging tweeter TMZ types in their basements.

Tasty morsels

(The image above was swiped from gourmeted.com. In case you hadn't heard, meats don't clash. Miam miam.)

We've probably spent too much time sharing with you our Pollyanna-ish enthusiasm for the present and future of the Blue Jays. So to give you a rest and to cleanse your pallet from our sugary-sweet concoctions (and to give us a break from thinking), here are some other savoury bits of knowledge.

Birds of a feather: It scares us to think that we might have just about the same thought process as the Drunks' Dustin Parkes (we kid!), but his internal dialogue from the past couple of days pretty much sums up what we were thinking. Blerg.

Downs views: Drew picks up one of the loopier lines of thought brought up in his liveblog on Tuesday, which asked whether if the Jays might retain the services of Scott Downs in the future. Also, he put this Sam Cooke song in our head.

Overbay, over and out? MLBTR passes on the news that Lyle Overbay has passed through waivers. We've got a post brewing on his time in Toronto, how we've grown attached to him, and how he was like an endtable that occasionally brought the room together. (Note: Metaphors may change without notice.) It wouldn't surprise us at all to see him move before the end of the month.

Big TV numbers: The Star's Zelk notes that the Jays pulled in more than 760,000 viewers - roughly twice the normal audience - for Sunday's near no-hitter. The Jays have put up pretty good numbers all year, which may or may not be due to the new PPM ratings systems. It will be interesting to track those numbers in the next few years, as the Jays' worth to Rogers rests primarily in their value as a television property.

Sportsnet One, Sportsnet None? Speaking of Rogers and ratings, don't be surprised to see bulk of Jays games move to the new national service Sportsnet One. (They've already announced that 25 games for this season will head to the new service.) The unspoken second half of this equation is the question of how long the other cable companies will drag their feet on carrying the new service. So if you're on Shaw, ExpressVu, StarChoice, Videotron or whatever, don't say we didn't warn you that you might get frozen out of some coverage in the short term.

And one more Rogers gripe: Any chance that the kids at Rogers are going to get going and launch Baseball TV anytime soon? Or ever? Considering the availability of the Big 10 Network, CBS College Sports TV, Golf, Speed, Poker, Harness Racing, Fishing, and the league-run entities of the NBA, NFL and NHL, it would be nice to think that we just might have access to a 24 hour baseball channel in time for the long winter offseason.

Grumpy old men will grumpy. We can be grumpy, too.

Don't get us wrong on this. We're not trying to be ageist.

And truth be told, we're one of the grumpiest guys we know, and old (but certainly not wise) beyond our years. The other night, we nearly pulled all of our vertebrae out of whack just getting off the couch.

But seriously: Can we have a moratorium on "features" writers and goofballs from the "news" and "City" and "Life" sections of the newspapers stepping into the Rogers Centre like the hobbyists they are on a quote hunt to prove their thesis that the Jays are fucked and on their way out of town?

And this, folks, is where we really get grumpy. Those of us who went to journalism school know that from the moment you walk through the hallowed halls, the instructors blow all sorts of smoke up your ass about what a noble pursuit you are about to undertake, speaking truths to power and acting as an advocate and a voice for the People and to the People. Democracy and all that is good with the world depends on the eyes and words and honesty and truth of character that is found at the core of the journalist, and we must endeavour to use this power for the sake of humanity...

...And then, we'll just come up with horseshit theses off the top of our head, and go get three quotes that confirm them and call it a "feature". A story that really emphasized the "Dickensian Aspect".

Sorry...we're getting a little side-tracked here. This post was supposed to be about catchers and a bullpen that seems unable of getting men out, and somewhere along the line, it's turned into a screed over the ridiculous story written by the Star's Sandro Contenta. The article, wherein Mr. Contentedtofocusonthesurface found a bunch of curmudgeonly old dudes to complain about how expensive the tickets are, and how expensive the beer is, and how in Boston, you can get a hat and tickets on the Monster and a neckrub from Adrian Beltre for $29. ($28 with the new favourable exchange!)

(Stop me before I subreference again here...but are we the only ones who finds that Boston story a little weird? Especially considering that everyone we know who has gone to Fenway has paid a small fortune for just their seat, and generally not a great seat. It just doesn't smell right. If we were a reporter, we might even double-check a quote like that.)

And let's not forget the token former Expos fan, who always makes an appearance, as some sort of Ghost of Things Yet to Come...nevermind the fact that the situations are completely different, and that the Jays still get good TV and radio numbers and are relevant beyond a handful of diehards who had the endurance to put up with the chicanery of Claude Brochu and Jeffrey Loria. (Those boys were pretty hard core.)

And then there's Hayley Mick's piece in the Globe today, where she finds a bunch of other dudes who speak wistfully about paying $2 for tickets at the Ex. You know what else was $2 in the 70's? A house in Riverdale. (Actually, we didn't double-check that figure. Call it a guesstimate.)

The Globe article goes on to feature the traditional whining about the cost of stuff at the ballpark, as though the people there are all impoverished virgins who have never paid $10 for movie popcorn or $6 for a hotdog at Canada's Wonderland or $9 for a pint of beer at the James Joyce Pub in Calgary. Apparently, the Blue Jays are the only organization in the world that deems it necessary to charge $10 for a 24 oz. tasty beverage, and the outrage from that fact shall never dampen, never dim.

In fairness to Ms. Mick, she did manage to find a couple of younger dudes who don't have the locked-in nostalgia for the prices of times past, and are used to spending $50 on a t-shirt and $100 on a pair of jeans and who get the notion that $57 for a ticket to the ballgame isn't the most crushing disappointment that life has to offer.

Which isn't to say that we don't think that tickets are a little too expensive, and that there aren't things that the organization is going to have to do to stop the bleeding and make the experience a better one for everyone.

But let's just put a moratorium on the worst-case-scenario stories. There's a better story to be told here, about how the Jays papered over problems for much of the last decade with free tickets and deep discounts and giveaways, and that we've only started to see the crisis of consumer confidence in this product.

Crowds will be up come summer, and then these stories will fade a bit. But the underlying problems will exist, and it would be nice to see the real story written, rather than the blather that is being floated around now.

What do you call a collection of questions microblogged?

TWEET BAG! Let's get it on.

@DHSpeedwagon (the inimitable Dany Heatley Speedwagon) asks:

Where do babies come from?

That depends. Ten years ago, we might have said that they come from broken rubbers and carelessness around the daily intake of progesterone pills. Now that we're older and fatter and greyer and of that age where many of our friends are indulging in having children on purpose, we can tell you that babies come from all angles. Many times, these babies are in strollers equipped with wheels that wouldn't look out of place on a monster truck, which their oblivious/entitled parents will run right over your feet, without apologies. Other times, babies will come from behind you with hands full of spittle and Arrowroot cookies that they can't wait to wipe on the back of a just-drycleaned pair of wool slacks.

It's just a good thing that babies are so cute and their heads smell like potential awesomeness. Otherwise, we'd have serious issues with them.

