Things That Happened More Than Twenty Years Ago

Alright, so maybe it's been three weeks since I've put some baseball thoughts together for inclusion on this here blog.  I haven't been particularly engaged in baseball comings and goings of baseball for the 2013 season lately, spoiled as we Jays fans have been with getting so much of the important heavy lifting in improving the roster so early in the off-season.  Notwithstanding a Henry Blanco here or a Mark DeRosa there, it does look like we're into hurry-up-and-wait time for the 2013 Toronto Blue Jays.

And hey, what better way to fill in those dismal winter weeks leading to Opening Day than with full-blown nostalgia and pining for the past?  Via the 24-hour news feed that doubles as an excuse to display photographs of our breakfasts, Twitter, we learned today that our benevolent corporate overlords at Rogers Sportsnet will follow up on the apparently successful showing of the 1992 World Series before Christmas, by running the 1993 Fall Classic on the network at some point next month.

UPDATE!  INTRIGUE!!  CONSPIRACY???

The tweet cited above from Jamie Campbell of Sportsnet has been deleted.  What does it mean?  Maybe there's something planned but not confirmed over at the network, or maybe Jamie Campbell was speaking out of turn, or maybe the Illuminati have decided that giving Blue Jays fans too much excitement at one time would be detrimental to the New World Order they're bent on establishing.  Whatever the circumstances, it's made this blog post moot.  Go ahead and throw your own conspiracy theories into the mix in the comments.

Maybe it was because I was a year older, or maybe it was because the '93 team had the benefit of being defending champions and the resulting national attention that created at the time.  Or maybe it was because the characters and the moments of the '93 series were more compelling.  But my memories of '93 are much, much more vivid than they were of '92.

I was frankly a bit surprised by how little of the '92 series rung a bell with me when I watched them again this winter, apart from my visceral hatred of Otis Nixon and all he represented.  But 1993 was different.  There was Rickey Henderson and Paul Molitor.  Tony Fernandez was back.  There was the opposition -- the ragtag Phillies of John Kruk, Lenny Dykstra and Mitch Williams -- who stood out far more to me than the nondescript Sid Breams and Damon Berryhills of the '92 Braves.  And of course, there was the iconic Joe Carter home run to end it all.  So much more of '93 stands out to me.

In any case, if you're going to fill the frigid February days or nights with programming that isn't hockey or basketball, you could do a hell of a lot worse than re-running the 1993 World Series.  This is particularly true if, say, you're a network that has a certain vested interest in ratcheting up interest for an upcoming Jays season and might be looking for a natural platform through which to get potential viewers excited about some big acquisitions that are going to cost a pretty penny more than the team has spent in years past.  But maybe I'm being too cynical.

Chances are, you'll know exactly where to find me when the series is re-broadcast.  And some of the best fun I've had on Twitter recently has been while those '92 games were on.  It's been a great warm-up for if (when?) we get our playoff games this fall.

I'll save the analysis for after the games are over... er, again.  Or maybe I'll just watch and reminisce.  But if we're stuck in the dead of winter with no new baseball, I'll settle for old baseball.

What the potential MLSE purchase means for the Jays

When we first heard the story that Rogers was kicking the tires on the Ontario Teachers' Pension Fund's share of Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment, we probably had the same reaction that an only child would have if they found out their parents were going to have another kid. And adopt another kid on top of that. And bring in a foster child. And buy a dog.

What about us? Does this mean we're less special?

(And you have to appreciate our perspective, which is that we have little or nothing invested in MLSE as a sports fan, so that side of the equation really doesn't matter to us. Is this good for the Leafs/Raptors/Marlies/FC? We don't especially care. Your campaign to fire the GM and coach of all of those franchises can continue unabated.)

There will be plenty of time to hash out the implications on this deal (should it come to pass, which is no sure thing), but here are the two biggest implications that we can identify after having 24 hours to think on it.

