The Resurgent Blue Jays

Even if you’re not a baseball fan you’ve probably heard of how popular the Toronto Blue Jays have become. After years of mediocrity, they’re finally playing meaningful games in September and they have a legitimate chance at making the playoffs for the first time since 1993. It is currently the longest playoff drought in North American professional sports, so suffice it to say, Toronto Blue Jay fans—myself included—are pretty happy.

There’s been a lot of talk of bandwagon fans lately. There’s the very real fear that once they start playing poor baseball somewhat regularly, the popularity will fall off and the fans won’t be showing up in droves to the Rogers Centre like they have been lately. The fair weather fans don’t bother me as much as I thought they would. I follow the MLB season from spring training right to the final out in the World Series, but if the team doing well brings people out to the park, who am I to complain?

For the first time in a long time Blue Jays tickets are becoming a hot commodity. My wife and I went to the opening game of a weekend series against the Baltimore Orioles on Friday. We bought the tickets over three weeks ago, but even then a good chunk of the better seats were already purchased. We sat a few sections into foul territory in right field in the second deck. It was one of the only parts of the stadium that still had the first row of seats available at the time. We both loved the view and would definitely get seats there again for future games. When we went to PNC Park in Pittsburgh and Wrigley Field in Chicago, I gladly paid a bit more for seats behind the dugout, but those are places we don’t visit often, and we can go to the Rogers Centre fairly easily since it’s just an hour drive away.

In terms of the actual game, I’m starting to think my wife and I are bad luck for the team; they lost 10-2. To be honest, I can’t recall the last time they won while we were in attendance. On Saturday they won 5-1 and on Sunday they won 10-4. Some friends in one of my fantasy baseball teams may look into getting playoff tickets if they make it into the postseason, but I’m worried I might be a bad omen.

As of this writing, each team has about 25 games left to go. It’s a long season, and teams can surge as easily as they can falter in September. Here’s hoping Toronto can pull off a division crown.