Cheering for Laundry - In Anticipation of the New Unis

If you've been reading this blog for awhile or follow us on Twitter, you know that the aesthetic considerations weigh heavy on our pointy head. The look and feel of the team's brand matters to us. The proper execution of high socks - one which doesn't lead to the ridiculous pantaloons like those Shawn Camp has sported for years - matters to us. Having a blue ball cap - any shade will do! - matters to us.

So the news that the Jays will unveil a brand new brand this week ranks as a high point in the offseason for us. Finally! We can say goodbye to the absurd Black Jays lids, and goodbye to the black alternate jerseys. We can set aside the Angry Jay logo, and the Toothpaste T-Cap. The cartoon-ish, Comic Sans-like sparkly numbers and names on the back of the jerseys will have taken their final bow as well.

And not a moment too soon, because we had begun to get accustomed to some of the lousy design of the previous iteration of the team's playing duds. (A couple of moments of weakness popped up, where we almost considered a black cap. Almost, not quite.)

There's a cycle that we recognize across baseball of teams changing aspects of their uniforms every few years. Teams will introduce a new uniform - often referring to a "modernizing" of the look and feel - with a minimal amount of input from the fans. This strikes us as the brand managers within the organization getting bored with what they see on the field, or attempting to impose their vision onto the team's work wear.

And while some of these rebranding exercises work - like the Miami Marlins' vibrant new South Beach influenced look - there are many cases where they simply fall flat or leave fans clamouring for a return to the old look. On the other hand, a team who does it just about perfectly when it comes to its uniforms is the Boston Red Sox, who never radically change brands, but who add on features (such as the red and blue jerseys or the "hanging sox" caps) that seem germane to their historical look.

The branding cycles of teams seem to have become shorter in recent years, with teams introducing the "new modern feel", only to bring back the "retro feel" at the behest of the fans within four or five years. It should have surprised no one that when the Blue Jays reintroduced their powder blue uniforms a few years ago, the fans adopted it almost immediately as the primary colour scheme for their merchandise purchases. If you looked through the Rogers Centre over the past few seasons, you would find far more powder blue in the stands than black, and far more retro caps than the new and allegedly improved black ones.

(BTW, if you were curious to see just how delighted we were by the return of the powder blue unis, check out this piece that we wrote for Big League Stew at the time.)

The journey of the Jays' brand over the past two decades has been an interesting one, in that there have been numerous changes and adaptations and tweaks and reformatting, and yet the logo and look to which the fans innately relate are those that the team sported in the World Series years. The new uniforms introduced in 1997 never seemed to gain much of a heartfelt following, even as the team tweaked them for the better in subsequent years. We not-so-secretly loved the 2003 version, which was the only season in which the T-Bird acted as the primary logo for the team. While we've generally heard nothing but guff about the T-Bird, we fully attribute Roy Halladay's Cy Young that season and Vernon Wells' best offensive performance to the plucky determination and cartoony muscle of the T-Bird.

(If you want a full rundown of all the permutations of the Jays' uniforms over the years, Chris Creamer's Sportslogos.net has an exceptional accounting of all the elemental changes over the 35 seasons.)

So what do we hope to see when the new look is fully revealed? We know with some certainty that the logo leaked a month back will likely be the main emblem going forward, and it seems just about right to us: A smart update on the classic 1992-1996 look. We'd like to see an blue alternate jersey, which could be powder blue, though a darker royal blue would be fine as well. We'd like to see a font that evokes the old school script with the white inline, but does not absolutely revert back to it, as we find it a bit flat and sparse by the time it makes it onto the chest of a player.

But mostly, we're dreaming of blue. Lots and lots of blue.

Powder Blues for Christmas?

Neate notes the rumblings on the Fan 590's flagship program that the official unveiling of the Jays powder blue retro-alt jerseys could be coming any day now. We've been as jumpy-squirmy-anxious as a school girl with Hannah Montana front-row ducats since we first heard in September that the Blue Jays would be bringing the old school unis back. Hell, just look around the page if you want to know the true colour of our Blue Jay Love.