What it means for the Jays
The main takeaway for us as a Jays fan is this: Rogers must be happy with the Jays' performance if they are willing to leap in headfirst to a bigger and broader interest in sports properties. If the Rogers board of directors or investors were unhappy with the money being sunk into the Jays or the lack of a true return on their investment, it's hard to imagine that Nadir Mohamed and his executive team would envision a solution that involves going even further into that arena.

There's been much speculation since Ted Rogers left us that the company would be tempted to divest of the baseball team. Frankly, much of the noise that we heard from the chattering classes involved a sale in the other direction, with MLSE buying out the Blue Jays and SkyDome.

And that was the best case scenario. Because the worst case was a Jeffrey Loria carpet-bagger type buying the Jays and stripping it down before haul up stakes for Albuquerque/Portland/Las Vegas/Wherever. (Not that we thought that was likely, but when the seats are increasingly empty at Rogers Centre, you start to hear the beginnings of a defeatist narrative from some of those same members of the chattering class.)

All that we've heard publicly (and privately) would seem to indicate that Rogers is happy with the Jays, and is interested in continuing to enhance every aspect of the product. A competitive and compelling team on the field has already shown to be a winning TV property (even if the turnstiles aren't churning), and can help to provide exclusive content across all of Rogers' platforms.

The Jays matter to Rogers. If they didn't, the company wouldn't be looking to find more siblings with whom they could share all of their sports business love.

What it could mean for Rogers
A man don't walk on the lot unless he wants to buy, so we're assuming that there was more than casual tire-kicking happening here. (And Richard Peddie's impending retirement may speak to the fact that there are changes in the offing.)

Even still, a billion-and-a-half dollar (and then some) purchase is no small deal. So what's in this for Rogers?

The deal would give Rogers control over three of the ten most valuable sports properties in Canada, with an ability to leverage from them an incredible amount of exclusive content (both the games and everything around them). It would also give them a significant leg up on Bell/CTV/TSN and Shaw/CanWest in terms of controlling the output from these essential sports properties. And as an added bonus, there's very little here that would require any regulatory oversight, a sweet blessing in this particular sector.

(On second thought: There is the matter of Leafs TV, Raptors NBA TV and Gol TV which would require a certain degree of CRTC scrutiny. However, we don't think that the Commission would object that greatly to the acquisition of those channels, and if they did, we would imagine that Rogers wouldn't be overly upset at the notion of either divesting of a majority piece of them, or shutting them down. This deal is far bigger than a couple of marginal spots on the dial.)

This deal would in no way be the end of TSN. We're not even sure that it will knock the perennial sports leader off its perch. But in an era where these channels are going to have to increasingly negotiate their carriage fees with other distributors (who just happen to own their programming competitors, just so you see the adder chomping away at its tail) , Rogers' acquisition of significant chunks of Canada's can't-miss live sports content would make a deal like this make sense.

The Tao's Contrarian Corner

In which your generally agreeable blogging pal suddenly gets all up in yo' grill over hot topics amongst the Blue Jays fan base.

You say: Rogers is a bunch of evil bastriches for moving more than half of the Jays remaining games to their just launched Sportsnet One service, denying the team's fans the opportunity to watch them at precisely the moment when interest in the team is blowing up. Money-grubbing iceholes!

We say: Save some of your consternation for your local TV service provider. By dropping all of your rage into Rogers' lap, you make it easier for them to bide their time and delay carrying the channel. And think about it this way: If your cable provider were to day "Fuck it. We're gonna drop A & E, so you'll have to find other ways to watch Intervention and Tanya Memme's spectacular rack on Sell This House", you wouldn't blame A & E for not getting carried, would you?

This is all part of a dance, and Bell and Shaw (who also own or are about to own CTV/TSN and Global respectively) would very much like to see the kids on Jarvis and Bloor twist in the wind for a while as payback for some prior tomfoolery.

Bottom line: Quietly seethe at Rogers for their timing, but call your cable provider like an angry Springer guest until they carry Sportsnet One if you want to see your Jays games anytime soon. Because the idea that the cableco's aren't going to move on this until hockey season is so depressing.