Moving on. @WillBeyer asks:

What catcher should I go after in my H2H draft?

Okay, we know that we invited fantasy baseball questions, but here's what you've gotta know about us: We haven't the foggiest clue about head-to-head leagues or auctions. So if you want advice in those areas, you'll have to suffice with one of the thousands of dudes who make a living doling out that sort of knowledge. We give this shit out for free.

And seeing as how we're in a giving mood, we'll offer you this: Victor Martinez is going to get a lot of at bats as a DH and 1B this season. And if we had the choice in a head-to-head league, we'd take the guy who is going to get six or seven starts per week versus the guy who might sit two or three times. And it's not just a volume play: V-Mart is probably going to give you pretty good production anyhow.

Also, keep in mind that catchers, as a general rule, will suck. You'll be all like: "Position scarcity! Must get Mauer/McCann/Martinez early!" But then they take a foul tip off the finger and suck for the rest of the season, and some dude has Miguel Montero hitting like the second coming of Johnny Bench. There's no effing justice to it. It's like that weird-looking nerdy dude from 500 Days of Summer ending up with Christina Hendricks. It'll just drive you crazy the more that you think of it.

Damn it all!

So basically, you can't win. We're drafting John Buck, just because we want to send that spirit of hope out into the Universe.

And the hits just keep on coming...@MassF last week asked:

Bottom of the 9th 2 outs bases loaded who do you want up T Gwynn K Puckett G Brett or W Boggs?

See, initially, we read this and figured that the scenario included us being tied to a post just behind the backstop, with a villainous eye-patched caricature getting ready to plug our brains full of lead from his vintage Ruger. We actually started to sweat it, and Fangraph this thing out, looking at advanced metrics and stuff. We were looking for splits on late inning tied or trailing, and situational hitting. We got frantic when we searched for Tony Gwynn, but kept getting pointed to Junior instead of Senior. "Damn it, man! Can't you see! Lives are at stake here! Get me the right numbers! I need to make the managerial decision that could COST ME MY LIFE!"

But then we re-read the question, and realized that you hadn't specified that this was a life or death consideration. What a letdown. In which case, we'll go with Gwynn. Because that tubby bastard could slap the ball into play, and his career .338 batting average was ten points better than Boggs'. And in this situation, you probably just need a bleeder through the infield to save you from the treachery of undefinably European villains. (Who says batting average is a useless stat?)

(SNIP! If you showed up here a little while ago, there was a whole long-winded thing about a certain Globe and Mail columnist's stupid column. So the first few comments probably look weird. We started to read the post over, and then we realized that it was angry in a really boring way, and a little bit sexist. And that's not in keeping with the True Spirit of Tweetbagging. Let's put this behind us, shall we?)

The man, the myth, the legend, @dpriest asks:

Will Alex Ant be the GM of a Jays playoff team?

While there's no way that we could ever divine such a thing, we have to believe. Or else we'd just put our blogging tools down and go pee our name in the snow instead.

Because if this blog is about anything, it's about hope. The hope that keeps us going, posting stuff in the dead of winter when we're scraping to try to even think of something to keep y'all entertained. The hope that, one night in October (or November), somewhere not too far down the road, the world will turn to our blog to read the reaction of a Jays diehard just moments after they've sealed the deal on their third title. (And they'd probably be greeted by something like: "Wooooo! Fuck yeah! Wooo! We did it!!!1")

We actually have these vivid visions of what that night would be like: There would be tears. And hugs. And champagne. And screaming into the phone. And staying up all night. And, eventually, blogging that moment out.

We're going to stick it out with this blog at least until then. (If we're allowed.)

More to come! Tune in tomorrow for a whole new batch of sage tweetery!

A defense of J.P. Ricciardi's legacy

Before we start too far down the road of defending J.P. Ricciardi and his eight years in Toronto, allow us to get this part out first: It was time for J.P. to go. He'd had his run, and he'd done his bit, but the team needs to go in a different direction and needs a new public face in the GM position.

So you can save all of your "you're an idiot for wanting to keep Ricciardi" comments. That's not what this is about.

But we find ourselves wanting to take up the cause for the now departed Ricciardi because the manner in which his tenure was described over the past four days and eight years just seems fundamentally wrong to us, and we'd at the very least like to inject a little bit of reason into the naked Dionysian orgy of elation at his firing.

There are significant elements of the Toronto and national sports media who have taken revisionist and reductionist view of Ricciardi's time in Toronto. Put simply, their knee jerk take is: "He failed, because he didn't get the job done, he didn't do what he said he'd do, and he made lots of mistakes."

It's odd to think that eight years of a man's work can be reduced and crushed into rubble in such an off-handed way. To us, it would seem to be a lot more nuanced than that, so we'd like to address those three notions.

J.P. made a lot of mistakes
There are plenty of examples that get trotted out here: Letting go of Carlos Delgado and stripping the team down, then making big money signings that didn't pan out, like B.J. Ryan and Frank Thomas. Giving way too much money to Vernon Wells and Alex Rios, and "bungling" the Roy Halladay trade bonanza.

The thing is that when you take a step back and look across the league for a bit of perspective, you see that there are plenty of teams that make "mistakes" in overpaying free agents, or letting guys go. But GMs in general and Ricciardi in particular don't have the benefit of hindsight to evaluate the relative merit of these deals before they go out with them. Inevitably, you're going to make mistakes because players are going to have career years or they are going to get old, or they are going to get hurt.

But even some of those signings that are treated as "mistakes" now are a little more difficult to criticize if you place them in their appropriate context and look at the performance over the contract.

Take B.J. Ryan, for instance. He was the marquee closer on the market, and the press and the fans were clamoring for something better than a closer committee led by Jason Frasor. At the time, it seemed as though the contract was a year too long for a closer with a funky delivery, but the Jays wouldn't have brought him in if that extra year wasn't included. It was a risk, and as we saw this year, it didn't pay off.

But let's not forget that nobody was questioning that signing in 2006, after Beej had saved 38 games and posted a 1.37 ERA and a 0.86 WHIP. And in 2008, after his Tommy John surgery, he posted a 2.95 ERA and a 1.28 WHIP with 32 saves. So while it didn't completely pan out in the end, he certainly brought value at the time.

And ask yourself this: What would the Jays have looked like over those two years without Ryan as their closer?

A similar signing was Frank Thomas, who was coming off a season where he was fourth in the MVP voting, and fit a need that the Jays had at the time: A masher in the middle.

Again, this was a signing that in the moment seemed like it might be for one year too many, but Thomas' performance in that first year (26 HR, 95 RBI, .857 OPS) was on par with expectations, and the aging slugger actually led the team in many of the relevant offensive categories (with the others being held down by fellow oldtimer, Matt Stairs.)

The point is that as a general manager, sometimes you need to trade off the long term financial implications in order to look after the here and now, and that is especially true in the AL East. The window to compete in the division opens briefly and slams shut suddenly, and you need to step up when you have the opportunity. You can't tear the team down and build it all back up gradually like you're in the NL West, because the two powerhouse teams above you are always going to have more money.

