Friday Rock Out - By popular demand

If there's one thing we've come to understand about this blog, it's that you give the people what they want.

Jet!

Speaking of giving the people what they want
We're of the opinion that the news this week that Paul Beeston will take on the President and CEO role for the next three years will actually result in the three things that would make us happiest: A larger budget, new uniforms and a new manager.

With the manager, we get that Beeston is a good pal of Cito's and defended him at the end of the year. But it seems that it is Beeston's nature to calm the waters in those instances. With Beeston working with the "newish" front office, we could see him casting his gaze towards the future, and asking his pal to work as a ceremonial advisor to Anthopoulos and Tony LaCava. Cito really doesn't seem to have any aspirations beyond next year, and he seemed to be getting much less enjoyment out of the position this year than he did in his triumphant return the previous year. (Which is probably a function of winning...but still.)

And by the way: How awesome is it that the Jays retained LaCava? It hasn't been mentioned that much since the reworking of the management team, but it was a pretty important move in our view. Frankly, we could have seen him take over the GM job, but to have him there as the Ant's right hand man let's us sleep a little bit easier at night.

Also, we couldn't imagine that the Beest is going to let the idiotic Godfrey black cap legacy live on beyond the coming season. Even if it means a nostalgic return to the 92-93 era unis, we'd be happy. Anything that helps us ditch the black is a good thing.

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.

Tonight is Amateur Night at the bars

Otherwise known as St. Patrick's Day. The day, of course, honours of the patron saint of pseudo-Irish Pub promotions. And if we weren't so run down, we'd put on an orange sweater and go beat the hell out of everyone drinking green beer tonight.

On the positive side, St. Patrick's Day does give MLB teams the opportunity to wear (and more importantly, sell) green jerseys and caps. Given the choice between the stupid black unis and caps that the Jays wear throughout the fake game schedule, we wholeheartedly support the team changing it up for a day.

Meet the Mets' Bloggers

A tip of the cap to our pals over at the Ballclub, who wished us well yesterday on our future raw bacon exploits. (Honestly, we spent 10 minutes the other day at the Loblaws looking at bacon, trying to determine which package was least likely to kill us.)

The Ballclub is the only non-Jays team blog to which we link at this point, in part because we spent a few of our formative years listening to Mets games on WFAN when the station came in clearly. (And those were the 1990s Mets teams, so no one could accuse us of bandwagon jumping. ) We're not exactly Mets fans, but if we have to pick an NL team, we'll pick them. Because of Mookie. And because we have a tendency to send them our first basemen.

One thing though: we can never root for the Mets when they wear black. The uniform that Johan Santana wore when he was introduced? We can get behind that.

Getting Props from Strange and Sundry Places
We were doing some maintenance the other day, when we notice that someone posted a comment under the name "Jody Vance", responding in a good-humoured manner to our post about her from way back in the fall. The real Jody Vance is apparently on mat leave, so we'll assume that given the debacle that is the 2007-08 Maple Leaves, she has nothing better to do than read our blog. In which case, she's officially our favorite anchorwoman. (Back of the line, Holly Horton!)

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.

Ditch the Black

While we're declaring some basic principles here today, let's get one thing settled straight away: it's time for the Blue Jays to ditch the black.

The black caps. The black jerseys. All black elements in the uniform.

Frankly, if you were to just swap out the black for a dark navy blue, pretty much all would be well with the Jays' uniform.

We know Paul Godfrey seems to think the kids like their black ball caps and their hippity-hop music, but this trend was over years ago, and it makes the Jays look absolutely lame.

Paul Lukas, head honcho of the Uni Watch blog initiated the "Ditch the Black" campaign to encourage the New York Mets to get rid of their eyesore black uni elements. (It has been unsuccessful thus far, but we think that the momentum is building.)