You say: Where the hell is J.P. Arencibia? And why isn't he playing everyday? He should just be playing in AAA as opposed to sitting on the bench!

We say: There's more to a catcher's development than getting reps and at bats. Spending time with the coaches, the pitching staff and the other catchers is an important aspect of JPA's initial stint in Toronto.

Yeah, his first game was pretty spectacular, and he's looked great throwing guys out on the basepaths. But we'd like to see him learn to put up as better target (which, as Drew pointed out, might not be his strongest suit.)

(Secondary thought here: Would it kill JPA to have a glove and chest protector that are different colours? Sometimes on screen, his black glove seems to get lost in his black chest protector. We're sure that the pitchers have a better view of it that we do, but still...would it kill him to grab a Lance Parrish signature mitt to give his boys a bright, unmissable target?)

Also, JPA's first magical game featured him swatting lots of first pitches into the heliosphere, but his subsequent games have seen him get jammed on those early pitches. Wouldn't hurt the kid to take a couple of pitches and work a count here or there.

And all of this is a lot more convincing after watching José Molina go 4-for-4 last night. Oh, you didn't see that? Oops. Sorry.

You say: It's a TRAVESTY and a DISGRACE that Travis Snider isn't playing every day. Future of the franchise! Pasty White Hope! Rosy-Cheeked Phenom! Let him play! Let him play! Let him play! Let him play! Let him play!

We say: The Manager actually has a wealth of productive bats from which he can construct his lineup, which means that Snider and FredDotLew are going to end up sitting maybe more than you feel is necessary. But we actually think that The Manager has done a good job of making sure that everyone gets ABs, and we'd tend to agree with his move to keep JoBau in right field rather than switching him to third and getting Edwin Encarnacion out of the lineup.

Oh, and BTW y'all: Since Snider's return on July 30, he's put up a .736 OPS in 48 plate appearances. EE? .809 OPS in 55 PAs. Just so you're not mistaken.

You say: The format of this blog post makes you think of Lisa Loeb, and that's not a good thing.

We say: Lisa Loeb is kinda hot. We're still not over her. She's so cute, prancing around coquettishly in that little dress. *Sigh*.

The scandal will not end here

And by scandal, we are referring to the fact that we as baseball fans in Canada are still unable to watch the MLB Network. So even if we had the inclination to tune into yesterday's teary-eyed revelation of what we all knew all along, we wouldn't be able to because there is no way to see the MLB Network in Canada.

(Unless you own a grey market dish. But we wouldn't advocate that. Because it is illegal. And wrong. Although maybe not as wrong as depriving baseball fans of baseball content through this long and lonely winter. One would think that if a company had some interest in a baseball team, and interest in stoking the fires of baseball fandom, then maybe they would get off their fucking duff, make use of the CRTC license that they already hold, and slot the MLB Network onto their digital dial, somewhere in between the NFL Network and CBS College Sports and the Big Ten Network...all of which are available in HD so that we can enjoy weeks old football games and women's hockey matchups between Michigan State and Nortwestern. Which must be fascinating to someone.)

Truly, this is a scandal that should shake baseball to it's pillars.

(And if anyone is thinking that launching MLB Network in time for the start of the baseball season is a cracking good idea, they should know that we baseball fans would gladly watch any old game or content or talking head gasbag forum to fill that baseball hole in our lives right now.)

And as for that other guy
The funny thing about the apology of the Slammin' Ginger is that those who called for him to come clean over the years are unlikely to be satisfied with his admission, because they never really cared if he came clean. They just wanted proof, and his word was the only thing they had to go on.

Having read the quotes (Thanks MLB Network PR folk! Convenient! And prompt!), we're actually left with a feeling that McGwire may have done more damage than good with his admission. What he said last night was as carefully scripted as his congressional non-statement, intentionally leaving lots of room for people to make excuses for his actions and rationalizations for his Hall-worthiness.