The biggest "mistake" of J.P.'s tenure was probably the Vernon Wells deal, and even if you set aside the fact that it might not have been Ricciardi's call to hand over that much money, he still needs to wear it because it was still his responsibility. But to understand exactly how a deal of that magnitude gets signed, you need to look at the other deals that were floating around at the time. The Gary Matthews Jr. deal, or the Carlos Lee deal, or Alfonso Soriano, or Carlos Beltran. In that moment, when no one was looking at a dramatic contraction in the economy in general and the money from the online components of the industry were flowing freely, there was a sense that a deal like Vernon's made sense in the context of the day.

Maybe Ricciardi wanted to bring Vernon back, and the Rogers brass or Godfrey felt as though they were prepared to hand over whatever it would take to keep him. Given the contracts being handed out to similar players, it stood to reason that someone would have made an offer in the range of $18 million per year or more to get Vernon, and letting him go at that time would have signaled to fans that the Jays weren't willing to compete to keep their own players.

It's easy to look back and pick this apart, but a man's gotta make decisions in the moment where he stands.

J.P. Didn't Do What He Said He'd Do
The Plan. That's what so much of the criticism of J.P. has come down to over the years. Did he have a "five-year plan" and did he stick to it? And if he didn't stick to, then what was the value of the plan in the first place?

Recognize this about some of the media types who took the most umbrage at the audacity of having a plan: Most of them don't have a plan beyond a week or the next series. They have editors in chief and managing editors or section editors or segment producers or executive producers to worry about the planning and and the long term view of keeping those who control the money happy, so the notion of some set of guiding principles and timelines and budgeting and a view towards where anything is headed is beyond their scope of interest. This leaves the reporter to react to the day-to-day events.

So the notion that a guy would come in with a "Plan" that he intended to execute would become laughable to some of those guys, and all the much more so when they were able to use it as a laugh line: "We're in year seven of the five-year plan! Hey-o!"

Moreover, there was an assumption that because J.P. came from Oakland that his entire worldview was predetermined and preprogrammed to be that of Billy Beane and his fancypants Moneyball tomfoolery. And so of course J.P. was going to institute a Moneyball regime in Toronto, because he was a Moneyball guy. Isn't that what he said?

What's missed in this assessment is that J.P.'s background was as a scout. He was not a number cruncher and he was not a sabermetrician. He was one of those guys who went out on the road for months at a time looking at kids and assessing them, and then cross-checking the assessments of others. If J.P. came from an organization where Moneyball practices (whatever the hell that means) were in place, he wasn't the driving force behind it.

(And for those of you who want a bit of an eye-opener, take a look at the handful of pages where J.P. appears in Michael Lewis' book. J.P.'s never the guy pushing stats. He's a scout.)

(Also, as the media bends over backwards to praise Alex Antholpoulos in the coming weeks, none of them are going to assume that he's an absolute disciple of J.P.'s...because he's a good Canadian boy and he deserves the benefit of the doubt.)

What J.P. had in mind for the franchise is up for debate, but it does seem as though he figured that Toronto could compete on the field without having to compete in terms of payroll. That meant cutting ties with Carlos Delgado and finding more economical alternatives.

But what J.P. might not have seen coming, and what none of us saw coming to the extent that it did, was the massive inflation of the payrolls of the Red Sox and Yankees in the next few years. The heart-breaking losses that both of the behemoths suffered in the early part of the decade led them to engage in an all-out price war for players.

When Ricciardi took the post in 2002, the Yanks spent $133 million in salaries. By the end of 2003, that number jumped to $180 million. (Using Biz of Baseball as the source.) The Jays' scaled back $66 million payroll was enough to keep them in the middle of the pack (13th overall) in 2002, and by 2008, their $98 million payroll was enough to keep them in exactly the same spot.

The payroll bumps that Ricciardi was permitted over the past few years in order to go after high-priced free agents wasn't so much a change of philosophy as it was a recognition of the change in the market. If there hadn't been immense inflation in terms of player salaries, the Jays may have been able to sign some of the same free agent targets without having to offer them more money than the Yanks or Red Sox.

Now that the economy has contracted and the payrolls have shrunk for every team other than the Yanks and Sox, there is a chance that some second tier free agents to fall to a mid-payroll team at a reasonable price. But one need only look at the monstrous signing season the Yankees had last off season to recognize that a gap is increasing between those two teams and the rest of the league, and the Jays don't have the luxury of getting by on 85 win seasons.

We're not sure what the plan was for Ricciardi, but if he chose to adapt and adjust it to the realities of the day, we can't say that we'd pillory him for a lack of consistency. Foolish consistency in a rapidly evolving world might make for a clearer narrative to follow, but it won't make for wiser business decisions.

J.P. Didn't Get the Job Done
Ultimately, this is true. If your notion is that his job was to fashion the team into a playoff team at some point in his tenure, then you're right, he didn't get it done.

But again, we come back to the context in which the Jays find themselves. They play in the division with the two most aggressive teams in the league, and there are no cheap playoff berths to be had. Moreover, they face those two teams 19 times each over the season while competing for a Wild Card entry with teams whose strength of schedules are vastly inferior.

The reality of assembling a "competitive" team in Toronto is that even good or very good teams can end up looking "mediocre". (Those two words are favorites of the sports punditocracy, and we've heard them endlessly to describe 86 and 82 and 87 win teams.) The teams that J.P. assembled in Toronto were far more competitive than he was ever given credit for, and would that their destiny not be tied to their geography, they might have made the jump into the playoffs.

Now that J.P. is gone, and a new regime is allegedly going to be in place at some point, their challenge will be the same. But given the unbridled, voracious appetite for winning baseball titles that their competition in the AL East possess, the New Boss is going to have to assemble teams that can compete each and every year, not just at the end of a prescribed cycle. And on the off chance that misfortune befalls either the Yanks or Sox, those competitive teams can pounce and take advantage and maybe slip into the postseason.

But even if the team is prepared to pony up and increase the payroll and look at making big moves to compete for a playoff spot, they won't return to the days of being a perpetual contender unless they are willing to establish themselves amongst the leaders in spending, as they were in the back to back championship days. Even with a bigger payroll and some good fortune, it is entirely likely that this franchise will continue to find itself in the position of winning 84 to 90 games per season and sitting in third place in the division.

Which is pretty much what J.P. did for most of his tenure.

Some of you we'll see in April...others, not so much

At the very least, the Jays' final home series provided a bit of upbeat entertainment to wrap up baseball for the year in Toronto. A walkoff win on Saturday and a come from behind win on Sunday, and the Jays head out for one last jaunt.

And then, finally, it's over. The most miserable season since 1995 is mercifully going to end. We're going to be miserable all winter waiting for pitchers and catchers to report, but at this point, we're just anxious for this brutal campaign to conclude so that we can start talking about the important things.

Like what the hell they're going to do to fix this mess. And who the hell "they" are.

