Hey, I remember that guy!

He no longer has the mullet, but that's gotta be Jeremy Accardo getting the save yesterday afternoon. It almost makes us nostalgic for 2007 all over again. (Actually, fuck that. Nothing makes us nostalgic for the 2007 season.)

Sadly, our PVR decided to start acting like a bitch yesterday, so we didn't get any video evidence of Accardo's reappearance in a dramatic 8-7 win over the Phillies. But reading the boxscore and seeing it in our mind's eye, he was awesome.

(Oh, and thanks to our good pal Furious, whose one word emails kept us simultaneously confused and informed as to the progress of the game as we sat in off-site meetings all afternoon. That was fun.)

Hey, did the Jays just sweep the defending World Champs?
Well golly geewhillakers. They did. So we plan on spending the day kicking people in the face as they attempt to climb back on the bandwagon. (Get on and stay on or stay off. Those are your choices.)

If you want to jump off the bandwagon, then shut up and do it already

For those of you who are fastidious readers of the comments over at the Drunk Jays Fans' lair, you may have noticed that we kinda lost our shit a little over there talking about the people who call in to JaysTalk to proclaim their impending exit from the Jays' bandwagon. It was a caffeine and dumbass-induced rage, and we sincerely apologize if our language may have offended.

But while our language may have been a little off-putting, the substance of that comment stands: we are sick and tired of people smugly going declaring that they are through with the Jays, or that they are going to stop following them, or that they are never going to the 'Dome again.

Here's the thing: It shouldn't be a source of pride that you are giving up on your team.

Sure, every team needs their casual fans who will drift in and drift out depending on the team's fortunes. That's a given. But if you are a casual fan, then don't be a fucking obnoxious douchebag about how you've had enough of the team. Just pack up your shit and leave quietly, because your lack of commitment to the Blue Jays means that you don't have any right to be indignant at the shite state of affairs that the team may be in. So fuck off.

Seriously: you think this is bad? Do you remember sitting through about five years of Alex Fucking Gonzalez whiffing on a breaking ball away for strike one in every goddamned at bat? Do you remember when Orlando Merced was the big masher in the heart of the order? Do you remember Shawn Green being benched in favour of Reuben Sierra? Or having to cheer for Craig Grebeck, Jacob Brumfield, or Frank Castillo? Do you remember watching Joey Hamilton haul his stupid goatee and his fat ass out to the mound every five days to disappoint us once again? Do you remember the Jays signing Danny Darwin and Frank Viola in the same year? And releasing them both within months?

You wanna fucking talk about Russ Adams again? How about we talk about Eddie Zosky?

You think that Alex Rios doesn't always have his head in the game? Check the Level of Excellence for the name George Bell. If you are a fan, you may remember that he suffered from some of the same lapses.

You think that watching a team that is seven games out of the Wild Card and two games above .500 is painful? You don't know what pain is!

You know why we sat through all of those years? Because we are die-hard. Which is to say that we don't discard the team when they get off to a slow start, or when another team is leapfrogging them in the standings. We stick with it because the promise is out there that one day, we'll reach the glorious heights again, and we'll feel that elation.

And you know when that day comes, you fuckers will be out there celebrating in the streets as though you didn't betray the team a dozen times since Joe Carter touched 'em all (Judas!!). But deep down, you'll know what a pathetic fraud you are. So don't be so proud of yourselves and your bold declarations now.

There are lots of you fairweather fans out there who can talk about the salad days of the franchise, and how excited you were when they won in '92 and '93. But do you know how we can tell who the real fans are? They're the people who remember the collapses in 1987 and 1990. They remember Garth Iorg's dribbler and Frank Tanana's junkballing and Mickey Tettleton hitting a walkoff homer on the last day of the season off Tom Henke.

That pain runs deep.

So seriously: if you want to brag about what a choking crybaby girlie-man panty-waisted nancy-boy you are, and how you're too much of an emotional wimp to make any sort of a commitment to a team, then go right ahead. Tell the world that you were over-pampered by your clinging mother, and you're too much of a sissy to hang in there through the bad times.

Maybe while you are at it (and in between your manicure and chest-waxing), you could tell your significant other how you'll leave them as soon as the going gets tough because you can't hack it if everything doesn't go your way.

But believe us when we tell you that you'll maintain your dignity if you just shut up and leave quietly.

Good riddance.

This season is slip-sliding away

It became clear a week or two back that the Jays' ever-so-slim hopes at the Wild Card were done. Still, we're surprised at how the team (and the on-field management staff) seem to folded up the tent.

The Jays are clearly scuffling, going 3-7 in their last ten games. John Gibbons must feel like he's secure for next year, because he managed today's 8-6 loss against the Orioles like a spring training game. We half-expected to see people getting their running in on the warning track.

The Jays are perilously close to finishing the season below .500. That's a fate that would simply be unacceptable, even for apologists like us. If they do fall below .500 for the season, no amount of injury excuses are going to salve the fanbase's pain.

Moreover, the team's clientèle (which is to say, the vast number of people who push the attendance numbers up, but who aren't really the hardcore fans) has a tenuous relationship with team. The Jays' biggest battle in getting people out to the park is to battle fan apathy, and Toronto is notoriously a city where people are scrambling to be the first off the bandwagon. A crappy finish like the one the Jays seem to be fashioning could send the team back a few years.

None of J.P.'s assurances on how much they like this team or how well everyone is going to play next year once they're healthy will keep at bay those who can't wait to begin casting aspersions, and portraying the team as failures (as evidenced by Bob McCown and the Roundtable's rants on Friday, picked up by the Drunk Jays Fans.)

Perception is everything in the Big Smoke, and there will be a monumental gulf between how an 82-80 season is perceived versus how a 80-82 season goes down.

Young Folks, the Good
Seeing Adam Lind and Russ Adams hit back-to-back homers imbued us with more hope than we really deserve to have at this point in the year...an we don't even particularly see them as part of the team's future.

Young Folks, the Bad
We're not sure what the team had in mind for Curtis Thigpen, but the way they have handled him (keeping him on the bench for weeks on end while overworking Old Man Zaun) hasn't done much for his hitting. Thigpen looks awful, and doesn't have a knock since August 13. We've become increasingly concerned that he's about to become yet another "Jays Catcher of the Future" who drifts off slowly into oblivion.

Get On Up!

Yeehaw!! Get on up back on the bandwagon and let's party all the way to the world seeeries!

After two victories in a row, here are my up to the minute predictions:

AL All-Stars: Jays entire roster
End of year record: 141-21
AL East Champs: Jays
AL Champs: Jays
World Series Champs: Jays
Cy Young: Dustin McGowan
MVP: Adam Lind

Woooohoooooo!!!

The Bandwagon Has a Few Openings

After a strong first two weeks of the season, there was a lot of excitement around the Jays Nest. The weekend sweep by the dysfunctional Orioles should have cleared the bandwagon and started the calls for manager John Gibbons head. Expectations are high for this team after 5 years of JP Riccardi's "plan" and two years of big spending. Rightly or wrongly, someone will have to answer if the team comes out of mid-May with a losing record. I somehow think it won't be the GM.

Turn up the good, turn down the suck!

That's four in a row.

Cripes.

Not that we're jumping off the bandwagon. We're just barfing over the side.