We actually liked Mark McGwire as a player, even when we suspected that he was unnaturally gifted. We liked McGwire in spite of our suspicions because - and this is easy to forget now - there were a LOT of guys who looked suddenly and suspiciously massive in that era, and we never saw the use in getting bogged down with the "who's-doing-what-with-which-results" question.

In fact, we regret even writing this, because we're certain that the comments are going to devolve into a prolonged discussion of "Values!" "Morals!" "Played the game the right way" "Cheaters!" "Rewarding criminals!" "Fair!"

But if you're so inclined, then have at it. Although we'd prefer that you spend your time worrying about how to get the MLB Network in Canada.

Alex Anthopoulos is a keener

And trust us when we say that we think that's a good thing.

AA spoke to MLB.com's Jordan Bastian this week, and noted that he's made about 30 phone calls to players and staff since getting elevated to the GM post. You know, just a little chinwag...sussin' stuff out, seeing how people are doin'.

Call us crazy or naive or blindly hopeful, but the idea that Alex is talking one-on-one to everyone in the organization and quietly, privately addressing what was happening with the team and assessing where the players' heads are at makes us think that maybe this team might be taking some steps in the right direction.

We know that the details have been slow to come out, and after a full season of stasis in the front office, we're all a little stir crazy and anxious for the team to start making significant moves. But at the very least, it sounds like the groundwork is being laid for the long winter ahead.

And as much as people have us pegged as a J.P. apologist, we'd like nothing more than to see AA succeed wildly.

Viner speaks, says little
This is ground that was covered well by the Drunks yesterday, but suffice to say that Rogers Media CEO Tony Viner's interview with the Bobcat was something less than enlightening.

That shouldn't be a surprise. It's not like Viner could come out at this point and make any promises about the direction of the team, or promise vast amounts of cash for payroll.

(Although the longer that Rogers types obfuscate and throw out the notion that it could be $50 million, or $100 million or $150 million, the more that we start to think that it will be the middle number and not much more.)

Mostly, is scares us the Paul Beeston is still (allegedly begrudgingly) involved in the decision-making process. Because we've lost a lot of faith in his magical powers.

Why you shouldn't freak out about what Rogers execs said

Given everything that's going on around the Blue Jays right now, this story is going to blow up pretty big.

Rogers CEO Nadir Mohamed (above) and Tony Viner, president of Rogers Media spoke about the Blue Jays on a regular quarterly earnings conference call. They noted (sit down or brace yourself) that the team needed to (remain calm) "bring costs reasonably under control and more in line with revenues."

No really. Stop freaking. (This includes you, Bob McCown.)

We know that doesn't sound good or sit well in the minds of Blue Jays fans, who already think that Rogers is taking the cheap way out by not increasing payroll sufficiently to compete in the AL East. But recognize that the quarterly earnings call is an avenue through which the company assures investors and stockholders that their money would or is being handled in a reasonable and prudent fashion. Frankly, it's almost impossible to conceive of a scenario where the executives would have indicated otherwise, especially given the $15 million golden parachute that was just handed to B.J. Ryan.

And don't forget to notice the part of the quote where Viner indicates that the baseball business is "the one division of the media company this year (where) year over year performance is better than it was."

What Viner's statements about "improving" the team's financial performance probably mean, though, is that the notion floated by Smilin' Paul Beeston that the Jays could spend upwards of $120 million on payroll is dead in the water. The Jays are going to have to make due on $80 to $90 million payrolls, and given the Vernon Wells deal, they'll have to work as hard as teams with $60 million payrolls to maximize their player personnel investments.

That is, unless there is a potential cash cow out there that could be tied to the Blue Jays (like, say, the baseball channel for which Rogers already has a license). Just sayin'.

(H/T to Out of Left Field's Neate Sager and his Twitter feed for the story.)

Rogers Sportsnet East Caters to Massholes --- Hates Old Ladies.