J.P. says stuff, virginal media is shocked
For a bunch of drunken syphilitic ne'er do wells, the media contingent in Toronto sure does get their pristine white cotton knickers in twist whenever J.P. Ricciardi says anything interesting.

J.P.'s interview last week with CP's Shi Davidi, wherein he pretty much stated the obvious problem of being stuck in the AL East:

"It doesn't matter if J.P. Ricciardi is the GM, or Joe Blow is the GM. Two years from now, five years from now, seven years from now, the reality that we face in Toronto is the division is not going to change. The Red Sox and Yankees are not going away. If the Yankees want to, they can take their payroll to $300 million."

That seems fair enough to us. He wasn't saying it was impossible, but just that it is never going to be easy to put together a winning team in Toronto. But this demonstration of sentience sent the collection of 13 year-old girls in Toronto sportswriter circles into fits of scandalized giggling.

"OMG, youuuuu guyyyyyssss! J.P. is soooooo, like, a hippo crit! because he totally sed sumthin different 8yrs agooooo!!"

"whatev! jp.'s totally a 5year plannnnnerrr! He came from Aukland. Moneyballlllssss! Only he said he didn't neeeeeed $$. Or ballsss!"

"JP shud be fiiiiiiiiredd! How come he says stuff? he shud just say nice stuff, like GOOO JAYS!"

"The Tampa Bays totally did good stuff one time! So how comes the J's cant? J-P's todally a loser. he's prolly gotta go."

That was fun.

The bottom line for us is this: J.P.'s knows he's getting canned, and he basically said what is completely obvious to anyone with even a passing interest in the game. Whether if that is exactly the same thing that J.P. stated on his way in is not an indication of some level of hypocrisy, but rather an indication of the changing nature of the game and the amount that he has grown into the job.

Remember, this was Ricciardi's first GM gig, and if he hadn't learned a thing over the past eight years and was still talking the same shit now that he was back then, well then we'd wonder about him.

You see, J.P. has learned something from his missteps. The field manager would do wonders for the team if he could do the same.

If you don't care, then fine. But shut the fuck up about it, okay?
You know what? When we see Vernon Wells hit a game tying home run and generally play better in the field and at the plate, we're probably going to be happy. That's the thing about us: Sometimes, we revel in the positive for the nanoseconds that it presents itself to us.

So if you want to think that nothing matters because this is September and Vernon is performing when it doesn't count and only against marginal minor leaguers like Felix Hernandez, then fine.

Think that way if you must. Go listen to Muse and cut yourself and dye your hair into three shades of raven plumage. Watch a marathon of Hostel movies. Have another drink. Read the latest copy of InterACTRA, and get your inner trade unionist riled up.

Just don't send us your thoughts. We're in a happy place, at least for a moment. Don't ruin it.

And don't call us a twat.

A Service to the Toronto Sports Media: What Scott Rolen Would Have Said

We don't rely on the answers of athletes to fill up the content hole here at our blog, although we do sometimes rely on the quotes gleaned by the media corps to react and reflect on the current state of the Jays and particular players. So we should probably be a little more sympathetic to the plight of the members of the accredited media with all-important access to those players when they get the cold shoulder.

But the thing is, we hate when the members of the media turn a declined interview into some sort of indication that there is something amiss with the player, and that he is clearly some sort of malingerer for not (pardon the pun) playing ball with them.

Apparently, Scott Rolen, the Greatest Blue Jay of All Time, rebuffed an advance from one media member or another for an interview this weekend. In all likelihood, he knew the question that was coming and didn't feel like answering it, so he declined.

The question that without a doubt was going to be asked of Rolen was: "With the trade deadline approaching and rumours that the Jays may look to deal players on this roster - including you - is that a distraction for you? How do you deal with those rumours?"

Since Rolen declined to answer, I know that the entirety of the Toronto Sports Media Cabal are being driven crazy by the lack of certainty caused by this vacuum. Remember, folks, that it has been at least a couple of weeks since any of them have had their latest Brian Burke fix, and the current Roy Halladay Saga has served only as a weak and temporary methadone. Once Burkie comes back from vacation and starts talking shit about other GMs or lets loose with a particularly odorous fart that vaguely sounds like "Kaberle", then most of this attention will be diverted, and the teeming masses will be satiated.

So as a service to those poor folks, and so that Steve Simmons doesn't lose any more hair over this, we will provide you with precisely the answer that Scott Rolen would have given on camera and to any mics that were within the area.

"You know, that's not really something you can think about. You've just gotta go out there and focus on the game. That's all you can do. If something happens, it happens. But I've really just got to focus on the task at hand, and go out there and do everything I can to help us win games."

We know this is more or less what would have been said because we've heard this answer to this question at least 100,000 times. Moreover, we know that athletes these days rarely if ever let reporters into their heads or their personal thoughts. Because athletes know that if they do happen to say something remotely interesting, the press will beat them with it like a club for the rest of their stay with the team, or the rest of their career, even if it is pretty tepid. (How many times has Roy Halladay's "Groundhog Day" comment been dredged up in the past 12 months? Anyone care to do a Nexis search on that?)

We hope this puts the GTA sports reporters out of their misery for a day or two. And no need to thank us. You're welcome.

Knuckling under in Boston

God, we hate when we get all punny with our blog post titles. We would like to think that sort of lowbrow humour is beneath us, but it's just not. We are that lame.

So what did we learn in last night's 2-1 loss to the Boston Chowderheads? We learned that when a shitty shitballing shitbird throws shitty shitballs all night long, the Jays may be in for a shitty night of shitty pop ups to the infield. By the end of the game last night, we felt like it was 1987 and we were watching Frank Tanana toss junk around, frustrating us to a point that leaves emotional scars for decades afterwards.

Although to be perfectly reasonable about this, it is still May, and there's still three-quarters of the season to go.

Breakin' it down: The Dopeness
After a shakey first two frames, Brian Tallet was nails for the next four innings, locking it down and giving the Jays the chance to work their way back into the game. Tallet went six, struck out 5 and walked two, likely keeping himself in the rotation for another two starts at the very least. Welcome back to the Summer of Tallet...

We're not sure of Cito is a genius for playing Kevin Millar last night, or if Millar is a savant for putting pretty much the only good swing on a Wakefield pitch. Let's just call them both awesome and move on...

The Beej looked alright, even with seemingly diminished velocity last night. We never saw him throw anything over 88 MPH, but his location was mostly spot on, and he worked at bats well. He looks a lot more composed on the mound, and doesn't seem to be rushing his delivery, which likely makes all the difference...

Breakin' it down: The Wackness
We're not entirely sure how Alex Rios got thrown out trying to steal on a floating knuckleball that the catcher double-clutched on, but it happened. Perhaps the Blissfully Oblivious Gazelle forgot halfway between bases that there was some urgency involved with making his way to second...

We hate to dump on Adam Lind's defense, because we can see the guy is really trying to improve, but his throw way up the line to no one in particular in the second inning was quite the brain cramp. Let's hope that Cito or Brian Butterfield can work they mystical magic on him before we get to Atlanta...