A tip of la casquette to Home Run Derby for their awesome run down of the best of the powder blue jerseys. Dig those red and powder White Sox unis!

Paul Godfrey is a Kitten-Drowning Baby-Shaker

Ok, so maybe he's not.

(Update, 2:23 PM - HOLY SHIT UPDATE BELOW!)

But he is a guy who will sign off on selling tickets to the opposing team's fans before the hometown faithful are even given the opportunity to sell the joint out themselves. Which is really very evil. And wrong. (But congrats on the Bills games, Pauley!)

Jeff Blair posts in the Globe on Baseball blog that the Jays sold $10,000 worth of tickets through these special packages to Tigers fans, but that single-game tickets are not being made available until March 2 to fans in Toronto. (Actually, we're seeing February 15 on the Jays' site, but what do we know. We don't have Paul Godrey's cell number.)

Yesterday, when we blogged about this scheme, it was with the notion that a) it hadn't yet been launched and b) that this was in response to slow sales on the home front. But for the brass to assume that we're not gonna buy tickets? So wrong.

And just so that you can get yourself all the way to the other side of the looking glass, Godfrey makes this rather absurd claim:

"We can control the flow of tickets, so if the sales get really hot we can simply shut them down."

So, let's see if we've got this straight: the Jays want to sell lots of tickets, so they sell them to people outside of the fan base first. But if they sell too many, they'll stop! Right away!

Also, one of the games being offered to Detroit fans is a Roy Halladay Kids T-Shirt Day...so will the ravenous hordes from Michigan be heading home with this powder blue gem? What frickin' use will it be to them, and moreover, what sort of marketing buzz will the Jays get when a chunk of these end up in a Detroit Metroland landfill?

Here's the point: We love the Blue Jays. Irrationally. We've already posted almost 500 items to this blog in less than a year, and we invest ourselves (financially and emotionally) in this team in a way that is quite unhealthy, to tell the truth.

And as much as Godfrey and Kevin Elster's brother are going to come out in the next day or so and spin this and say how much they love the Blue Jays fans, they don't get it. They don't get the fact that this makes Blue Jays fans and Toronto look like second-class citizens. They don't understand that this makes us feel like we're not pretty enough for them, and they don't understand why we're getting so worked up about them catting around with that skank down the road.

They really don't get it, and they likely never will, because this is their job. They are more concerned with boosting those ticket sales (for what...the sixth or seventh straight year?), because that's what they do.

We respect that they want to make the team as much of a financial success for Uncle Ted as they can, but is this really the way that they want to do it?

Update, 2:23 PM - The scandal widens!
As noted by Drunk Jays Fan Parkes in the comments (and from a different version of the Blair story than the one we read earlier), the Toronto Blue Jays are selling tickets for the OPENING GODDAMNED HOMESTAND to fans of the BOSTON EFFING MASSHOLE RED SOX.

Oh, but Godfrey is "sensitive" to the fact that maybe, just maybe, the die-hards will be a little effing pissed at the fact that the first choice of seats to the opening homestand are being offered to the douchebag fans of our chief rivals in the AL East.

It's going to be really fun to hear the Massholes cheering on the BoSox in OUR opening homestand, isn't it?

The Powder Blues Comeback Tour?

According to the forums on this page (via the supremely awesome UniWatch Blog), the Jays will wear the retro powder blues above as an "additional alternate uniform" next year. While it is possible that they might only use them once or twice, it warms our heart immensely to see the old logo, font, and of course, the powder blue.

(A technical note: These unis are belted as opposed to the elastic waistband that the team would have used in that era, so technically speaking, their not authentically retro...then again, the elasticized waists look pretty stupid now, and should be reserved for ill-advised binges at Mother Tuckers.)

Now if only the Jays would swap out the stupid black for a navy or midnight blue, we'd find some peace in our soul.

