Joe Cowley, Chicago Sun-Times: Move the Toronto Blue Jays to Venezuela

Remember the White Sox used the threat of skipping off to Tampa Bay to extort New Comiskey out of the taxpayers in 1990, then barely a decade later, with attendance shitcanning again, they started grumbling about moving AGAIN, extorting the remodeling/renovations necessary to convert it into an acceptable baseball ballpark.

I suppose maybe this is a prelude to threats of the White Sox moving to Caracas so they can blackmail ANOTHER new stadium out of the taxpayers.

 

Orioles and Blue Jays fans know the season is over on opening day. What's the point of going? Impossible to compete long term in that division the way it's presently set up, though Tampa has the recipe that others can follow. It just can't happen overnight, though. It took years of high draft picks and patience to work out.

 

Maybe I'm misremembering, but I don't recall any grumbling about moving prior to the latest renovations. I thought that they simply used the stadium naming rights money, and that was that.

 

If the fifth-largest city in North America isn't willing to support its team, then maybe the team should move.

 

If the ownership of the team isn't willing to spend at a minimally-competitive level, they should go bankrupt.

NO team that plays in a taxpayer-funded stadium should be allowed to move -- ever.

 

So is Tahoe.

 

There were a couple grains of a point in the column -- 1) that Toronto won't support a team and 2) that it's not just attendance that shows it but that news coverage shows the Blue Jays are second or even third-fiddle.

The column execution follows along the lines of John McKay's famous comment. I'm in favor of it. Getting comments only from only a couple guys on the White Sox who have connections to the columnist's point shows a lack of interest in doing anything but filing a story, any story, and getting back to your hotel to watch TV.

 

And there would only be one team for everyone else to fly down to.

When teams fly coast-to-coast, they are out there for a week or so to play two or three teams in a close geographical area. When the Dodgers and Giants were approved to go west, one of the reasons they were allowed to was because the other teams wouldn't have to fly out there for just one road series.

Plus, I'm sure it would suck for the Venezuela Blue Jays players to have to fly long trips on every road trip.

 

When the Rogers people start making noise about selling the team I will worry. They use the Jays to promote their core businesses: cable TV and cell phone/internet. They've invested money into the stadium (they should after getting it for a song) to make it more fan friendly and less of a mausoleum.

It's cold, rainy and windy here today. Nobody going to the game against the Angels today will be bitching because the game is being played indoors.

 

Interesting that a columnist for the Sun-Times would complain about dwindling support, his own employer's parent company having long filed for bankruptcy.

 

Rogers Communications owns the stadium although they bought it for a mere 25 million. It's technically not publicly funded.

When Ted Rogers took over, he opened up the purse strings--money wasn't an issue. The problem was that fuckhead JP Ricciardi who screwed up things royally in the eight years he was here.

Huggy's right about the stadium. Rogers have tried to make it less mausoleum like but it's a helluva depressing place to watch a game with 15,000 people and the roof closed.

And Toronto's the fourth largest city in NA, after New York, LA & Chicago.

 

Mexico City?