It's easy to pick on Vernon Wells' and his propensity for popping out (twice last night, along with a lazy fly and reaching on an error), but the whole team seemed to want to get under Wakefield's floaters last night. Six pop ups and seven mostly lazy flyballs later, the Jays did their bit to keep the basepaths neatly manicured and the bases pristinely white.

Breakin' it down: The Media Section
Ok, first off: What the fuck was up with TSN2 using the NESN feed? All of this scrapping over carriage on the Rogers cable system, and the CTVgm folks can't even see to it that a Canadian crew is employed to broadcast the game? How was this different than Rogers just giving the free MLB Extra Innings Preview? (Our guess is that TSN2 didn't have an HD production truck at its disposal, given TSN's hockey duties, so they decided to take the easier simulcasting route. Actually, we're pretty sure that "Take the Easier Simulcasting Route" will be the title of Ivan Fecan's forthcoming autobiography...

We were actually happy to watch the NESN broadcast, which probably has the best production quality of any local MLB broadcast. However, spending close to three hours listening to Dennis Eckersley's ridiculous meanderings just about drove us batty. Really, can we have another five minute discussion of "sneaky cheese"? It made us appreciate how good Pat Tabler has become over the past decade in the Jays' booth. Too bad we can't pair Tabby with NESN's excellent playcaller Don Orsillo...

Next Up
The lanky southpaw rookie versus the tubby washed up righty: Brett Cecil (2-0, 1.80 ERA, 1.05 WHIP, 15 Ks / 4 BBs) versus Brad Penny (3-1, 6.69 ERA, 1.68 WHIP, 20 Ks, 16 BBs).

We're all losers in the long, slow, sad battle of Canada's media companies

It felt for a moment yesterday as though we were being drafted into battle over the announcement that the rights to the Jays' mid-May series against the Red Sox were acquired by CTVglobemedia to be shown on TSN2.

The notion that we - like thousands of other Jays fans - will likely not be able to see those games frustrates us immensely. But at the same time, we wonder how much energy we have to engage in what is surely to be an almost pointless exercise in trying to convince these two media monoliths to give an inch in what seems to be an intractable battle over the sports media landscape.

A few points for the sake of context. TSN gets the highest subscription fees of any Canadian cable channel, meaning that the network has an institutionalized advantage over Sportsnet or the Score when it comes to acquiring content. A few years back, Rogers and Headline Sports both went to the CRTC to ask for significantly larger fees, in part because they saw the way that TSN was bidding up the rights to properties beyond what was rational. They received a very modest increase, but nothing near what they had asked for and certainly not enough to play the money game with TSN.

Before the introduction of the "alternate feed", TSN would timeshift programs that they couldn't fit into their schedule into the wee hours of the morning, usually resulting in a handful of pissed off tennis or Formula 1 fans. It wasn't a great move for the viewers, but in a battle such as this, the execs and programmers generally look at the audience as a secondary concern. (At their peril, but we'll come back to that.)

Now that TSN has evolved from having an occasional alternate feed to a full blown second channel, they are certain to use their institutionalized financial might to bid up the rights to any and all sports properties that they want, regardless of whether or not if they can fit them into their schedule. Think of TSN as the Yankees, having more money to spend and using it to their competitive advantage.

It seems as though Rogers' tactic at this point is to squeeze off access to theis channel from their significant subscriber base, thus minimizing the impact of the second TSN channel on their four allegedly regional sports networks. The thinking seems to be that if they let the second feed wither on the vine, then it will eventually go away. The thing is, TSN2 won't go away. CTVglobemedia is willing to engage in a battle of attrition over this incredibly valuable property, and they have the resources and the will to go to the wall for this.

With this latest salvo between the companies, we can just imagine how pleased the TSN-types are with themselves at having the opportunity to really stick it to Rogers. Acquiring a Rogers property and airing it on a channel that Rogers refuses to make room for has probably resulted in all sorts of giggling and backslaps and attaboys, much in the way that they gloated like shit-eating frat boys at their pointless and petty acquisition of the Hockey Song away from the bumbling navel gazers at CBC.

With apologies to Raptors fans, the acquisition of the Blue Jays games for TSN2 will likely prove to be the true test of this rivalry. Jays games traditionally bring in more than 300,000 viewers on TSN and around 250,000 on Sportsnet, numbers that dwarf the basketball numbers. The question is: How much damage is one part of Rogers (the BDU or cable guys) willing to do to another part of the company (the Blue Jays) in order to maintain their position in an ultimately unwinnable war?

(And following up on that thought: What is going on with the Blue Jays in relation to their corporate parents when they are willing to sell the rights to these games to a competitor who will use the games to rachet up pressure on the Rogers Cable unit to give in on their resistance to carrying this channel? Are the Blue Jays going out on a limb here?)

Our hope is that Rogers and CTV come to their senses and sort these issues out, because the longer that they allow this sort of tomfoolery to go on, the more likely it is that you will Canadian sports fans stepping around the regulated broadcasting system and finding the games that they want to see on internet streams in the unregulated universe. And they might want to ask someone in the music business how easy it is to get those customers back once they leave.

The longer this battle goes on, the more likely that any victory gained between these two companies will ultimately prove to be a pyrrhic one. So really guys: Smarten the fuck up.

What ever happened to K-Zone?

Maybe we missed the memo on this one, but does anyone know what's happened to the pitch tracking technology which goes by K-Zone on ESPN and a jumble of other names on regional broadcasts?

We've watched a fair bit of baseball this season on a number of different broadcasters, and we've noticed that this tool, in its varying forms, isn't being used at all this year. We know that baseball has switched strike zone information providers from QuesTec to Zone Evaluation, which may explain the absence of the graphic.

For those of you who track this sort of thing, is there any difference in the pitch data that is being made available this year?

There go our dreams of 162-0

Maybe people should have pulled back on all the talk about the Jays' record for wins to start the season until, you know, maybe at least three? Because when you start to go down that road too far, talking about the 1992 team's six win streak to start the year, you're really setting yourself up for a Voodoo Whammy(!) in the form of Miguel Cabrera's bat.

We could pick apart last night's performance in the 5-1 loss to the Tigers by both the offense and the pink-round-efficient pitching, but frankly, it's a little too early to start taking the micro and blowing it up into the macro. There were a few bad pitches and a few bad at bats, but we're not going to lose our shit about them until they become an actual trend.

Give it at least until the end of the weekend.

Let's hear it for the bullpen boys!
We've kicked Jason Frasor around a bit over the past few years, but he looked pretty great last night. In fact - and we hope we're not getting way too far ahead of ourselves - it crossed our mind that Frasor and his newfound circle-change might actually be a candidate for the closer job if someone else in the bullpen isn't able to fulfill those duties.

Brian Tallet -who has a mustache that would look right at home in the 1984 Blue Jays team picture -looked really good last night in his inning. We know that people keep talking about him as a surplus lefty arm and perfect trade bait, but we're inclined to think that this is The Year of The Tallet^TM. You don't want to mess with that sort of good ju-ju.