This Could Be the Start of Something Big

It's Opening Day, which means that we must be talking about new beginnings. And that might seem pat, because there are 29 other cities in which writers and bloggers guys at the end of the bar are currently waxing poetic about the new possibilities that lie before their ball team.

But with the number of new faces in new places that will be around the diamond and in the dugout tonight, this year's edition of the Toronto Blue Jays feels to the long-suffering fan like something more than a new iteration. It isn't merely a page turned, or a new chapter that has begun. It's a whole new volume whose spine is about to be cracked.

Not that we're completely done with the past: The new face of the franchise was brought to the team by the much-maligned former GM (in a move that elicited little more than shrugs at the time). So too were the much-praised fielding guru and hitting coach, the Opening Day starter, the Slugging Phenom, the Catcher of the Future, the Enigmatic Third Baseman, and the Accidental First Baseman.

There are many pieces around the club to remind us of the past. But a tweak here and a reinforcement there, and somehow, it all looks brand new.

When we look down towards the field of play tonight, we'll see the largest piece of real estate patrolled for the first time in a decade by someone who isn't Vernon Wells. And truly, few will benefit from the revitalized and renewed feelings of warmth towards the franchise than Rajai Davis. We've spent a few days working on paens in his honour, somewhat willingly oblivious to the two-plus wins that the Jays lose in this swap, and to the fact that Wells' value in one of his "down years" (3.2 WAR in 2005) was roughly the same as what Davis produced in his most prolific season (3.3 in 2009).

(Nor did we pay much mind to the fact that Rajai is less that two years Wells' junior, so this wasn't exactly a Rod Stewart-level trade-in of the old model - literally! - for the much younger version.)

But the move to Davis feels like something more than the swapping of numbers, no matter how articulate the metric might be. There's a weight that has been removed, allowing the team the flexibility in their payroll, in the lineup and in the field that feeds into a new energy, and a whole host of possibilities for clever management.

Which raises the other most significant change, new bench boss John Farrell. For a team that needs to be that much more clever than every other team in professional sports - no hyperbole intended - the Blue Jays have brought in a new manager who is something more than the retread with a reputation or the "good guy" baseball lifer getting a break. Farrell seems to truly approach the game with a vibrant intelligence that isn't weighed down by any overbearing ego.

The Jays entered their search for a new manager last year, and through the legendarily exhaustive process, they came away no only with the best man for the job in the top role, but several of his fellow candidates filling out the coaching roles around him. In bringing in Don Wakamatsu to focus on the catching mentorship and game-planning, and Luis Rivera in a truly unique "eye in the sky", non-uniformed coaching role, not to mention the retention of Brian Butterfield and Dwayne Murphy through the transitional phase, the Jays have added heft to throughout their instructional staff.

(There's a part of us that thinks that sometime soon, the granularity of roles and the player-to-coach ratio that the Jays have instituted this year will be the model to follow.)

We'll take in tonight's game sporting the now-shelved for good powder blue colours sported by the 1985 team. But as much as we think kindly on the past, we've shelved that volume of the team's history. We're ready to look forward, and to follow along with these new Jays as a new legacy is forged. Because as we open the new book, the possibilities are truly inspiring.

Play ball.

ESPN can't get their fill of the Blue Jays

It's been an ongoing gripe of Blue Jays fans that the team rarely if ever gets any profile on the Four Letter Network to the south. (It's all a part of that rather ugly inferiority-cum-smug-superiority complex that we Canadians have going for ourselves, but that's an entirely different blog altogether.)

Amazingly enough, the boys in powder blue will be on the main network (not "The Ocho!") on Wednesday (vs the Red Sox) and Thursday (vs the Yankees) of next week. Their opening day matchup versus the Yankees will be on also be on the main network. Granted, ESPN is likely more interested in the other teams for those games, but it would be a kick to see what flat-earther Joe Morgan has to say about this year's team.

Both of the fake games, incidentally, will be on Sportsnet.

How we learned to stop worrying and lov...er, appreciate Red Sox Nation

We were ready to go nuts about the invasion of Rogers Centre by Red Sox Nation this weekend, and were in a bit of a Costanzaesque rage about all of the goofballs strutting into the stadium in their Red Sox regalia.