If you are anything like me, a trip to your significant other's grandparents can be a bit like a trip to church --- lots of polite conversation and feigned interest. Trips to one of my wife's grandmothers have always been a lot more tolerable because we have one major thing in common --- the Jays. For years this lady has never missed a game. She doesn't schedule events during a game and won't answer the phone unless the call is during a commercial break. She even keeps score for every game. I get a call from her every Spring where she asks me to print a TV schedule for the Jays and bring it with me to Easter dinner.

But thus far in the season, she's missed more than half of the games. Someone at Rogers Sportsnet made the decision to go "regional" in their baseball coverage. In a board room somewhere in Toronto someone decided that everyone east of Ontario should be watching Boston and New York games night after night unless they pony up the extra dough to get Digital Cable. So all of those senior citizen Jays fans out there on fixed incomes who pinch pennies to pay $58 a month for basic cable can fuck off as far as Rogers is concerned.

Tomorrow I'm going over to my wife's grandmothers place to install a digital box that I rented for her to give her a big part of her summer nights back. Then I'm switching to Bell.

Happy May Two-Four!

Actually, most of you are probably pulling your shit back together after spending the long weekend boozing it up and mixing in a Jays win over the White Sox in there somewhere. We, on the other hand, have been felled by some sort of viral head and sinus voodoo whammy that has kept us in bed and dopey for much of the weekend.

The plus side of this is that we have a somewhat legitimate excuse for hocking big green phlegmy loogies all over the city. (Well, not really, but we've coughed up a couple anyways.) Also, we were able to stay in bed and watch yesterday's imperfect but ultimately satisfying performance by Roy Halladay in the Jays 8-2 win over the Pale Hose.

On that TSN2-Rogers dealy thing
So first off, we owe Bob McCown an apology for doubting his sources at Rogers that this deal between the cable giant and CTVglobemedia was going to get done this weekend, in time for us to enjoy the dulcet tones of Rod Black on Tuesday.

It's just that whenever Bobcat says that a "little birdy" told him something, it so seldom comes to fruition. But, as the Bobcat would say himself, even a blind squirrel finds a nut every so often.

So Blue Jays fans on Rogers' cable system can rejoice and enjoy as the pictures and sounds come screaming through their copper wires live from Boston this week, then promptly go back to ignoring the fact that TSN2 exists.

We're guessing we're just going to listen on the radio, as we'd planned all along.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves

In this, the Spring of Diminished Expectations, we Blue Jays fans may have been getting a bit too revved up about the possibilities presented by the dynamic southpaw duo of Brett Cecil and Brad Mills.

Could they step into the decimated rotation and help salvage what seems to be a bit of a lost 2009 season? Would they turn a seeming weakness into a strength? Would they blow away not only the opposition, but also all of the naysayers and prophets of doom?

The news this weekend tossed a needed bucket of icy-cold water onto some of these rather lofty expectations. Cecil was given his ticket to the minor league camp (in the dubious company of a certain Mr. Maroth), while Mills gave up four hits and five walks to the Reds in Sunday's 5-4 extra-inning win. (Curtis Thigpen! Still the catcher of the future?!)

It's not to say that they won't be with the big club sooner rather than later. It's just that we should maybe temper our expectations of what they'll be able to offer at this early point of their development.

Hell, at 23, Jimmy Key spent his first season coming out of the bullpen and posting a 4.65 ERA and 1.65 WHIP. If either of those two young lefties were able to replicate the performances that Key put in over his subsequent eight years with the Blue Jays, we'd be thrilled. But, as Axl Rose said so many years ago, all we need is just a little patience.

Other notable notey notebook notes

Item number 1! Nadir Mohamed will be the next CEO of Rogers. It's hard to guess what this will mean for the RCI side of the equation, including the Blue Jays. Mohamed comes from the wireless side of things, so he may be willing to defer to CEOs of Rogers Media (Tony Viner) and the Blue Jays (Paul Beeston or his *cough snort cough* replacement)...but ultimately, we're left a bit uneasy by this. Wireless has always been a huge money maker for Rogers (system access fee my ass), and the media side of things scraped by, even before the advertising market went into the toilet. What will Mohamed think of the "red ink" in the other divisions when he is ultimately responsible for them?