Apologies and Kudos to the Mainstream Media
After excoriating the hockey-centric sports media in Canada yesterday, just watch us now as we backpeddle. Or at least tip our cap to Sportsnet, who appear to be committed to a half-hour JaysConnected pre-game show this season. We're not exactly Brad Fay fans (that guy's like a can of mousse reading the autocue), but Barry Davis and Sam Consentino come off as actual baseball fans with a sincere interest in the game.

We'd suggest putting Davis and Consentino together before the game to have them chat it up amongst themselves on the state of the Blue Jays and what's happening around baseball. For away games, we'd see putting Davis in the studio (give him a phone book to sit on), then do a two-ender with Consentino on site. We'd also suggest forgoing the interviews with the players, because that sort of thing is as dull as shit now that they are media-trained within an inch of their sanity.

We'll still go to bed dreaming of the MLB Network, but this is progress. And as Lloyd the Barber quite rightly pointed out yesterday in response to our temper tantrum, we'll likely watch more games on TV and see more baseball content this year than our parents would have seen in a decade.

Cripes, we flipped back and forth last night between three games AFTER the Jays game was done, so we probably shouldn't put on the poormouth as much as we do.

This afternoon's affair
The getaway day matchup between Ricky Romero and Rick Porcello at 12:35 this afternoon should be interesting. As has been noted, it is the first time in history that two first round picks make their MLB debut against one another.

Also, we should expect to see a few new faces in the lineup, as Mike Barrett and Kevin Millar should be in the lineup.

Pass on the Dutchie (and the Hedger too)

It might be a little early in the season for this rant, but we'll launch into it nevertheless.

Last night, as we settled down for our evening slumber, we flipped on the tube and headed up to the 400's on our digital dial to see if we could catch some baseball highlights. What we encountered was the following: Hockeycentral, Hockeycentral, blacked out hockey game, blacked out hockey game, Sportscentre and WWE Raw.

(Oh, and in case you were needing to find out which half of the NHL teams are going to the playoffs, you could always check in the 24-hour hockey channel, the NHL Network. But we'll come back to that point in a moment.)

Left with little other choice, we sat through a good twenty minutes of Sportscentre, or roughly just short of the amount of time that it would take for our head to explode as a result of watching TSN's signature clipdown.

Look, we get it. Canadians love hockey, and they just can't possibly get enough of it. That's fine. We can live with that. But what kills us is the way that the sports channels in Canada deal with baseball. You're lucky if you get more than a handful of games in the run of a show, and most of them are cut into 45 second packs that remove everything except for a scoring play, a strikeout and an error and give you little or no sense of what actually happened in the game.

Frankly, a meaningless scripted punch-up between two palookas who toil on the fourth lines of NHL teams gets more screen time than most ball games. And of course, we always get the full analysis of said fight from the Hedger-o-Matic Fight Highlight Script Generator:

"The two heavyweights square off...Palooka gets in a couple of solid rights before Jabroni gets back into it...We'll give the decision to Palooka, and that scrap inspires his team..."

And of course, you have to throw from this nonsense over to the panel of a half dozen hockey analysts and "insiders", who fill the air with so much blah-blah-blah, ultimately signifying nothing.

So fine. If TSN and Sportsnet and the Score and everyone else feels this is the only way that they can continue to sell putrid beer and pickup trucks to the throngs of latent homosexual hockey fans, then so be it. But how about an option for those of us who want to see some in-depth coverage of baseball? How about something for those of us who want to see what's going on around the Majors, along with some real honest to goodness analysis?

Of course, there is the promise that some time in the future, we might possibly get the MLB Network, or Rogers' Canadian version, the already licensed Baseball Channel. But given the current state of Canada's media industry and the dried up advertising resources, the chances of Rogers moving forward on a launch for their service seems remote, and unfortunately, the MLB Network won't get carried here until Rogers gives up on their license. That could literally take years.

And not that we want to be that guy who rails against the CRTC for denying us the pleasures of ESPN, but seriously, what we wouldn't give to sit down and watch Baseball Tonight. To our American readers, who are probably sick to death of listening to John Kruk's inanities on the World Wide Leader, you have no idea how much we envy you. Yours is truly a land of plenty.

Sadly, we have to come to grips with the fact that we'll have to wait until the Stanley Cup playoffs conclude sometime in mid-June before we get anything resembling actual baseball coverage in Canada. Groan.

A few quick thoughts on last night's game come-from-behind barnburner
-It's interesting to watch Scott Rolen dig in with his subtly tweaked batting stance. He looks a bit more upright in the box, and seems to be getting to the ball as quickly as ever, as evidenced by his eighth inning blast last night. Now if only we could dissuade him from the Coldplay entrance music.

-We keep waiting for Aaron Hill to show signs of...well, something less than good. Thankfully, he has looked great in the field (notwithstanding last night's botched tag play), and he's hitting the ball as hard as he did in his 47-double 2007 campaign.

-When B.J. Ryan struck out Marcus Thames in the ninth last night, Jerry Howarth made the call that he threw a "country fastball" by the Tigers' DH. We're not exactly sure what a country fastball is, but we like the sound of it. And if for the Beej, a country fastball is one that comes close to 90 MPH, then all the better.

An Open E-Mail to James Deacon on...Mark McGwire's abysmal on base percentage

Hello Mr. Deacon!

Just heard you on the podcast of the PTS Roundtable where you reiterate about a half dozen times that Mark McGwire had a lousy on base percentage.

As a handy reference, we thought we'd provide the names of a handful of Hall of Famers who have a worse career OBP than McGwire's .3942 (which is good enough for 77th on the all time list).

Rod Carew+* .3930
Cap Anson+ .3926
Joe Morgan+* .3921
Honus Wagner+ .3910
Alex Rodriguez (32).3891 (not and HoFer, we realize, but it makes a point, don't it?)
Frank Robinson+ .3890
Tony Gwynn+* .3882
Larry Doby+* .3859
Willie Mays+ .3839
Mike Schmidt+ .3802
Duke Snider+* .3797
Al Kaline+ .3756
Harmon Killebrew+ .3756

So, yeah, we can see how you get this idea that McGwire was a one-dimensional player. Because all he did was get on base and hit home runs and drive in the guys in front of him. But he totally SUCKED at dragging a bunt down the first base line for a single.

Until next time, keep on keepin' on,

Your pal,

The Tao of Stieb

When you keep adding 2 + 2, the possibilities are infinite

Pete Toms' lengthy article posted yesterday on the Biz of Baseball is a thoroughly researched, 3600-word piece that deserves a certain degree of respect. It pulls together a lot of strands and ultimately weaves together the story of how the Blue Jays' tenure in Toronto may be short-lived. The piece is so well written and researched - and we hold Mr. Toms in high enough regard - that we feel like we need to do something more than just call "bullshit".

But that is pretty much what we're about to do.