But a funny thing happened in the midst of this weekend's home opening weekend: the Red Sox fans made it better.

Don't get us wrong. We're not going to turncoat on our team, nor do we let Paul Godfrey and Kevin Elster's dumber brother off the hook for the arrogant and short sighted way that they went about selling tickets to Red Sox fans before their own. In the long run, this franchise will be judged not for merely putting bums in the seats, but for reigniting the passion and interest in the game within their own community.

If there massive amount of powder blue and retro gear around the stadium this weekend was any indication, there are a lot of people who are hungering for those glory days to return. Unfortunately for the Blue Jays front office, you can only sell nostalgia for so long.

But back to the Red Sox and their fans. There are two essential reason that we observed and that we can't deny about why it was good to host Red Sox Nation this weekend.

The first was that in spite of all that we had heard and had expected, they were by and large respectful. Most of them that we encountered at the stadium and around town were polite, and their worst crime committed (so far as we know) was cheering for their team.

Which brings us to second reason it was good to have them there. Whenever Red Sox fans cheered, Blue Jays fans cheered louder. When the applause would rise for Papi or Manny or Youuuk, the boo-birds would drown them out. And when big moments occurred, the crowd this weekend was as loud and engaged as we have heard in a long time. If it takes having a few thousand of the other team's fans in the house to offend our sensibilities and get Toronto baseball spectators off their god damned hands for minute or two, then we're for it. (With reservations.)

Then again, if the Red Sox had swept the Jays and we had to spend all weekend hearing about it, we might have a different feeling tonight.

Scott Rolen will make you choke on your cheesesteak

Is there anything that Scott Rolen can't do?

Last night, the Greatest Blue Jay of All Time drove in the winning run (in the first inning), hit a laserbeam out to right and rounded the bases before it knocked a whole clear through the sternum of some Philly douche, and helped turn the first 1-5-4 inning-ending double play we've ever seen.

After the game, he fed the poor, healed the sick, and removed several ill-advised lower back tattoos from several young ladies before sending them home to South Jersey to reconnect with their estranged fathers.

Nice work for an evening, Hoss.

Repeating our Tweets here, for those not Twitter-inclined
So outstanding was Rolen's game last evening that it led us to make the following exclamatory tweet over on our Twitter thingy. (And if you're not following us, then...well, whatever. That's cool...your prerogative.)

"Scott Rolen es muy macho. He could BBQ and eat Troy Glaus' wife's showjumping horse, and still have room for bourbon."

(Mmmm. Tasty looking animal. Do you suppose that Rolen would go with a sweet barbecue sauce, or maybe something a little more smokey? A dry rub perhaps?)

Alex Rios is owning his moniker
We will make excuses for the Blissfully Oblivious Gazelle until we are powder blue in the face, and forgive him each and every one of his trespasses on the basepaths. But seriously: Two baserunning gaffes in as many days? It's almost as if he doesn't give a fuck.

Maybe Alex could use a day on the bench to ponder his baserunning choices, and reflect on why it is that he is prone to such mental midgetry.

Scott Richmond - The Strikeout King of Canada
Here's something fun: Take a look at ESPN's list of the top strikeout performances for this season so far, and savour the sight of Scott Richmond's name in the list alongside Roy Halladay, Justin Verlander, Jon Lester and David Price. Wicked.

Facing the Phillies lineup is a pretty scary proposition, and we worried about Richmond getting thrown to the wolves last night. But to his credit, he tossed a monster game game in the place of Halladay last night.

We're told that last night's game was on ESPN, but since Richmond is a good Canadian boy, he wouldn't be phased by such things, because we don't even know what ESPN is. But you know that Scotty gets the cold sweats every time he meets Rod Black.

Aggregating data is what we do
Almost forgot: We're going to be doing the Inside the Blue Jays posts over at Bart Given's Inside the Majors blog, and the first of them was posted yesterday.