Item number 2! We've avoided reading too many J.P. quotes this spring, if only because we don't put a ton of stock into them at this point. However, we were a bit disappointed to see the GM mention that Matt Clement is likely on the "outside looking in right now". It's not that Clement has blown anyone away as of yet, but we had started to get a bit optimistic that maybe he could rehabilitate his game and contribute in the short term.

In spite of the fact that we'd previously stated our belief that Clement wouldn't throw a pitch for the Jays, we find ourselves somehow rooting for him. Maybe it's the fact that he shaved that stupid facial hair off, thus making him more human to us.

Final item! We came to a stark realization this Sunday, about halfway through our second fantasy draft of the day: We kinda suck at fantasy baseball. Nobody should think of themselves as a roto authority when they take Kaz Matsui that early in a draft.

We can't wait to hear how this is J.P.'s fault

Rogers lost $138 million in the last quarter, in spite of increased sales for their mobile handsets. The bulk of the loss is attributed to write downs on their television properties.

This information isn't offered as an excuse for the offseason austerity of their baseball properties. It's just a bit of context.

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!)

Here comes the MLB Network

The Globe's Bill Houston reports today that Rogers is well on its way to bringing Hazel Mae's oiled up gams to a TV near you.

Rogers is looking to package some requisite CanCon together with content from the recently launched (and much desired, in these parts) MLB Network to form Baseball TV. (Although we'd put money down that the name becomes MLB Network Canada by the time the channel launches.)

Before anyone starts bitching and moaning about the fact that we're not getting the original purely American feed, we'd note that the lattitude that Rogers has in their licence may actually make the Canadian version a better choice. Baseball TV is currently licenced to air 10% live baseball games, which would work out to about five live games per week. (MLB Network currently offers live look ins, like the Score's old Diamond Surfing feature.)

The Canadian content on the channel may actually be a boon to Jays (and Expos) fans if they include classic games from the Canadian franchises. Classic baseball is rarely seen on CTVglobemedia's ESPN Classic Canada (apparently, they can't squeeze it in between Classic Darts and Classic Pub Night).

We firmly believe that there is an appetite for more classic Jays games beyond the handful that we've seen repeatedly (World Series clinchers and what not.) For instance, we'd love to see the Jays' 1991 ALCS games versus the Twins again.

Houston concludes by repeating the speculation that the channel could launch in Canada in the spring, in time for the start of the season. While we would love to see some baseball over the winter to warm our hearts as we shovel out and trudge through snowbanks, it's probably better late than never.

UPDATE: If you want a sense of what the MLB Network has to offer, check out the panel discussion on the Jays homepage featuring Joe Magrane, Harold Reynolds and Al (Blisters on my Blisters!) Leiter. We don't even care if we don't agree with them...it's just nice to hear guys talking baseball.

The Yankees have big bags of money, the Red Sox have big brains
We begrudgingly tip our cap to the Red Sox brain trust, who appear to be close to signing Rocco Baldelli (sorry GROF boys) and John Smoltz. There are all sorts of health risks with both of those players, but if they are healthy, they fit perfectly into the Sox 25-man roster.

To be honest, those signings (if they come to pass) would worry us more than the Yankees' spree and the Rays' signing of Pat Burrell.

I Want My M(LB)TV

(And as we use that title, we realize that there is a whole generation who wouldn't necessarily get the reference. Yikes.)

These are dark days for baseball fans in Canada. While any given sportscast in this country can find a way to cram in an extra 2000 hours per week of discussion Brian Burke - and seriously, Christ's return wouldn't get this much coverage - there's precious little out there for us fans of the finer things in life.