In a nutshell, you can find our argument in the title of this post. What the article does is stack up like Jenga blocks an oppressive amount of facts on top of some vague speculation and media opinion, and leaves us with the notion that the Blue Jays are about to go tumbling down south of the border, as did the Expos and the affiliated minor league teams in Canada.

To us, it just seems like there's been some essential information overlooked in the article. For a little more detail, we offer the following specific arguments.

A Canadian media company and a Global media company are not the same beast
One of the first arguments made is that Rogers is the last of the media companies to own its own franchise, while the Disneys, NewsCorps, Tribunes and Time Warners of the world have bailed out.

At a glance, we can see the connection, but in truth, Rogers' business model very different. While those media companies are content producers (filmed entertainment, online, TV, newspapers), Rogers' biggest bucks come from content distribution (broadcast distribution, mobile networks) and consumer products (mobile devices and everything else at the Rogers Video stores).

For multinationals like NewsCorp and Disney, the Dodgers and Angels created a lot of extraneous and decidedly local content, which barely registers as a priority for them.

The clear example of this dichotomy would be Ted Turner's Braves, who were a vital piece of his emerging media empire from the 1970's through the 1990's. Braves games were a cornerstone of TBS's evolution into the Superstation, but once Turner was sucked into the Time Warner family, the Braves became an undesirable, Atlanta-centric relic of the pre-merger days.

For the Tribune, keeping the Cubs and Wrigley and WGN all wrapped together in a neat package might have made sense if it weren't swamped in a ridiculous amount of debt and tossing any asset it can overboard in a futile attempt to stay afloat.

The clear distinction with Rogers is that they are a national company with national media holdings, including a national network of Sportsnets that need compelling local (i.e. Canadian) content.

Moreover, Rogers is a company that has a far more direct connection with consumers than most media conglomerates. While the Blue Jays aren't exactly the beating heart at the center of the Center of the Universe, it seems to us that Rogers might not be eager to pull up stakes and offload the team in a rush and risk alienating those same customers to whom they market cell phones or DVRs.

"There is greater consensus amongst the Toronto sports media that the Blue Jays will soon be on the market."
Much of that media speculation came in the days (and hours) after Ted Rogers passed away, and to be frank, nobody knew what they were talking about at that point.

Moreover, you had a lot of people within Rogers who were freaked out by the instability of losing Ted, and some of them anonymously vented those insecurities. We wouldn't exactly take that to the bank.

Media companies don't need content...unless they need content
Amongst the speculation, Toms points to a Jeremy Sandler article that features an anonymous quote stating:

"It is natural for media companies to get out of ownership of sports teams and stick to their core competencies," said the official who asked not to be named. "They're selling them because they can compete for content now."

But this is stated one paragraph after Sandler notes that Sportsnet carried 100 games and the Fan 590 carried all 162, so there is a certain rational dissonance there.

At the risk of repeating ourselves, Rogers is a Canadian media company which is compelled by federal regulations to air a certain amount of Canadian-produced content. Would Rogers really want to cut loose a property that nets them more than 360 hours of Canadian content for their television enterprises and more than 650 hours of CanCon for not only the Fan 590, but for a whole slew of stations along their network of News talk stations?

Sure, they could let the team go and then reacquire the rights from the new owners, but doesn't that seem a bit more troublesome and less secure than the situation that they have now?

The Beest - Interim CEO or Calculating Overlord?
This is where the article starts to go off the rails a bit. Toms ties together the firing of Bart Given with the hirings of scouts (not a stretch), but then ascribes to them some element of Paul Beeston's ambition to be the permanent overseer of the Blue Jays.

What proof does he have? Snappy Jeff Blair's huge big picture view of the shifting sands of Toronto's sports landscape, which features Beeston as the central unifying figure that brings all the pro sports franchises together into one TorontoSportsCollosus. It's like something out of Tolkien.

But here's an obvious question that bears asking: If Paul Beeston wanted to reach out and grab the precious ring that is the Jays' presidency, wouldn't he have grabbed it already? Wouldn't Rogers have given it to him months ago if he really truly wanted it? Couldn't he have had it and named his price?

And if all of those questions are answered in the affirmative, then why the charade of all of these interim shenanigans?

Isn't it at least plausible that Beeston is doing what he says he's doing, and seeking out someone to take the Jays' top job?

The MLSE Merger
We can totally see it happening. Maybe. But it would be a sad day.

The Stadium Issue
Sure, the Rogers Centre isn't one of the new-fangled old-fashioned parks with fewer seats and pseudo-retro styling. But Rogers got it for a song and has plowed a significant amount of money into upgrading it.

The stadium experience has vastly improved over the past few years, and there won't be any significant push from anyone other than cranky baseball purists to replace it with a new publicly funded stadium for at least another 10 years.

Besides - Have you seen the size of the Rogers store that they have there now? You think they're gonna rip that thing out of the building any time soon?

And by the way: no other city in North America is going to build a park for the Blue Jays to move there any time soon.

A Final Thought
Part of what motivates this latest round speculation is the inertia of the Jays offseason. There are thoughts that yanking back on the reins is a sign that all sorts of changes are in the offing.

But when we look at the team's prospects over the next few years, we're left asking ourselves why the Jays would plow a bunch of money and/or years into a free agent this year when it is as plain as the moustache on Dave Stieb's face that their fortunes look good in the years beyond 2009.

Why mortgage your future payroll and lineup flexibility on an overpriced free agent when you have a number of highly-regarded and inexpensive players on target for 2010. And they'll join a team that will feature a (fingers crossed) fully manned and healthy pitching staff.

It sucks as a Blue Jays fan to think in those terms, but that seems to us to be the most sensible explanation and the most prudent path for the team to take.

(Our apologies for the length of this thing...but congratulations for those of you who made it the whole way through!)

A fond farewell to the Globe's William Houston

In a time before we became devotees of Brunt or Blair or Neate or the Drunks or the Ghostrunners, the one sports column that we couldn't miss was William Houston's Truth and Rumours in the Globe and Mail.

It could have been the goofy-scratchy cartoons that accompanied the column in those days, but more likely, it was the fact that Houston's focus hit us exactly in the sweet spot of our twin obsessions with sports and media. We always thought that Houston had the coolest job in Canadian media, which isn't to say that it was a piece of cake to do what he did. If you are going to step up and deliver critiques of the sports media, you have to be pretty damned sure that your own work is spot on and beyond reproach, and Houston delivered the goods with each and every piece he wrote. (Even the ones the ones that he wrote multiple times, like his "Women in Sportscasting" piece that ran every 18 months or so.)

Houston's work was absolutely vital over the past decade, as the media lanscape evolved rapidly in Canada. With three national sports networks and a slew of digital channels coming online, not to mention the sports radio boom (and in the case of the Team network, the bust), an almost incalculable number of sports websites as well as the faltering fate of the once-promising satellite radio enterprises, Houston has scribed about sports media in the most interesting of times.