In future posts, we'll supplement some of the data points with our trademark wit an whimsy to contextualize them. And if there's anything of obvious relevance that we're overlooking like the Gazelle running the bases, let us know.

Thanks to Bart for the opportunity to contribute. All it is going to cost him is a nice dinner at Lift with Jody. (You can tag along if you want, Bart...if you don't mind sitting at the bar. Sorry...were we not clear about that?)

Jays wear funny hats, score late, win

You know, we were so pleased to see the Blue Jays wearing caps again a few months back that it didn't even really matter to us what they looked like. They were blue. It was good.

Then we actually saw one on the shelf at Ye Olde Jays Tuck Shoppe, and damn it if the cap didn't look purple. It was totally the wrong blue for the Jays, and it certainly has no business being combined with the black and grey unis as they did last night.

(Oh yeah...last night...Jays win 6-4. New win streak. Ooh-rah.)

So yeah, we're going all Jeanne Beker about this, but would it kill the Jays to get some frickin' blue back in their colour scheme? Has anyone in the front office noticed how many fans instantaneously gravitated to the new/retro powder blues and all of the offshoot merchandise?

Maybe if Godfrey really is gone for good after this year, the Jays' next president will look to expunge his sartorial legacy. We're sure that John Tory wouldn't have any aversion to blue if he does take over, as has been discussed in certain circles.

Speaking of fashion
The exceedingly well-attired Cathal Kelly has the story on the "fashion show" put on by the Jays' rookies last night for the benefit of the vets on the team.

And when we say Kelly is a well-dressed man, we mean it. Dude rocks a pocket square in the press scrums. The last time Bob Elliot had a pocket square, it was when he discovered an uneaten Rice Krispie treat from a media buffet table left behind in an old pair of chinos.

MEANINGFUL GAMES THIS WEEKEND, BITCHES!
Ya hear, Damien Cox and Michael Friscowhatever? The Jays take on the BoSox, in the first of seven meetings with the Wild Card leaders between now and the end of the season. Sweep those games, and who knows... That little tramp Destiny may have big sloppy hummer in store for the Jays yet.

It's on! And the Ack will be here to tell you all about it.

Well, that's novel!

The Blue Jays new road togs. Now including the actual colour blue! But still with black caps!

Official unveiling at 5:50 pm Eastern. More to come.

3 PM: Now that it's sinking in
Our guess about the new road unis was that they would integrate last year's scripted cap "T" onto the jersey. Now, we have a new font and another very square jersey "T" that doesn't match the cap "T" at all. Which is what you get when you do ad hoc uniform changes year after year to correct an ill-conceived rebrand.

Looking at the cap...if we really let our eyes go fuzzy, we can convince ourselves that it is a navy blue. What are the chances.

Again, more to come.

(And bienvenue UniWatchers!)

4:12 PM: And furthermore...
We see the script "T" caps are marked down steeply on the online JaysShop...but then again, so's everything else. But for those of you who purchased one (like commenter /a), take heart! It's instant retro! (Just like our graphite grey cap!)

Also, the new numerals on the front beg the question: will there be new numerals on the back? On both home and road? Or will there be a vertiable Enrico Fermi MixMaster Gumbo of Fonts across the Blue Jays' on-field wardrobe?

5:09: Whatever the uniforms look like...
...Ty Taubenheim ain't gonna be wearin' one.

We're realizing what ridiculous suckers we are for actually getting all riled up about this announcement. It's a sign of mental instability, we tells ya. And we'll think about that while we're glued to the screen, watching them unveil "something old, something new". (Gargh! We're even spewing their messaging!)

6:18: Whoomp! There it is!
The new road unis are a bit of a mish mash. More blue on the front, but still with the black cap. The nameplate on the back is the radially arched nameplate that we've seen for the last few years while the lettering on the front is vertically arched. (For those who don't yet get it^TM, UniWatch has a great primer on this.) The nameplate font is curved, while the front of the jersey is blocky. The jersey "T" doesn't match the cap "T", meaning if they wear the T cap, this will be a real mess.

