Blue Jay fans suck ass

Tuesday I relayed the feisty Ozzie quotes after the opening game of the Blue Jays series. One quote that has stuck in my mind was "How many people are going to show up [for the opener], about 50,000 or 40,000? Tell the fans in Toronto, Alex Rios is in Toronto; all you fans come out and boo him. We need people in the ballpark just to come out and boo Alex the next four days. Please, we haven't seen many fans here the last three or four years. Come out just to boo him." The point that stuck with me is not the rather random hatred devoted to Rios, but the semi-desperation of Ozzie to get fans out to the ballpark in Toronto. Ozzie was essentially daring Blue Jay fans to give a rats ass and show up after the home opener. The BJ (heh-heh) fans have responded with a distinctively Canadian yawn.

(That's a lot of empty blue seats. From the Trib)

Look at that picture from last night's 11-1 White Sox winner! Only 10,610 fans (the fewest in Blue Jay history) braved the 50 degree temps and dome conditions to watch they beloved Jays last night. That's pathetic, even for April baseball against a non-divisional foe. Sure there are some excuses: It was a weeknight, the Jays are down this year, and many fans are mad at the organization for trading Roy Halladay. So what. You're either a fan or you aren't.

Deadspin.com noted the relative attendance struggles of both the Blue Jays and their AL East rival Baltimore Orioles by remembering that these two franchises used to be the hottest tickets in town. The Blue Jays, specifically, used to draw an obscene 4 million fans a year back in the early 90's. If you were able to score Jays tickets, even in the upper reaches of what was then known as SkyDome, you were living a charmed life. Now, they would probably give a whole section to yourself if you'd ask.

I bring this up mostly because I fear for baseball in Canada. I like the fact that Major League baseball still has a team in "America's Hat." It makes the league seem like more than some jingoistic masturbatory venture (which it mostly is... that they still get away with "World Series" is hilarious). Having seen what happened to the Montreal Expos (Who I had a fond place in my heart for. Don't ask why), I genuinely fear for the Blue Jays. The 'spos floundered when the owners sold off young stars in the making (like Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez and Larry Walker) and became frugal and disinterested in providing quality product on the field. Fans stayed away out of principal (and the fact that Quebecois distrust anything not intrinsically Quebecan, but that's another story), and MLB retaliated by trying to send the team to Puerto Rico (lol) before finally forcing the franchise down the collective throats of the Baltimore/Washington D.C. area. I remember towards the end of the franchise, they couldn't even sell radio broadcast rights. While the Jays are certainly a more national team, this could happen in Toronto if the organization is not careful. Yes, one sparsely attended series is not going to sink a franchise, but don't be surprised if attendance in Toronto sags all season long.