One of the more depressing moments we've had recently happened when we searched for "baseball" through our TV's program guide, and the answer came back starkly: "None". Groan.

Which is why we find some hope in the last paragraph of this article from the Sporting News on the launch of the MLB Network. The article suggests that maybe, possibly, if we all are good boys and girls and do our homework and floss and stop picking on our siblings and lay of the MILF porn, then maybe Rogers will bring the MLB Network to Canada. Says the article:

"There are no concrete plans yet to take MLB Network international, but (Tony Petitti, MLB Network's president and CEO) says Canada would be the first country into which the channel would expand. Rogers Communication (sic), Canada's largest cable distributor, happens to own the Toronto Blue Jays, and Petitti noted there have been discussions with Rogers about bringing MLB Network to Canada."

The launch of the MLB Network in Canada could go a long way towards offsetting our Seasonal Affective Disorder this winter. Just listening to folks talk about baseball (even those that talk absolute shite) is like a nice warm sweater and a cup of cocoa with extra marshmallows for our soul.

Of course, Rogers already holds a license in Canada for an all-baseball-all-the-time diginet, but they haven't moved on it, likely because they were waiting to follow MLB's lead on this. We're just hoping that they'll see fit to shelve their verions in favour of what will undoubtedly be a superior and readily available product from the U.S. (with bonus Canadian Content in the delightful form of Hazel Mae!)

Surely, if Rogers can include CBS College Sports TV in their channel lineup, they can find some room for the MLB Network.

So we implore the execs: Tony Viner, Rael Merson, or whoever has the capacity to make this happen, please please please please pretty please add the MLB Network this winter. We'll be forever grateful.

(Wow...that was kinda pathetic, wasn't it? But seriously, we could lower ourselves further to make this happen.)

Throwing our hat in the ring - The Tao for President

So we hear that everybody and their pet marmot is a candidate for the Jays' President and CEO job, even though the Jays have probably made their choice, and just haven't announced it.

Or so says the Globe's Robert MacLeod, a truly unassailable baseball source. (Viva Marco Scutaro por jugador más valioso! Quien es mas macho? Marco es mas macho!)

Nevertheless, we'd like to take this opportunity to submit our name as a candidate for the President and CEO of the Toronto Blue Jays baseball club.

We firmly believe that our education, experience and demonstrated skill sets would be an asset to the Blue Jays, and to Rogers Communications. (Or is that Rogers Media? We could never keep them straight.)

Seriously: look around at the jokers that they're discussing. Gord Ash? Tom Anselmi? David Peterson? Please. We'd eat those dudes for breakfast, seal up the leftovers, reheat them for lunch and blog about the entire process before dinner.

We ask you, faithful ToS readers: who do you want overseeing the day-to-day operations of the Blue Jays? Some bean counter with an MBA and his name stitched into his drawers by his momma, or do you want the man who will shake an extra $30 million in payroll out of ownership, ditch the black uniforms, and rehire Jill Clark as the in-game hostess?

Do you want some guy who has washed out in some other organization? Some ex-politician who got his ass handed to him when he least expected it and urged Belinda Stronach into politics? Some current politician who somehow has less charisma than Dalton McGuinty?

And as a side note to the Rogers execs: Do you know Keith Pelley? Do you know that he doesn't even like baseball? That he doesn't have a passion for the game?

But seriously, we don't want to go negative on this. We just want to say to Ted Rogers and to Tony Viner and to whoever else is making this decision: you've got more than 700 blogposts here to parse through, but we betcha it only takes you a half-hour before you recognize that we are your man. We have spent much the past two years focussing inordinate amounts of our time and energy agonizing over the right path for the Blue Jays (free of charge!), and if given the opportunity, we have the means to return this team to the promised land.

Well, actually, you have the means...but we've got the strategy to make it happen. (Or was that a tactic? We always get those confused. But that shouldn't preclude anyone from being President, should it?)

In summation, Messers Rogers and Viner, let us assure you that we respect the process that you've undertaken, and that if you have any good sense between the two of you, you'll hire us to run your baseball franchise.