With the news coming this week (via Neate, via Cox Bloc, via the Fan 590's Howard Berger) that Houston has accepted a buy out and will leave the Globe effective February 1, we're more than a bit sad at the prospect of not having the opportunity to read his incredibly well-reported, insightful and witty views on Canada's sports media.

Because, you know, if Bill's not there, who the hell is going to keep watch on the number of times Martine Gaillard misuses the term "literally" in the run of a broadcast? Or to call Mike Toth to account for...well...being Mike Toth?

We're hopeful that Houston's will continue to grace us with his knowledge in some other capacity. (If you need someone to walk you through using blogging software, we're happy to volunteer our services, Mr. Houston). But we would also respect the fact that maybe the man just wants to shut off all of the TV's, radios and computers in his house and catch up on his reading for a while.

Whatever the case, we want to thank William Houston for sharing his talent and his hard work with us over these past few decades. We hope to see you again soon.

Goodbye once again, CBC

The Globe's Bill Houston reports today that the CBC is begging off of broadcasting Blue Jays games this summer, thereby robbing us of another year of incomprehensible analysis by Jesse Barfield. Shucks.

Truthfully, we doubt that we'll miss the Ceeb's coverage at all. While we thought that Jim Hughson's play-by-play was probably the best of all the TV announcers, the broadcast itself always seemed a bit flat and detached. The fact that the network's coverage of the team was sporadic throughout the season meant that there was never the sense of where that day's game fit within the season's narrative. Strangely, that never seemed to be an issue with TSN, possibly because of Pat Tabler's presence in both the TSN and Sportsnet booths.

Moreover, it seemed at times with the CBC broadcasts as though Hughson was doing the play-by-play of one game while Barfield and Rance Mulliniks were off on a tangent and watching a totally different game. Maybe things just never gelled quite right between the three of them.

For Blue Jays fans, the impact will be minimal. The team will still have 145 games televised between TSN and Sportsnet, and Rogers will likely provide the MLB Extra Innings preview broadcast for the other 17. There's also the possibility, we suppose, that the MLB Network Canada / Baseball TV will pick up some of those extra games, although with the opposition's feed. The worst case scenario is that you're left listening to the radiocast, which is probably more of a blessing than a curse.

One last thought about the CBC walking away from Jays' broadcasts: They'll come back, eventually. They always do.

UPDATED, because we were so wrapped up in aesthetics that we forgot to mention this sticky little issue: Because of the CBC pulling out, the Jays will likely take a hit to their bottom line in the neighborhood of $2.25 million. So essentially, they'll have to find someone else to cover John McDonald's salary.

James Deacon is a bit of a tool

Don't let the nerdy glasses throw you off. James Deacon, who scribbles inanities at AOL Canada (huh?) in between his appearances on Prime Time Sports, is indeed an idiot.

Maybe that's a bit harsh. We're sure that if you wanted someone to discuss his Argos season ticket package or his endless golf holidays, then Deacon is your guy. Sadly, that seems to be the extent of his sporting knowledge.

In his latest perfunctory posting, Deacon makes hi-freakin'-larious predictions for the coming year in sports, including a couple of ill-informed shots at the Blue Jays. To wit:

"August The greatest pitcher ever developed by the Toronto Blue Jays, Roy Halladay, wins his first start as a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He was traded by J.P. Ricciardi for a light-hitting shortstop, a left-handed reliever with elbow problems and a 2015 ninth-round draft pick. Halladay said he was nervous and took awhile to get control of the strike zone before settling down and throwing a complete-game, five-hit shutout. “I’m just glad to be on a contending team,” he told reporters."

This echoes an off-handed comment that made Deacon made with an incredible amount of self-assurance on PTS a few nights back. It was spoken with a tone that seemed to indicate that it was all but a done deal that the Jays would ship out Halladay as the first step in rebuilding the allegedly faltering and flailing franchise.

(And it should be noted that the Blue Jays won 86 games last season, two more than the 84 that the "contending" Dodgers needed to win the dreadful NL West.)

Setting aside the blatantly obvious fact that you can't trade draft picks in baseball (a fact that a national sports columnist should probably know if he wants to distinguish himself from ranting sports talk radio callers), the idea that the Jays would embark on such a rebuilding exercise by shipping out their most irreplaceable player defies any sort of logic. Deacon talks of this rebuilding concept as though it is somehow analogous to the way that hockey teams or basketball teams go about restocking themselves.

But shipping off your best pitcher in baseball and receiving anything approaching his value in return just doesn't happen anymore. Most teams would rather hold on to their asset and let him walk, thus assuring themselves of extra draft picks in the next year's draft rather than gambling on another team's prospects.

One need only look at the problems that the San Diego Padres have had in trying to trade Jake Peavy this offseason to see what a fool's errand it is to try to restock your system by trading your ace.

Let's hope that the wise and sage Mr. Deacon defers comment on the Blue Jays from here on out, and sticks to subjects that are closer to his heart. Like how if his beloved Argonauts are better than just two other teams next year, they can make a heroic turnaround and return to the CFL Playoffs!

Fun Facts on Fourth Place Teams!
Did you know that the Blue Jays' 86 wins were the most of any team that finished in fourth place since the introduction of the Wild Card? It's a fact!

The Tao's Links in Bulk

(Oh Sour Jubes...you are our kryptonite.)

Tim Johnson Rides Again
The disgraced former Jays manager has caught on with the Tuscon Toros of the Golden League. (Or so he claims.) For some reason, the independent league team decided to literally parade Johnson through town on a horse.

(And BTW...how good does Tim Johnson's 88-win season look now?)

Ernie Whitt for Manager! (Of Clearwater!)
The Phillies named Ernie Whitt manager of their Single-A affiliate in Clearwater. The Drunks mocked. Anonymous commenters went apeshit. Hilarity ensued.

Speaking of Anonymous Whingeing
In an article titled "All I Want for Christmas...for the Sports Fan" and credited to "Sun Media", some anonymous and angry copy desk jockey takes two gratuitous swipes at J.P., but refrains from telling Parkes to fuck off. (Not that there's anything wrong with anonymity, right?)

Cathal Kelly: Friend of P, Not of A.J.
It's a few days old now, but Cathal Kelly's takedown of A.J. in last weekend's Star is a dilly of a mythbuster on the enigmatic hurler. The Ghosties quite rightly noted that this is the sort of piece that we would like to see written when the malingerer is still in town, but never will.

Putting A.J.'s Departure in Perspective
Jon Hale talks Jays fans off the ledge at the Mockingbird.

Reed Johnson: Still Super-Awesome
Or so says MLB.com, as they use the signing of the diminutive outfielder with the effeminate gait by the Cubbies last March as a shining example of the sort of remainder bin shopping that many teams (like the Jays!) will have to do this spring.

Our Saviour: Rick Ankiel
The Southpaw makes the modest (and somewhat reasonable) proposal that the Jays trade closer B.J. Ryan to the Cardinals for Rick Ankiel. If nothing else, the trade would exponentially increase the likelihood of Will Leitch sightings at Blue Jays games.