We do like the number on the front. Jeremy Accardo, who drew the short straw and had to model the new uni today, said that he likes the number on the front because now his parents will be able to find him on the field. Because, you know, it's tough to pick out the blond mullet on the mound in the ninth inning.

If nothing else: Powder blues!
Full press release (as if we haven't flacked enough for the Jays today) is right here.

Once step closer to the season sweep

It was looking dicey there for a moment, but our dreams of a season sweep against the Royals remain intact after some late inning heroics.

No, really. We're kinda selling ourselves on the whole notion that running the table on KC is something to which we can aspire, and which will help to keep us engaged and interested in these early season matchups.

(And speaking of "engaged and interested", let's hear it for the 10, 565 who showed up last night. By showing up the crowds from the past few nights, you helped us to avoid the "another record low attendance figure" trope that is keeping the beat writers in business this past week. You, the few and the proud, are the real heroes.)

Our hopes and dreams for an undefeated season run into a fairly significant roadblock this afternoon in the person of Zach Greinke. But on the other hand, that bum is 0-2, so clearly the Jays should be able to tee off on this sub-.500 chuck-and-ducker.

Also, the Jays will be sporting their awesome Powder Blue unis this afternoon (according to Jays intern Megan Robinson's @thestoryofagirl Twitter account...so you can take that to the bank.) The Jays in their powder blues taking on the Royals? What could go wrong?

(And now, we pause so that we can go into convulsions in memory of the 1985 ALCS, and all of the times that the Jays were taken to the woodshed by George Brett, Willie Wilson, Frank White and Bret Saberhagen. Groan.)

It's time for hanging balls

We've been just about nogged out by the pre-Christmas party season. So many office parties, so many subesequent awkward apologies. But at least we closed them all down with a flourish.

We've made our escape to the hinterlands, and the intention is to spend a little quality time with the family, gorge out on tourtière, and pray for J.P. to deliver a nice little Christmas gift like he did with Troy Glaus a couple of Decembers ago. (And THAT worked out well, non?)

Whatever happens over the next week or so, we hope that everyone finds retro powder blue gear under the tree, and maybe a flex pack in their stocking.

Oh, and peace on Earth and good will towards men. All that good stuff.

Bonus linkage for the Holiday Season!
Did anyone realize that Eye Weekly had a sports section? We found this article from this week's edition, where Shane Cuneo (who dat?) regurgitates a Jason Stark ESPN.com piece on how some of the mid-range teams in the AL are trying to get over the BoSox-Yankees hump.

For Love or Money

We've got to take issue with Jeff Blair's assertion in his latest blog post that "there is no downside" to this ticket selling scheme.

Just so we're clear: we've got nothing against making a buck. We try to do it every day. (Just not by blogging.) And yes, we get the fact that the Blue Jays' decision to sell tickets directly to the fans of the Detroit Tigers and Boston Red Sox is a savvy use of Major League Baseball Advanced Media's databases.

Taken from a distance (the dispassionate distance from which Blair, or Griffin, or Fidlin or Elliot, or Sadler write), we could look at this and say: "Well, bully for them! What a bunch of smart cookies they are! Maximize revenues! Exploit new marketing opportunities!"

But we don't look at the Blue Jays as a business that sells tickets and in-stadium advertising.

If we listened to our dispassionate side, we wouldn't be frantically tapping out post after post, agonizing over John McDonald's role, or Lyle Overbay's hand, or Scott Rolen's headspace, or John Gibbons' lineup chicanery.

Nor would we buy retro powder blues (or fawn over them), or another Jays cap (to go with the five - count 'em, five - Jays caps that we already own). We wouldn't stop everything in our lives to sit and listen to Jamie Campbell prattle on about his baseball card collection, nor would we promise to spend an entire day antiquing with Mrs. Tao if only she'll let us watch this last half inning ("Seriously, Sweetie: just five more minutes!")