Surely, we couldn't be any worse than the last guy.

Michael Friscolanti has shitty-looking facial hair

Also, he writes unfunny blog posts (for Rogers Media, no less) using rote arguments about the Jays winning "when the pressure if off".

Ooooh, Mikey: You're so much smarter than the rest of us cattle who are too stupid to get the fact that this season is over and who blindly root against all hope for our team to succeed. Thank you so much for tipping us off to your hip cynicism, and for letting us know how the Jays aren't the Rockies, and that they clearly suck. Our worldview is so much clearer now that you've opened our eyes.

Ominous rumblings from Doc

So there we were, all happy and giddily watching guys hammer balls all over the Bronx... Enjoying the moment as the three separate panels of ESPN experts and insiders and blowhards essentially hand over the Home Run Derby title Josh Hamilton based on his extraordinary first round, only to have good Canadian boy Justin Morneau swoop in and walk away with it. Funny, that.

After the anti-climatic thud of an ending, we ambled over to the area of the Tao Cave where the blog writing terminal sits to catch up on Blairsy's thoughts on the silliness.

Talk about thuds: We're treated to stories of Roy Halladay openly wondering about his future with the club.

Gulp.

One can hardly blame Doc for his frustration. On almost any day over the past six years, you'd have had a hard time arguing against him being the Jays best player. He has invariably fulfilled every promise made by his physical talents, and he has never sloughed off an inning or an at-bat. And yet, his great reward for that level of commitment to the team is to look around him and see players performing below expectations while the front office tries to balance the team's potential for competing in the AL East (or the AL in general) on a razor's edge by bringing in marginal players to fill in holes while other teams load up.

When you look at the great pitchers produced by the Blue Jays throughout their history, there is some solace in the fact that Dave Stieb or Jimmy Key or Pat Hentgen all have their World Series rings. Given Doc's importance to the franchise, the folks at Rogers (i.e. those above J.P. or Godfrey) had better make some decisions soon on whether if they are happy to continue to putter along as a middle of the pack team that hopes against hope for some catastrophe to befall the Red Sox/Yankees/AL Central, or if they are prepared to truly make the move into the league's elite.

Gibby isn't Willie

In spite of the fact that both of their teams are a game below .500, those who are clamoring for John Gibbons' dismissal shouldn't take the midnight execution of the Mets' bench boss Willie Randolph as a sign that Gibby should be going next.

Let's remember that the Mets were absolutely built to win NOW. They have brought in big names (Pedro, Beltran, Delgado, Wagner, Santana) and built from within (Wright, Reyes, Pelfrey), and this was supposed to be a powerhouse. They have the third largest payroll at more than $138 million, which is actually more than the Red Sox are spending. They were also number three in payroll last year when the team went into the crapper in the final month of the season.

It's hard for us to say what Randolph's role was in the decline of the Flushing Nine. Certainly, some of those big acquisitions have underperformed in recent years (looking your way, Carlos), and it's hard to stick that on Randolph.

But one distinction we would make between Gibby and Willie is the manner in which the folksy, taciturn Texan has learned to deal with the media. Sure, Toronto isn't New York, but with three national sports networks, lots of talk radio and four dailies following the team around, Gibby's job in handling the media is no walk in the park.

Unlike Randolph, Gibbons has learned to give polite and usually honest answers without throwing his players under the bus or escalating the situation when things are going poorly. We tend not to give the man any credit because we're all a bunch of self-satisfied arrogant Canadians who figure than anyone with a Southern drawl must be a hick and a dope. But Gibby's learned from his run-ins with players in the past, and knows that giving the press an "aw shucks" bon mot will usually get them off his back and diffuse the situation.

It's not to say that we think that Gibby's got a ton of rope: both he and J.P. are meat if the seats in the SkyDome don't start to fill up soon, because the Rogers folks are focussed on the bottom line of the time above most everything else.