We wouldn't put up with hours of abuse from the brother-in-law when he gets dragged kicking and screaming to a Jays game (nor would we pay $50 for his ticket just for the privilege). We wouldn't shell out $5 on consecutive days for the exact same program, just so that we could keep score during the game.

And we wouldn't get this upset about a simple business transaction if we thought of the Blue Jays as a business.

But for us, it's not a business. It's a sacred trust.

Go ahead Blairsy: groan. Roll your eyes. We know that it is pathetically overwrought. We know that it's just a bunch of pampered millionaires hitting a horsehide ball with a wooden bat and catching it with a leather glove.

We know that the billionaire owner (Canada's second richest man, and for very good reason) determines the level of salary extravagance based on the club's ability to bums (any bums) in the seats. We're aware that if attendance had gone down last year or the year before, then maybe Vernon Wells or Alex Rios or Roy Halladay are playing in Arlington, or Miami, or Cincinnati this year.

To all of those with that level of detachment from the team: we sincerely envy you. Because it's not going to eat at you one little bit when the cheers from Red Sox Nation erupt on that opening homestand. It's not going to muddy the gleam of the new season for you at all.

But tell us this: When a member of the Red Sox drives in a run on that weekend, how will the front office quantify the impact of those extra cheering New Englanders on the home team's fans, especially since you went to such lengths to bring them here? It's going to be an awfully bitter pill to swallow, and there's nothing in Quicken Books that's going to help you make that equation.

We've waited all frickin' winter to cheer on our boys. So why did someone have to invite their fans to ruin the party?

Misty Powder Blue Coloured Memories of the Way We Were

Exhibition Stadium. Rock hard turf. Dudes with mustaches drinking beer. B.J. Birdy. Dave putting down a smoker, a strike, and you've got no doubt (Yer out!).

Oh, and seagulls. Lots and lots of seagulls.

In Yankee Stadium, it can go all wrong so quickly

Various and sundry ponderings on Game #3:

Cold hands aren't soft hands: Alan Ashby went on at length on the radiocast last night about the poor fielding by the Jays (especially by Aaron Hill), and how the cold temperatures might be contributing to their inability to field the ball cleanly. We're not sure if that explains Scott Downs' Riverdance routine fielding Johnny Damon's sacrifice bunt eighth, which would lead to the Yankees scoring the winning run. But we're hopeful that someone shovels some coal in the furnace at the Rogers Centre and gets those hands warm, toasty and reliable in time for this weekend's series against the Red Sox.

David Eckstein is grittily and scrapily trying to make us love him: Little X, who Blair notes will have his work cut out for him in winning over the Blue Jays faithful, got the engine of the Love Train started with a 2-for-4 night with a run scored and one driven in. Which is good and all, but we'll still be among those at the former SkyDome hooting and cheering for John McDonald when he's introduced as part of the starting lineup tonight.

Frank Thomas shouldn't SHOULD be losing his shit over that: We'd need for Jon Hale to rev up the Pitch F/Xulator 3500 to confirm it, but it looked to us like the three borderline pitches that Thomas took in his at bat last night were all strikes, so he shouldn't be breathing fire from his nostrils because home plate ump Bill Miller finally got the call right. (UPDATE: Scratch that: Hale is already on it, and he shows that called third strike as being almost half a foot inside. Yikes.)

Powder Blues! Tonight!: Shaun Marcum cinches up the retro gear and squares off against aging knuckler Tim Wakefield. Wakefield's always pitched well against the Jays (15-10 lifetime, 3.86 ERA and 3-2 in 2007 with a 3.86). Last April, he pitched a gem in April under the dome, although to be fair, Jason Phillips was hitting seventh that day, which says something about the state of the team's lineup at that point.

Bring on the Massholes!: We're totally ready to rumble this weekend. Which is why it's good that we read the Drunk Jays Fans' Guide to Home Openers, specifically the bit about avoiding physical confrontation. We wouldn't want to descend to the level of your typical Red Sox fan, although we're secretly hoping that there are a few of them that get rowdy and obnoxious, if only because we'd like to catch it on video and share it with y'all.